Self-Accountability: Taking Extreme Ownership of Your Actions

Welcome Funella to the Transforming Stress with Dr Ash Podcast. We are going to discuss self-accountability or extreme ownership here.

Okay.

And I think that is really very important. Yeah. Because in a culture, I think it's kind of become normalized to play the blame-shame game.

Okay.

And I wondered what is your experience about this.

When you say that, I'm thinking about hierarchies and I'm thinking I'm thinking about people not really digging down into what's gone on, what has gone wrong. I just want to pass the buck. I don't want this to land with me. And of course, sometimes maybe something isn't to do with a thing that you've done, but you need to drill down into okay, what was my part in this? Yeah. What is other people's part in this? Not just go with that instinct to be immediately defensive. Is there something I could change? And perhaps in being able to own that, other people are more likely, perhaps, depending on your culture, to own their part in it. So I think there's something in there. We get to this much later in the book, of course, into corporate values and how they might clash with your individual core values. But there's something very much in as humans, we need to be able to see, okay, what did I do? Could I change that? Because really the only thing I have control over is how I behave and what I can do. And certainly I can talk to other people about what our collective role has been. But yeah, yeah, when you talk about that, that there is this disowning of what's happened.

I know it's it might be a very instinctive to get into that cycle of oh what happened, what somebody did.

Yeah.

But if you really want to thrive in the most challenging of the environments, we have to take extreme ownership. You have to take full accountability that I am going to not get into that cycle of blame, excuses, and denial.

Yeah.

That's why you see the picture I've showed in the book is a frog who says, Okay, I'm not going to get into that blame, excuses, denial. He's making that choice to climb the stairs. Now that path is hard. Yeah. Because you might get sucked into that cycle of blame and excuses. But that's a cycle. But you make a conscious choice and you're driven by your own values, goals, and you take massive action with 100% commitment and responsibility, and you are able to see the superhero version of yourself.

And there's yeah, exactly. And there's other elements in that picture. I can see there's the steps and the things that are below the steps.

As you can see, below the steps there is the rocks of the blame, excuses, and denial. And when you're taking the steps, that requires energy. Yeah. That requires positive action. Yeah. That requires hard work. Yeah. That's not the path of least resistance. Yeah.

Yeah. And it's also making me think about the fact, Dash, that you have grown into leadership roles professionally. And also in your work as a coach, that's a place that you've been headed towards. And it seems to me like it's very important that people in leadership roles do hold themselves accountable. Because maybe nobody else is going to. Maybe if you're in a hierarchical structure, maybe things are going to keep going wrong because of something that the people at the top are doing and nobody's going to question them. So it seems that if you're educating yourself as a leader and growing and evolving as a leader, you really need to have that self-accountability. Does that chime with you?

Yes, it's a very astute funilla, but one has to be of course realistic what culture you are working in. Yes, and I'm not going to get into the details because that we talk about in the value management in the section four because you might have the best of self-accountability, but if the culture is not working for you, you know, is it Peter Drucker who used to say that culture eats strategy for breakfast? Okay, yes. So you take the self-accountability where you feel that you have done something which you could have done better, and also you have self-awareness, yeah that whether the environment you are working in plays to your strengths. Yeah, the environment you are working in resonates with your own deep core values. Yeah. So we don't want to be martyrs here. No, no. We are realistic. We take extreme ownership. And the part of taking that extreme ownership is that when you realize that you are not in an environment that is serving you, you know where the door is.

Yeah, yeah.

So if there's such a jar, such a conflict with your values, maybe it's time to consider it's very hot in this part. Yeah.

That is not the that is the last option. Yeah. Because most of the time I'm able to teach how to temper down the temperature and make it a jacuzzi. I have done that in the last 10 years.

Yeah.

I've had my cake and eaten it too. Okay. I've created an impact. I co-founded the UK Hospital at Home Society.

Yeah.

I have contributed to healthcare. I am thriving working as a consultant. So I am definitely not advocating for exit strategy as a first option. The word I'm using in the last chapter is reinventing pathways. Yeah. That comes from a place of taking extreme ownership and accountability.

Yeah.

That if we realize that we have done everything, if we have taken a stock of our own strengths, of our own values.

Self-awareness, self-reflection, self-discipline.

Absolutely. Self-management is really the bedrock, a foundation of environmental management, of value management, of resilience management. Because if you're in the wrong environment, whatever you do, howsoever resilient you are, a person can break down at some point of time if things are completely stacked against.

Yeah. Yeah. It seems like there's a crunch point. And in working with clients over the years, I've observed this, that people can keep working at it. They can keep bringing in all the positive things that they've got. But there can be a point at which you really take an honest look and think, what if this is me? And it's not about, as you say, having a sort of martyrdom feeling of yeah, I am hard done to. It's just saying, no, this is not the right environment. And maybe I can take what I've got to somewhere else and I will be able to bring in all of the strengths that I have and use this. It's about being able to assess this. It's about being able to assess this. Or maybe there is a point in the organization you're with, maybe you can talk to other people, maybe you can start to make some change, or maybe not. But you have to know what your part in it is.

Yes, that is the key, Funilla. Yeah. So my system starts with diagnosing yourself. Yeah. Managing yourself. Yeah. Then diagnosing the environment. Yes. And then managing the environment. Yes. So it's not blame or shame approach. No. Even with you, you are being compassionate, you're taking a full stock. Yeah. What is the diagnosis? What is my diagnosis? What are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? What are my values? That is a part of your own self-diagnosis. Yeah. Then how do you manage that? Yeah. How do you do how do you develop resilience? Yeah. Then you diagnose the environment. Oh, is the environment conducive to my work? Colleagues are good. The culture is good. Yeah. Am I having the positive emotions every day? Am I able to contribute? Am I able to grow? Yeah. And then you manage the environment. So this framework, the boiling frog framework, empowers you to be able to do that in a very holistic way. Far away from blame or shame. It gives you a realistic account, but you have to make that choice. That choice has to come to take that hundred and ten percent commitment and responsibility. And then when you see a new version, you see the superpower me.

Yeah.

Yeah. Who can move on and thrive. And you've spoken to me about it. Again, this is a concept that blew my mind. You talked about post-traumatic growth. Because we think of trauma as something that might really halt someone. Yes. And that just being able to reclaim some of your life would be a huge achievement. But you mentioned post-traumatic growth to me. Tell me a little bit more about that.

So Fanilla, very profound question. And we are going to discuss about this entire thing in the next section. You've already sown the seeds. Right, I'm gonna look forward to it. About the resilient resilience management. Yeah. Now when challenges come, you want to put it, you want to give the name of trauma, or I would say an event, or any kind of challenges come in your life, you can people generally have stress response. Whether it can be acute stress response or post-traumatic stress, but also you have something known as post-traumatic growth. And what is resilience? Okay, you throw, you take a rubber band, you stretch it, and it goes back. Okay, okay. But in post-traumatic growth, you go beyond resilience. Okay. Because there is a new normal. Okay. There's a new normal. Like a recalibration. Like a recalibration. But you have to have that mindset, a growth mindset to be able to embrace those challenges, shift your perspective, and we will go into the details in both the second and the third section, where we talk about the post-traumatic growth and beyond resilience.

Amazing. And all of that is supported by those self-care habits as well. Perhaps by putting good self-care in place, we can create the conditions that would help us in those situations of extreme stress. Exactly.

Self-care, self-awareness, self-reflection, self-accountability, self-discipline, all they all of them are foundational to bring you to that level that you are able to do that.

Yeah.

Because what we are what we are what our end point is. Yeah. You want to be comfortable in a jacuzzi. Yeah. You want to be relaxed, you want to be happy, you want to be positive, you want to be joyful, you want to have gratitude. Yeah.

Because that's what you have signed up for. Yeah. And think of people going out into the world from that place. How much compassion you can have.

How much I'm already smiling. Yeah.

I know all that creativity.

We need people to feel like that. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, thank you for our first session today, where we have spoken to our listeners about self-management. I think we have sowed some very profound seeds there, Funella. This will be a really good foundation for talking about resilience management, talking about environmental management and value management. I'm really excited to have these conversations with you.

I'm looking forward to all of that, Ash. Thanks so much. It's been a real pleasure.

Thank you very much, and thank you for joining me at the Transforming Stress with Dr Ash Podcast. And it's really lovely to continue this journey with you in Glasgow, in the beautiful, most beautiful Scotland. And you know, you've got Irish roots, and in Ireland.

Absolutely, that's where vanilla comes from.

In Ireland, we don't say goodbye, we say until we meet again. Definitely until we meet again.

Thank you, Fanilla. Thank you.

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