The Power of Accountability
When you think about the key ingredients of great leadership, what do you think about? Charisma? Great communication skills? Vision casting? Great team leader? How about ‘commitment to accountability’?
It might not be the most exciting or inspiring characteristic of a leader, but our willingness to submit to accountability might just be one of the most important.
Without it – whether in business, politics, the media or the church – mistakes and failure get pushed under the surface, deception sets in, and leaders hide their flaws.
But what is accountability, and how do we build it into our lives and the environments that we’re leading in? In his letter to the Galatians, Paul offers a brilliant model for the why and how of a culture of accountability.
‘Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves. Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else, for each one should carry their own load. Nevertheless, the one who receives instruction in the word should share all good things with their instructor. ‘
– Galatians 6:1–6
The goal of accountability is growth, not sin management
When someone falls into sin, Paul encourages us to ‘restore that person gently’.
If we haven’t had a great experience of accountability in the past, when we hear the word we might picture a group sitting around in a circle and sharing the last time they sinned in a particular way, feeling great if it was more than a week ago but feeling terrible if it was last night. Accountability done badly can so often stay at the level of ‘sin management’, trying to stop people doing the things they know they shouldn’t be doing and making them feel guilty when it goes wrong.
‘There is a forward momentum to accountability’
While honesty, vulnerability and confession have to be the first steps in the journey of accountability, they aren’t the goal. The goal is discipleship, growth and maturity into the fullness of all that God has for us. When you engage in this process of accountability, ask yourself these questions: ‘Who does Jesus want me and the people I’m journeying with to become? What things do I need to build into my life and remove from my life in order to move closer towards this goal?’
Then ask people to hold you accountable to both – both the sins that are holding you back and the habits and practices you want to build in to become more and more like Jesus. There is a forward momentum to accountability.
Accountability requires humility
‘Watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted.’
‘We have to be willing to have the hard questions asked of us too’
As those who are leading and wanting to build accountability into the culture of our church, youth or student ministry, small group or friendships, we must never forget that this culture starts with us.
We never graduate from accountability. We must continue to have a soft heart towards the difficult and real questions that have to be asked of us if we seek to grow and mature.
Sadly, we hear so many stories of leaders who stop asking the hard questions, and who have stopped allowing people to speak directly and truthfully into every area of their lives, so that things get hidden and sin is allowed to take a foothold in their leadership.
As we seek to create environments where those we are leading can be accountable to one other, how willing are we ourselves to be held accountable? We have to be willing to have the hard questions asked of us too.
Accountability requires personal responsibility
‘Each one should test their own actions…each one should carry their own load’
‘If accountability becomes a form of control or surface-level behaviour modification rooted in guilt or shame, it will only ever lead to more damage’
Accountability – however well we do it – is not the silver bullet for seeing change in people’s lives. Ultimately, people have to make a decision to put to death the sin in their lives and take hold of the life that God is calling them to. We can’t force this to happen, and accountability only really works if people have chosen themselves to submit to the process.
We can cast vision for the importance of accountability, and create spaces where this can happen, but we can’t control the outcome. If accountability becomes a form of control or surface-level behaviour modification rooted in guilt or shame, it will only ever lead to more damage down the line.
There will be moments where we have to allow people the freedom to opt out of accountability and make decisions that we might not agree with, knowing that ultimately Jesus is the one who brings transformation.
Accountability requires relationship
‘Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ… The one who receives instruction in the word should share all good things with their instructor.’
‘accountability finds its fulfilment in committed relationships where people know each other deeply’
Relationship is the throughline of this passage. At the very heart of accountability are real, honest, life on life relationships that create the context and backdrop growth, maturity and discipleship to happen.
Sometimes we talk about ‘accountability groups’ or ‘accountability partnerships’ – specific and ring-fenced times and groups where accountability happens – and these definitely have their place.
But accountability is also so much more than that – it finds its fulfilment in committed relationships where people know each other deeply and care passionately about seeing those around them step into the fullness of life that God has for us.
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