A few years ago working as a federal environmental scientist, my team-leader supervisor loved to blame others. Our weekly staff meetings became therapy sessions for her unhappy marriage and her feeling like a victim. Several people would blame the contractors who we oversaw for problems on projects. People would make excuses by blaming issues on other managers located in Washington, D.C. while others complained about the local citizens in various towns in America as being unreasonable. There was never enough time for everyone to speak during the staff meetings that dragged on for an hour or more.

After many months of staff-meeting agony, I learned the supervisor had a trainer coach to help resolve issues and slowly we were able to get the meetings reorganized where we could have an agenda to allow full participation and limit the blame game!

Around that time I learned about the ladder of accountability which is attributed to Duncan Worldwide. The graphic depicts lower rungs of the ladder of victim behavior and how we can rise above these behaviors by becoming more accountable and successful.

The supervisor who stayed in the victim mode by blaming others soon lost support, became the subject of an investigation for wrongdoing, and eventually retired. I learned the difference between leaders and managers and found that we can all become leaders of our own actions. Rather than being in denial or blaming others, we can take action to empower ourselves. We can get out of the victim behavior and realize we do make choices everyday. If I feel depressed by the terrible news events, acknowledging the reality of how I feel instead of avoiding the pain actual helps me to “own it” and find solutions for problems.

Now as an independent consultant, I find it liberating to look for more ways that I can make a difference on environmental issues including water quality. I’ve found groups who are challenging large multi-national corporations to become more responsible and accountable to clean up pollution.

Here’s a fun experiment. For one day write down your thoughts and try to identify where it falls on the ladder of accountability!