"See It, Own It, Solve It, Do it"

Recently I was provided a tremendous gift – time to reflect precipitated by a leadership dilemma. This dilemma allowed me a phone conversation with a mentor, friend of many years. I reminisced of lessons learned under her leadership and how over the years my own leadership skill, knowledge, and experience were influenced by coaching, mentoring, correction when necessary, candid and oft brutally honest feedback, and incredible timely support.

There were times when the door closed and I was allowed to slip into “playing victim” and simply but naively “vent” my frustrations without judgment. After one particularly good vent I recall being asked, “Well, hmm, that does seem to be frustrating, now what are you going to do about it?” I remember looking for just a little more sympathy and acknowledgment of how just unfair the whole situation was, etc.

“What are you going to do about it?” These were not the words I wanted to hear. Frankly, I wanted it to go away. Ever feel that way?

It was about that time I was introduced to the Oz Principle: Getting Results Through Individual and Organizational Accountability by Roger Connors, Tom Smith, and Craig Hickman.

“The Oz Principle shows how to overcome The Blame Game that is so prevalent in organizations today. By taking the Steps to Accountability and helping people See It, Own It, Solve It and Do It,^® the authors help people take accountability and move Above the Line^® to take ownership for overcoming obstacles and getting results.

The book spells out how to capture the power of positive accountability by helping people at every level of the organization ask the question, “What else can I do?” to achieve the result” (http://www.ozprinciple.com/self/ozPrinciple.php).

The Oz Principle is certainly a must read for any current or aspiring leader. More importantly understanding and application of the accountability principles personally and professionally are as germane today as when they first appeared in print.

More often or not leaders inherit problems, issues, challenges, and situations that weren’t of their doing or choice. Nevertheless, they exist. The challenge is what to do with this reality?

The most challenging step in positive accountability is ownership. We don’t want to own something we didn’t create. As I am reminded, every solution to a problem creates a new set of problems that don’t often manifest themselves until sometime later (this is where the successor shakes their head in absolute wonderment of what the predecessor was thinking – a chapter in my book titled “What were they thinking, anyway?”).

We have had the blame game played out before our eyes on both the national and international level. We desperately want leadership to lead rather than point fingers at past decisions or people. We desperately want leadership to lead by taking ownership of the problems, issues, and challenges facing us a nation.

Educational leadership is no different. There is a human cry for leadership to "own" persistently low performance of way too many of our students.

Is it possible that the solutions and implementation of many of our programs have failed to achieve the results we desire for lack of ownership of the problem?

Positive accountability is proactive not reactive. The most pressing ownership, therefore, is to own our results and proactively address the deficits and poor performance. No more blame. No more excuses. No more lack of ownership – we own it whether we created it or not. Now, the question is more a matter of courage, conviction, and commitment.