Yes, he actually said it. After weeks of deflecting when asked about the lagging rollout of coronavirus testing, our President said, “No, I’m not responsible at all.”
Some of his predecessors had a different take on what should be expected of a leader. Harry Truman had a sign on his desk that read “The buck stops here.” John F. Kennedy urged citizens to “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” Even General Alexander Haig who, after the assassination attempt on President Reagan, got a little ahead of the chain of command when he famously declared, “I am in charge here.”
To be fair, maybe the President was protecting himself from blame for the obvious inadequacies in our health care system in combating this global pandemic. And truthfully, debating our country’s infrastructure failings is not the point of this blog.
I want to offer a different way of looking at blame and responsibility.
You remember the adage about pointing fingers? When you extend one finger outward, the others are pointing back at you. That’s blame. It’s the act of identifying or making someone wrong for a fault, or for something that has happened. Blame, even when accurate, savors a bit of malice, of shaming, of turning the attention of scorn to another. Blame also often precedes the assignment of punishment.
Blame can determine the source of the problem, but it has nothing to do with its remedy. That’s where responsibility comes in.
To be responsible for something is to say that whatever has happened in the past, and whoever is at fault, I am the one who will enact a solution. To be responsible is to be able to respond in the moment and for however long it takes, with whatever is needed to right the wrong or solve the problem.
In the movie Dirty Dancing, when the lead character Baby’s father, Dr. Houseman, asked who was responsible for the summer resort’s young dance instructor’s pregnancy and clandestine abortion, her friend and fellow instructor, Johnny, said “ I am.”
Dr. Houseman, a resort guest, assumed that meant Johnny was the father of the unborn child and scorned him for it. But Johnny was not the father. He was saying he was standing with his friend, ready to take care of her with whatever she needed until she recovered. He was able to respond in the moment because he was loyal and a man of character, despite the cost to himself, his job or his reputation.
In fact, he never corrected Dr. Houseman’s misconception. It was cleared up later when the actual young man, another resort guest whom Dr. Houseman liked, inadvertently confessed to his indiscretion.
Johnny took responsibility, and all of the fallout that came with it, because he had what we now call agency. He was a self-determined individual and he made a powerful choice based on strength and integrity.
When we take responsibility – in our work, our relationships and our lives – we are standing in that place of personal power. We honor the best in ourselves and send a ripple of love and helpful healing into the world.
