Leading with Character and Competence

CHAPTER 3The Third Cornerstone of Character: Accountability

The key to your happiness is to own your own slippers, own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and own the ones you don’t. If you keep saying your slippers aren’t yours, then you’ll die searching, you’ll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more. Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny.

Abraham Verghese (1955–)Physician, professor of medicine at Stanford University, and author Cutting for Stone (2009)

Will You Hold Yourself Accountable?

The third cornerstone of character is personal accountability. A leader must demand accountability of himself. Go back with me to 1783 and let me introduce you to the most accountable ...