- Accountability is to really embrace and appreciate our contribution to anything that happens in the world. Each of us is cause not effect. - Particularly with the communities we are in we must ask ourselves how we have contributed to the way things are and take ownership. - When true accountability is taken by all citizens transformation can occur. - It's also important to understand that people can't be held accountable - it is something that comes from within. They must hold themselves accountable and it's only possible by giving freedom. [[Freedom Creates Accountability]] --- Take poverty, for example. When we see low-income people, we focus on their needs and deficiencies, and that is all we see. We think their poverty is central to who they are, and that is all they are. We believe that the poor have created that condition for themselves. We view them with charity or pity and wring our hands at their plight. At this moment we are projecting our own vulnerability onto the poor. It is a defense against not only my own vulnerability, but also my complicity in creating poverty. - Peter Block in [[Community]] The weakness in the dominant view of accountability is that it thinks people can be held accountable. That we can force people to be accountable. Despite the fact that it sells easily, it is an illusion to believe that retribution, incentives, legislation, new standards, and tough consequences will cause accountability. - Peter Block in [[Community]] It is leadership that creates accountability as it confronts people with their freedom. - Peter Block in [[Community]] Commitment 1 - Taking Radical Responsibility - [[The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership]]