SLAVE TO ACCOUNTABILITY

Slave to accountability

If you’ve read any of john c Maxwell’s books, you probably know that accountability is a topic he is very particular about. He talks about the importance of mentorship in most if not all of his books. Not surprising at all, mentorship is a topic that should be stressed. We all need someone keeping tabs on us, it is important. Control is important. An important aspect of accountability is control. A mentor will most likely know about everything going on in one’s life, usually the mentee asks for advice before making big life changing decisions. This is in the deliberate type of mentorship where both parties know and understand what’s going on. The mentor is accountable ‘for’ and the mentee is accountable ‘to’, everyone is on the same page.

On the other hand, there is another type of accountability where there are usually no titles, it is a psychological type of accountability. In this type there was no “I am your mentor and you’re my mentee and you answer to me” conversation. Both parties just sort of know. For example, a mother and a daughter, no one has to tell the mother she is accountable for the daughter, she just knows. The daughter too. Unlike the first type of accountability I talked about, this type is not optional, voluntary or in any way deliberate.

One common thing in both types is control. Accountability gives control and order. which is definitely logical. Every person should lead an orderly and under control life. Key note, control is good. But like everything, too much of it can be bad. People do, say, act or even dress a certain way because someone will say something and in most cases the someone is the ‘mentor’. When accountability reaches this point it seizes to be, let me go ahead and call it slavery. (I will use mentor/mentee for both types)

Accountability seizes to be when the mentee (person accountable to) always wants to make the mentor (person accountable for) happy and the only way they believe they can do this is by submitting in totality. Everything the mentor says the mentee will do. Because of this the mentor will see the mentee as ‘vulnerable’ and feel like they totally depend on them for survival. the relationship between the two parties will move from accountability to just control when in actuality, control should just be a small benefit of accountability. You have probably seen people take certain career paths because their parents wanted them to, or refrain from participating in certain events because someone would not like them doing that. Yes, the mentor wants what’s best for the mentee, the motive is right but the result becomes wrong.

Erik Erickson’s theory of psycho social development (stage 5) highlights that a person needs to be able to make their own decisions to have a strong sense of identity. So if you keep making someone’s decisions I hope you’re ready to do it for a very long time. The purpose of accountability is to groom the weaker person into their own person. Accountability is or at least should be temporary. It should be a source of guidance and control but not over control.

Parents usually know when to stop, usually at a certain age, they let their children make their own decisions because they know it is necessary for growth. They can’t tell you what to do all your life. Sometimes the mentee starts to fail to submit which I personally think is not a bad thing. At the end of the day, the purpose is to groom growth in the right direction. If there is no growth, the mentee is just a slave to accountability. Best case scenario, growth and grooming happens, the purpose of accountability is fulfilled, both parties are free and the final form of accountability is self-accountability.