The two sides of feeling responsible for our work and outcomes

I often hear from high-achievers that they feel responsible for everything. Literally, everything. It is actually one of the most common characteristic high-performers share. Feeling responsible for our work, output, and actions is certainly a key factor behind being committed to drive excellence and bring good results. What we often don’t realise is that it can also pair with some patterns and habits that actually works against our success. Let’s unpack how we can keep responsibility working for us and not against us.

Sarah feels responsible for everything

Sarah woke up Monday morning already tense. She had spent half the night spinning about the project meeting: rehearsing arguments, anticipating objections, thinking about how to convince the team to run an additional product test. Before she even sat down with her morning coffee, she had already packed her daughter’s lunch, walked the dog, switched the laundry, and gotten everyone else in the house moving. Finally alone in the car on the way to work, her mind kept thinking ahead: Ask John about the root cause investigation. Compliment Jane on the analysis. Prepare for the stand-up. Don’t forget the mitigation plan. Her shoulders tightened as she mentally mapped the day before it had even begun. At the office, an escalation was already filling her inbox. The Product Manager had things under control and leadership was aligned on next steps. Still, Sarah immediately inserted herself into the situation. She met with the VP. Then scheduled another meeting to review the mitigation plan in detail. She did it because she was genuinely worried if something was missed. The rest of the day followed the same rhythm. By 6:00 PM, she still wasn’t done. At dinner with her family, part of her mind stayed at work. She made mental notes between conversations. After the kids went to bed, she would reopen her laptop “just quickly” to check a few things. Lying in bed that night, there was finally nothing left for her to actively manage. For a brief moment, that felt like relief. But then, her mind wondered to the next day’s mitigation meeting.

Why do we feel so responsible?

Do you recognize the story of Sarah? You’re not alone. Many high-achievers develop such a strong sense of responsibility in their work, private lives, social circles and in every role they fill, really. It happens because we get rewarded for it so often. When we anticipate problems, take initiative or drive things to competition, people around us notice it. Some might even think: “It’s great that Sarah does all of this, then I don’t have to do it.” Quite likely, we already got a few promotions and definitely some pats on our shoulders for being such committed colleagues. It is a spiral, the more we prove our responsible self, the more we are trusted and given even more ownership.

It’s not just the external recognition, there’s an internal process behind responsibility as well. When we aim for high performance, the biggest threat to our success is uncertainty. Anything unexpected can put our efforts in jeopardy. So we try to control as many things as possible. Monitoring, preparing, coordinating, pushing, all done in the effort to make the situation more predictable and maximize our chances of success. Besides uncertainty, there’s the element of not wanting to disappoint or let down others. So we choose to do the work - often instead of them.

The two sides of being responsible

Being responsible is actually good for us, for our careers and our reputation. It often pairs with oversight, good planning, coordination, consciousness, following through, initiative, trustworthiness, high standards, ownership, and even leadership potential. The responsible attitude does create success and positive recognition.

It also carries some risks if we take responsibility beyond our objective control. This can be micromanagement, difficulty to delegate, unable to switch off and spinning about every detail, emotional drain, firefighting instead of strategic clarity, chronic tension, or inability to rest. On deeper levels it can build to feeling guilty when things go wrong - even if we couldn’t possibly change it or lowered self-worth because our self-image is closely tied to us being useful and always there. In leadership positions, our high responsibility may prevent the team members from growing and succeeding.

Responsibility is not all wrong. Far from it. But without a good balance and clear understanding of what truly is in our ownership, it can slowly consume us. It might feel like progress but it’s friction.

Circle of control, influence, worry

In a previous article we already explored these circles in depth. The idea is that there are three distinct categories when it comes to how we can change the world around us and our own reactions and emotions. The circle of control includes everything that we can directly change (typically our own actions, choices, thoughts, behaviours and emotions). The circle of influence covers areas where we have the possibility to shape things (convince a colleague or manager, give input for decision making by detailed data, or resolve a conflict). Lastly, the circle of concern is the space for all the things that matter to us, but we can’t really change (what the final decision of the management will be, how other people feel or act, traffic jam). Many high-achievers merge these three categories together and try to intervene where it is objectively not possible to make a difference.

For instance, in a conflict situation, we can choose to stay calm and communicate factually instead of emotionally (circle of control), we can try to use calming words and reassure the other person to try to get them in a different state of mind (circle of influence). If in the end they blow up (circle of concern), it is something we simply can’t change, because it was their decision and action. If you think about it: feeling guilty for that other person’s frustration is just like feeling like the rainy day was our fault. Making a distinction between what we can truly change and what we can’t, help us to maximize our impact, know when to ask for help and when to let something go.

“Should I carry this?” checklist

It is not always easy to see through the inner pressure in terms of what we should expect from ourselves. We have the tendency to over-assume responsibility, avoid saying no to others (even when it goes against our own needs), have the urge to help out, be there, take part. There’s nothing wrong with doing our outmost to meticulously and proactively complete our work - that is one of our drivers to succeed. However, doing a reality check of what the scope of that work is will help us not to overcommit and drive ourselves overboard. Here are a few questions we can ask ourselves.

• Did someone actually ask me to take this on? This question will help us to determine whether we have explicit or assumed responsibility. We often identify as a fixer - even when we are not expected to fix anything. Just because we can fix it, it doesn’t mean we need to.

• Am I uniquely responsible for this outcome? We often think that if something goes wrong, it is solely on us. But in most cases, responsibility is shared, it’s dependent on collaboration and commitment of others. Being clear about this questions helps to limit taking too many things on personally.

• Am I helping or controlling? We often see proactivity, eagerness, care and detail-orientation behind our responsibility. What may actually drive our responsibility-taking is lack of trust in others, preventing discomfort, anxiety-driven control and fear of uncertainty. When our accountability comes of genuine help and clear ownership, it can make a positive impact. But when it is disguised control-taking, it often will leave us drained and even more anxious.

• What would happen if I didn’t intervene? We tend to imagine worst-case scenarios too often. It’s because we don’t want to disappoint, fail, or be seen as not good enough. I’m sure you can recall a situation when you didn’t do anything and the situation solved itself, someone else stepped up or even the outcomes were much more manageable than anticipated. Let’s flip the coin and imagine how with us intervening we actually prevent others from stepping up, proving themselves and developing ownership.

• Is this creating value or just reducing my anxiety? A bit deeper down, all the over-analyzing, over-preparing, double- and triple-checking can come from the need to reduce anxiety and inner pressure. It might seem like productivity but it is often more of a compulsion that is delaying us in making real progress. Asking this question help us determine what are the key value-added actions we can take and help us create strategic clarity over unknowingly trying to reduce the inner pressure.

Conclusion

In this article we looked at the two sides of responsibility: one that facilitates our success by demonstrating valuable skills like proactivity, ownership, or coordination. Taking responsibility is a good thing for our own sense of control and certainly for our colleagues, as we get things done and get things done well. There is however this tendency to over-assume responsibility and acting accordingly: trying to change things that are not in our control and feel guilty when we understandably fail in trying so. On a long-run this compulsive responsibility will start to drain us, force us into overthinking and over-doing everything. It’s not about becoming careless or passive. It is about becoming very sharp as to what we should act on because those things are exactly what we can positively change or influence. What was one realization you made about your responsibility-taking habits?