50 Inspirational Quotes About Accountability to Empower Your Leadership and Growth

"It is not only what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable."

- Moliere

"Accountability separates the wishers in life from the action-takers that care enough about their future to account for their daily actions."

- John Di Lemme

"Accountability breeds response-ability."

- Stephen Covey

"The price of greatness is responsibility."

- Winston Churchill

"At the end of the day, we are accountable to ourselves – our success is a result of what we do."

- Catherine Pulsifer

"You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today."

- Abraham Lincoln

"Character — the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life — is the source from which self-respect springs."

- Joan Didion

"There’s not a chance we’ll reach our full potential until we stop blaming each other and start practicing personal accountability."

- John G. Miller

"Accountability is essential to personal growth, as well as team growth. How can you improve if you’re never wrong? If you don’t admit a mistake and take responsibility for it, you’re bound to make the same one again."

- Pat Summitt

"You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself."

- Jim Rohn

"Wisdom stems from personal accountability. We all make mistakes; own them… learn from them. Don’t throw away the lesson by blaming others."

- Steve Maraboli

"Responsibility equals accountability, accountability equals ownership, and a sense of ownership is the most powerful thing a team or organization can have."

- Pat Summit

"You're going to mess up. So instead of trying to be perfect, learn how to be accountable."

- Whitney Goodman

"It is wrong and immoral to seek to escape the consequences of one’s acts."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody."

- Thomas Paine

"If you're going to be a leader, you're not going to please everybody. You have to hold people accountable, even if you have that moment of being uncomfortable."

- Kobe Bryant

"Failing to hold someone accountable is ultimately an act of selfishness."

- Patrick Lencioni

"Being held accountable is an act of generosity and compassion. It is a gift that someone gives us to correct our wrongs, unlearn, and do better for the sake of our own growth. It might be uncomfortable, but it is worth the discomfort."

- Minaa B.

"Leaders inspire accountability through their ability to accept responsibility before they place blame."

- Courtney Lynch

"Take accountability… Blame is the water in which many dreams and relationships drown."

- Steve Maraboli

"You are the reason of your own good-luck and bad-luck; success and failure; happiness and pain. Your choices are responsible for your present. Don’t blame someone else for your sufferings or failures."

- Sanjeev Himachali

"Responsibility equals accountability equals ownership. And a sense of ownership is the most powerful weapon a team or organization can have."

- Pat Summitt

"On good teams coaches hold players accountable, on great teams players hold players accountable."

- Joe Dumars

"Success on any major scale requires you to accept responsibility . . . . In the final analysis, the one quality that all successful people have is the ability to take on responsibility."

- Michael Korda

"Having authority implies accountability. If you reject the blame for failures under your watch, people reject your leadership."

- Rick Warren

"Excuses are the nails used to build a house of failure."

- Jim Rohn

"The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The moment you take responsibility for everything in your life is the moment you can change anything in your life."

- Hal Elrod

"When a man points a finger at someone else, he should remember that four of his fingers are pointing at himself."

- Louis Nizer

"For most people, blaming others is a subconscious mechanism for avoiding accountability. In reality, the only thing in your way is YOU."

- Steve Maraboli

"He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else."

- Benjamin Franklin

"The only way we succeed as a group is not simply following directions, but in keeping each other accountable for our actions."

- A.J. Darkholme

"Accountability and self-responsibility are critical to our success in personal, professional and public life. However, we often look for those character traits in others, rather than inculcating them in ourselves."

- Vishwas Chavan

"Ownership: ‘A commitment of the head, heart, and hands to fix the problem and never again affix the blame."

- John G. Miller

"If you take responsibility for yourself you will develop a hunger to accomplish your dreams."

- Les Brown

"You steadily grow into becoming your best as you choose to be accountable and accept responsibility for improvement."

- Steve Shallenberger

"I think self-reliance and self-responsibility and self-accountability will help you as a parent, a teacher, as a citizen as a friend."

- Henry Rollins

"I’m the only one that can be held accountable for the way my life turns out."

- Colleen Hoover

"Taking personal accountability is a beautiful thing because it gives us complete control of our destinies."

- Heather Schuck

"The vast possibilities of our great future will become realities only if we make ourselves responsible for that future."

- Gifford Pinchot

"When you blame others, you give up your power to change."

- Robert Anthony

"My philosophy is that not only are you responsible for your life, but doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment."

- Oprah Winfrey

"The most important quality I look for in a player is accountability. You’ve got to be accountable for who you are. It’s too easy to blame things on someone else."

- Lenny Wilkens

"You’re going to mess up. So instead of trying to be perfect, learn how to be accountable."

- Whitney Goodman

"In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"I think as a leader, you just take accountability. That’s what leadership is. Leadership is taking accountability yourself and holding others to the same standard, regardless of what’s going on."

- Jason Kelce

"Make yourself accountable and your employees will hold themselves to a high standard."

- David J. Greer

"You can’t talk about leadership without talking about responsibility and accountability… you can’t separate the two. A leader must delegate responsibility and provide the freedom to make decisions, and then be held accountable for the results."

- Buck Rodgers

"Intentions do not insulate us from the consequences of our actions."

- Jon D Harrison

"If you are building a culture where honest expectations are communicated and peer accountability is the norm, then the group will address poor performance and attitudes."

- Henry Cloud

"Good men are bound by conscience and liberated by accountability."

- Wes Fessler

"Where there is no accountability, there will also be no responsibility."

- Sunday Adelaja

"Open collaboration encourages greater accountability, which in turn fosters trust."

- Ron Garan

"On one side of accountability is courage, on the other is freedom."

- Jean Hamilton-Fford

"A duty dodged is like a debt unpaid; it is only deferred, and we must come back and settle the account at last."

- Joseph Fort Newton

"To be accountable means that we are willing to be responsible to another person for our behavior and it implies a level of submission to another’s opinions and viewpoints."

- Wayde Goodall

"Never promise more than you can perform."

- Publilius Syrus

"Don’t ever promise more than you can deliver, but always deliver more than you promise."

- Lou Holtz

"Effective execution starts with crisp accountability, and you cannot scale your business without it."

- Mark E. Green

"Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Understanding the true meaning of accountability makes us strong and enables us to learn."

- Sameh Elsayed

"Ninety-nine percent of all failures come from people who have a habit of making excuses."

- George Washington Carver

"Exhibiting accountability over time is a gateway to trust. When we see someone acting with accountability, we gain the evidence we need to trust them."

- Mike Erwin and Willys Devoll

"Accountability feels like an attack when you're not ready to acknowledge how your behaviors harm others."

- Tamara Renaye

"When we fail to set boundaries and hold people accountable, we feel used and mistreated. This is why we sometimes attack who they are, which is far more hurtful than addressing a behavior or a choice."

- Brené Brown

"Once people have a clear idea of what decisions they should and should not be making, holding them accountable for decisions feels fair."

- Gary L. Neilson

"Forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?"

- Bell Hooks

"Accountability is the measure of a leaders height."

- Jeffrey Benjamin

"Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off."

- General Colin Powell

"Leadership is not about being in charge. It is about taking care of those in your charge."

- Simon Sinek

"Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility."

- Sigmund Freud

"If you want to change the fruits, you will first have to change the roots. If you want to change the visible, you must first change the invisible."

- T. Harv Eker

"The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."

- Oliver Goldsmith

"Restoring responsibility and accountability is essential to the economic and fiscal health of our nation."

- Carl Levin

"The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today."

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."

- Wayne Gretzky

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. Take ownership of your fears and watch how you soar."

"Success is not about the destination, but the journey. It's about taking responsibility for every step along the way."