I've worked in restaurants quite a bit, both as just a basic employee and as a shift manager, including the positions between such as a trainer of other employees. I want to share some of my thoughts about being a manager-level employee and how that relates to responsibility.
Managers tend to make more than the employees under them, and often are offered additional benefits such as a free meal, a larger discount, full-time hours, offering insurance, maybe vacation hours. The thing is, these things don't work a simply as just receiving more benefits, in the sense that they are offered as compensation for increased responsibility, or perhaps, accountability. As a manager or shift leader, you are responsible for the business and the employees during your shift. When they mess up, that's on you - and taking responsibility for that isn't just yelling at them - it's understanding why the mistake was made, and taking action to correct and prevent the mistake or error from occurring again. When something goes wrong, it's your responsibility to do your best to correct or improve the situation. As a leader, you are accountable - because you are the leader.
These ideas are really important to my idea of being a leader, that accepting such a role(of leader) means accepting accountability for what you are leading. Even when things go wrong that are out of my control, I am still responsible for whatever action or inaction I take in handling the situation, because I accepted that responsibility when accepted my position. I've thought about this a lot lately as I see many discussions about issues such as families being separated, with many arguments being more focused on responsibility through the lens of blame, rather than responsibility of action.
The actions being taken by members of the government are actions that I thought were not acceptable to our society, and as a member of that society, my primary concern is that it does not continue to happen, and that we take prompt action in correcting these atrocities. My concern lies less with actions taken and establishing blame, but rather with the responsibility of improving and correcting the situation. I don't care if the law that is "being followed" was passed by a previous administration, I care about what we are doing to change things for the better - and that responsibility lies with our leaders as much as ourselves. Being a leader isn't about pointing your finger at others or simply passing the blame - it's about accepting responsibility and being accountable for your actions.
"With great power comes great responsibility" - popularized by Spiderman, I agree with this idea pretty strongly. A concept that many stories in comics touch on, is that a major difference between "heroes" and "villains" is simply how they use(or don't) their power. So for me, a powerful leader who does not hold themselves accountable and refuses accept the responsibility of the role they've accepted, is frightening. I know the world isn't fair, and that nothing works perfectly and that not everyone can be happy - but that doesn't condone or excuse mistreatment of other human beings. It's painfully obvious to look through history and see that what is law is not always what is right - and yeah, we should be always pursuing a better form of governing - and it pains me to think that some of the dehumanizing laws speak more truly our country's beliefs than I thought.
I'd like to believe the good ol' US of A is a country that values human lives, affords everyone the opportunity to be the best selves they can be, and protects the basic human rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I want to take pride in my country and its pursuit of being better, accepting when it is wrong so it can learn to be right, a country that doesn't just say it's the best, but actively tries to make that a reality. And yeah, "being the best" is defined differently to each of us, but I for one can take no pride in knowing that human lives have been abused and destroyed willingly and knowingly by my country. As a citizen, I feel like I am responsible and certainly that is true - so I'm going to end it with this anecdote for comparison.
When several incidents at Starbucks locations occurred involving racism, the company acted with some accountability, acknowledging that they were responsible for the actions of their employees and the culture of their franchise. The individual employees were responsible, but as employers the company was responsible for their staff, and took actions representative of that responsibility, such as enforcing all locations to close for mandatory meeting in an attempt to address the issue. I don't want our president to ignore the responsibility over the actions of the government, whether he specifically was responsible for the situation or not - that is what it means to be a leader, a responsibility that comes with power - but ultimately, a responsibility.
I don't think I can say much more and keep this coherent and maybe I should express more outrage, but this was not for me to make myself feel better. I wanted to express my belief that leaders should be held to a high expectation, as the responsibility demands it. I believe that accepting the role of leadership is accepting the responsibility.
Thanks for your time,
Alturiigo
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