When it comes to moral victory, we commonly talk about accountability. Yet, for many, accountability has become a dirty word. They get a tight knot in their stomach or an overwhelming sense of hopelessness if someone suggests they need more accountability.
Why is that? Because most accountability doesn’t work. Here’s why.
We Mistake Accountability to Be about Holding Others Accountable
If you listen to people talk about accountability, you hear the concept of “holding accountable.”
Say I want to lose weight. I need to find someone who will “hold me accountable” to losing that weight. Or if I want to walk in moral victory, I’m supposed to meet regularly with someone who will “keep me accountable” for what I’m thinking about or places I’m going online.
The problem with this approach is that it predisposes itself to deceitfulness. If I fail to stay on target with my diet or exercise plan, and I know when I meet with my accountability partner they will be asking about how things went, because I don’t like sharing failures and because I don’t want to see the disappointment in my partner’s eyes, I’ll frame my “confession” in a way that doesn’t sound so bad.
Or if I fail morally and look at porn one week, and I feel disappointed in myself and also don’t want to disappoint my partner, I’ll tend not to be as honest as I should be.
I’ve heard far too many stories of men who began lying in their accountability meetings to the point of cutting them off altogether because it felt fake.
It was fake.
And when accountability is seen as me holding you accountable, or you holding me accountable, it won’t work.
We Mistake Accountability Groups for Being the Best Format for It
Nothing could be a better recipe for failure than accountability groups made up of people anxious to hold you accountable.
Some groups are full of people who barely know each other. No one shares as openly as they should when they don’t feel known, especially if the atmosphere doesn’t feel safe enough to be known.
Not only do we see accountability as being about me holding you accountable, we see the best format for me holding you accountable as being in a group of other people who will also hold you accountable. Sure, we’re all essentially holding each other accountable. But psychologically, because we’re all wanting to give good reports, and because there will be several in the group who have good reports, when we have a bad report to give it will be easy to gloss it over.
And softening a bad report is perfect for repeating bad behavior. Deceitfulness is fuel for the fire of failure.
We Mistake Accountability As Being the Secret to Victory
It doesn’t help anything when one of the first suggestions people give for gaining victory in a certain area, especially an area such as sexual morality, is to find an accountability group. As if an accountability group will help the issue magically disappear.
But, because we have a flawed view of accountability, and because we have flawed formats for it, it usually doesn’t work. In fact, it can actually sometimes make the struggle worse.
I’ve been blessed to be a part of several good and rewarding forms of accountability. Some of have been more helpful than others. But I’ve tasted enough good forms that I know why people often suggest them as a way for finding victory.
I also feel there are far too many unhealthy forms of accountability taking place. I know there are many men walking in isolation, trying to find moral victory on their own because they tried the accountability thing and it didn’t work.
It made it worse.
In my next post, I’m going to share three strengths in the concept of accountability.
There are three common factors I see in all forms of healthy accountability, whether it was how I experienced it or how others have shared about their experiences with me. I’m sure there are more than three factors, it’s just that these three directly counter these three flaws—three flaws that create awfully ineffective accountability.
Until then, I’d like to hear about your experience with accountability. Is it good? Do you actively pursue it? Has been a negative experience? Why was it negative? Share in the comments below.
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