“We are responsible for everything that happens in our lives: responsible but not guilty.”
From the book We are Human Angels, authors unnamed
“Few are guilty, but all are responsible.”
Abraham Joshua Heschel, Rabbi, theologian, philosopher
Responsibility is the ability to respond. There is nothing more powerful than choice and intention. Many people are not as responsible as they could be because they often equate being responsible with guilt and guilt with punishment. Punishment comes in many forms and is often delivered with rejection and disgust. If being responsible is tied to guilt, rejection and punishment, it’s no wonder people avoid responsibility, consciously or not.
In my work, we provide a responsibility-based workplace culture and when it is adopted, the same principles within it support responsibility-based families, schools, governments, and society. At their best, responsible people feel healthy belonging and significance and use their personal power to create constructive outcomes, alone and with others. This is why I’m writing about the need to choose being 100% responsible but not guilty.
When people are adequately supported and guided in the healthy use of their personal power, they become extraordinary human beings. The greatest joy I experience is when I hear customers say, “I never thought that person would change!” or “I never thought this situation would resolve in this way!” Then, the power of responsible but not guilty is believable and measurable in high productivity, performance, profit and joy.
The reason people avoid personal responsibility is that they have often been conditioned by the use of control tactics; punishment, criticism, and guilt rather than guidance for and with their motivation, greatness and healthy use of their power. Without this, they cannot shift internalized power-over and power-under dynamics to power-within, power-between and power-for all. They instead fear their power and shirk their ability to respond.
Personal growth requires taking charge of your healing and actions today, without self-blame or toxic shame for past things done to you or beyond your control.
When people lay down guilt for what they know or don’t know and when they are given the understanding, tools and support to expand into their most responsible selves, they are filled with courage and integrity. They feel safe and content, so they fully contribute and innovate. They value, and are loyal to, those who believe in them, nurture them and have compassion for them in the process of their development into being leaders of and in, their lives.
What can you do as a leader? Suspend the idea of people as guilty, unworthy and deserving of punishment. Instead, choose to believe they are great and just need the right conditions and conversations to live into that greatness. Does this work? The most powerful example is in prisons where Adlerian psychology (Adler called it individual psychology) was used. Recidivism (repeat incarceration) went repeatedly from 50-60% to 4%.
Three things were done in the re-entry process that are foundational at LifeWork Systems. First, those leading the program took people out of the “monster box” (guilt) telling them that just like them, they were seeking to feel empowered, lovable, connected, and contributing but had chosen unproductive ways to get these met and could find better ways. They also taught them social interest; awareness of the consequences they cause others. Last, they gave them the concepts, tools and support for using their personal power-within, between and for all.
In 2025, I interviewed the Sheriff of the Netflix docuseries Unlocked: A Jail Experiment on my show When Everyone Wins. In both, you see a leader helping people develop social interest and expand personal power while expecting responsibility in using it. Then he supported them in self-development. Just as in our client sites, the transition to responsible but not guilty was not easy at the start but over time, produced miracles.
Here is the link to that episode called Creating Win/Win Where It’s Least Likely.
Today, there is much that discourages people from being responsible and yet being so is more needed than ever. The most maladjusted people were treated as guilty, unworthy, rejectable. Let that motivate you to try something better. Help yourself and your people claim their personal power, know it as good, and use it with your support and ours. You will see miracles in your people and business! After all, you are 100% responsible… but not guilty.
This article is published in my column The Extraordinary Workplace in St. Louis Small Business Monthly, October 2026.
