What Do You Excuse and Why?

The easiest thing to give in this world is Excuse. The hardest thing to take in this world is Responsibility.

These two concepts define who you are, how you live your life, and what you become. They also define how leaders of any organization or nation lead and administer the system under their influence, how the system is organized, and eventually what that organization or nation becomes.

Now I ask you this question: “What do you excuse?” What do you explain away?

We have mastered the art of giving excuses. It has become an art because we are always finding new reasons to justify our excuses. Those excuses will always be grounded in our religious inclinations, ethnic or tribal affiliation, or on our personal unreasonable biases. But we take refuge in those reasons to excuse matters that have grave consequences. This is why we are where we are as a people.

We easily excuse our leaders who refuse to act as leaders because we have religious, political, or ethnic affiliations with them. We excuse their incompetence; we excuse their corruptive behaviors; we excuse their profligate lifestyles; we excuse their misdemeanors, we explain them away; we excuse them for everything, but never demand that they take responsibility. We are not ready to call them to account for their low quality service. We massage their failures and relish them.

But I tell you this: when you excuse yourself, you accuse yourself of irresponsibility. When you excuse your leaders, you accuse yourself of complicity. Irresponsible and complicit citizens must not complain when the system does not serve to protect them or advance their lives. This is the way it works.

As long as you judge, evaluate, or defend public office holders from the lens of your affiliations to them, you cannot help them give their best in service. You only tell them what they want to hear. You massage their failures. You refuse to tell them the truth about the situation. Instead, you say to them and others, “it’s not that bad; it didn’t start with him; he’s doing his best; give him more time; people should understand…”

You give excuses on their behalf, but you have no guts to demand responsibility from them. Not only do you not demand responsibility, you attack those who do so and call them “haters, bad losers, opposition, anti-government”.

The most important role of a public leader is to take responsibility for whatever is happening within their sphere of influence.

Responsibility is about being aware of and understanding what is expected of you as a public leader. Good enough, these expectations are both constitutional and moral. What do you do about those expectations? Not doing something or not doing enough on those expectations is a clear mark of irresponsibility.

Taking timely actions drawing from those expectations is a mark of responsibility. Being ready to take the blame over the intended and unintended consequences of what was done is another high mark of leadership responsibility.

Shifting blame, pointing fingers, and deflecting issues are the indicators of irresponsibility, both in our private lives and in public leadership.

So, what are you excusing? Who are you excusing? Irresponsible and complicit public leaders are a danger to public safety, peace and prosperity. Don’t forget this. You can identify complicit and irresponsible public leaders by what they do, their indecisiveness of actions, their proclivity to evade truth; and their hunger for ego massage.

You cannot be a responsible public citizen while you continue to excuse yourself and excuse your leaders.

© Joseph Chinenyeze Ibekwe
Initiator of the Fledism Leadership Philosophy
@ FLED International Leadership Institute, Abuja
Tel:+234-8033261363

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