456 | Delegating Responsibility to Others

Chris LoCurto 0:10
Welcome to the Chris LoCurto show where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are.

Welcome to the show, folks. I don't know why I just love saying that. But hey, welcome, glad you're joining us hope you're having a fabulous day. I have to say that the title of our show delegating responsibility to others is kind of an oxymoron, right? Because what's the deal here? Can you actually delegate responsibility? Well, not if you're using delegation, by our definition, which is setting somebody up for success? How do you delegate responsibility, you can say that you've given somebody responsibility, you could say that you've delegated responsibility to them. But if they're not really set up for success, then how can I even possibly work? Right? So then why the title? Well, let's think about these words for a second to delegate means to entrust to confer to give or to pass on something. And by responsibility, we mean the ability to take ownership of one's actions and decisions, can you delegate somebody else taking ownership of their actions and decisions that responsibility can extend to others when entrusted for their welfare and well being? But once again, the person has to take ownership. So can you technically delegate responsibility? I don't think so. And so what we're really talking about is leading teaching, and helping others now this could be at the office, this could be at home with your family, but it's for them to take responsibility and grow.dot.up Grow up. Okay. So why are we talking about it today? Because guess what, folks, we do have to take responsibility. We all have to take responsibility. And so our goal today is to talk about how to help somebody get to that place of taking responsible, how do you delegate it? Well, again, if we set people up for success, that means we guide we teach, we coach them, and when we do that, then hopefully we can help them to be responsible.

Now, before we dive into that, let me say a quick word about this year's Next-Level Leadership LIVE Event which is coming up soon. We're still a couple of months away from the event. But there's a short time left to reserve your seats at the special early bird price. So if you are a business owner or leader, this event was designed for you. This is our premier once a year event that we open up to the public, so you don't want to miss it. This year, we have even more of what you love. We have both leadership and life sessions. Right now. We're still in the early bird phase, and you can get discounted tickets. If you go to chrislocurto.com/nextlevelleadership, all one word, chrislocurto.com/nextlevelleadership to reserve your seats today. When we come back, the things we have to put away discard and stop doing in order to lead ourselves well, and eventually lead others to do the same. It's all about responsibility right after this.

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Okay, taking responsibility, not a necessarily popular topic isn't right. Learning to grow up learning how to take responsibility. Even more difficult is to lead and help others to do the same. The apostle Paul says it this way in 1 Corinthians 13:11 (NLT) "When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away (discarded) childish things". Here's the sad fact. Some people don't want to grow up. Some people actually enjoy being right where they are. Some people have been coddled, some people have been entitled some people have not been pushed to have work ethic responsibility, anything like that. And when they take a hard look at what it looks like to be a grown up, they don't want anything to do with it.

One of the things we help parents see all the time is to stop listening to the way the world tells you to parent. Why? Because so much of the world is saying, Hey, your kid shouldn't hear the word. No, they need to be a kid that they don't need responsibility. You shouldn't be putting them to work. Oh, that's child labor. Listen. I was working since I was little. I have a fantastic work ethic. I praise my mom for her, making my brother and I get up in the morning, go shovel snow in the driveway. If we had to do it at nighttime, then as well in the summertime go out into the woods where we cut down trees, cut them up into rounds and brought them home and split them by hand. Those are just a few of the things we did we had chores that we didn't get paid for. They were just part of being a part of the family. You just did things right. My brother and I have always been hard workers. There's no doubt about that. So this concept of don't make your kids be responsible. Don't make your kids have to work. Let them be a kid. Folks, your job isn't to raise children. Hello, if you've ever followed Meg Meeker, she has a great saying it's not your job to raise a child, it's your job to raise an adult. They're supposed to be adults when they leave not children when they leave. Right. So it's not surprising that we see a lot of people today and a lot of kids today who don't want to grow up unfortunately, we do see it in grown adults as well. Here's another sad fact. Some people don't want to get unstuck. Some people enjoy being exactly where they are. So you know the old saying misery loves company. Some folks love being in their misery. Some folks love things being bad and crappy and terrible. And a lot of the reason comes down to because they're afraid of what it would be like if it wasn't, they wouldn't know how to be if things weren't a struggle, a problem, they wouldn't know how to be if they weren't stuck. Now that that is not to say the same as those that have been in very abusive relationships. And they've been you know, a whole lot of mind games been convinced that they they have no choice but to be where they are that they can't accomplish other things. That's that's a very fragile situation. I'm talking about the average Joe, who is stuck and doesn't want to do anything about it. They want to stay right where they are. Don't do anything about it. Well, to fix my problem, and probably be more painful than it is right now. No, it may be it may be like ripping off a band aid. But guess what, then things get better. Right? There's an old joke. guy walks into the hardware store. And he goes up to the counter. And he hears this dog like kind of crying in the back somewhere. And he says what is that and the the hardware store owner says all that's my dog. He's back there laying on a nail. Okay says well, whatever, hey, we're hammers down on aisle three. So it goes down there, spend some time picks up a hammer chooses which one he wants and comes back to the counter and goes to pay for his hammer still, here's the dog. He goes is that box to line on that nail? He goes, yep. He goes, why? And the owner says because it doesn't hurt enough yet. Folks, we have to realize we will stay stuck in a situation if it's painful, but not painful enough to make us move. There's an incredible thing that happens when it becomes that painful. You move. You do something about it. But a lot of folks will live in a whole lot of pain. If it's not too much pain.

Here's another sad fact, some people want to be the victims all the time. Now, it is difficult for a victim for somebody who has victim mentality. Now I believe there's two types of victims. I believe there's victims that are actual victims, something has happened. And they were a victim to that situation. And then there is the victim mentality, which is where we convince ourselves that bad things are happening to us. Everything's happening to us. We don't have choices. We can't do anything about it. That's the one I'm focusing on. There are a lot of people Who can't recognize that they actually have victim mentality? It is a tough thing as we do like next level life and somebody who does have victim mentality actually sees it. They're like, No, no, I know people who are victims. That's not me, that can't be me. Oh, man, I can't believe I have victim mentality. But when they see it, they see it, they recognize it. It's not something that's a big fight. Very rarely, once in a great while somebody just will fight like they're in a wet paper bag. But the thing is, is that there are a lot of folks who stay in victim mentality. They don't want to grow up, take responsibility, take responsibility for their actions, they don't want to change. It's sad. So learning to take responsibility. And then lead others means that you have to put away childish things, like blaming others for your circumstances. Folks, you have to understand here, let's just do this. Here's what I want you to do. Every situation that you feel like you're a victim, and crud, let's just look back at the last couple of situations where you feel like you were a victim to a situation, the situation happened to you. And you didn't have a choice on the circumstance. Here's what I want to ask you. Is there anything you could have done to change the situation? Could you have walked away? Could you have put in healthy boundaries? Could you have not responded? Could you have fill in the blank? Here's what you will discover almost every single time that you feel like you're a victim to a situation. You have choices. Quite often as I'm leading somebody and I say, Hey, you put in healthy boundaries. Oh, I couldn't do that. Why not? I just don't like conflict. I get it. I'm a HIAs. I hate conflict. I don't like it. God's just made me really good at leading people through it and helping people in it. But I don't like it. I, I really don't. But what do we have to understand? Just because you don't like conflict, doesn't mean you're a victim, to your circumstance. It's your choice to be there. It's your choice to not walk away. It's your choice to not put in healthy boundaries. If you don't put in healthy boundaries, because you don't like conflict, and you're already in conflict. Well, that's kind of a contradiction, isn't it? It doesn't matter if you like it or not, at that point, you're in it. If you're going to put away childish things, you've got to stop blaming other people for your circumstances. I'm not saying that there's never a time that you're not a victim to a situation. I'm not saying that at all. What I'm talking about is the victim mentality, that things are happening to you and you don't have the ability to change it. So if you're going to put away childish things, you need to put away not taking responsibility for your thoughts.

There are so many times I I don't understand this as well. I mean, there are some philosophies out there that they go this direction where all your thoughts are thoughts that you have to have in that you have to experience and all your feelings are things that you have to experience and you can't shut down feelings and yada yada yada, folks, listen to me. Very clearly, God says that we are actually supposed to take control, right of our thoughts. We're supposed to, we're supposed to recognize that there are times we don't have good thoughts. And for a lot of people, it could be all day long. We have to be responsible, that we are struggling through whatever thoughts that we're having. If it's just constant negativity, if it's constant lies, if it's constant, you know, beating ourselves up, then we have to take responsibility and start battling those things battling the negativity battling the the junk, the lies, the self sabotage, we have to start battling those things. Those thoughts may exist they Well, of course they do. They do exist. But what you do about it is what's important. Are you doing something about those thoughts? Are you doing something about changing those thoughts? Are you taking your thoughts captive? Are you battling the lies with the truths are you doing and by the way, the truth is almost never the opposite of the lie. You have to find out why am I telling myself the lie? And then the truth goes to that why you battle with that instead. And that helps you to overcome the lies. So here's the deal. If you're thinking it, and it's negative, or it's evil, or it's, you know, throwing somebody under the bus, or it's going to drive bad decision making, or whatever it is, you have to take responsibility for your thoughts. You have to take those thoughts captive and make better choices. And by the way, a great thing to do in this process is to pray. I can tell you, when I have struggled through some stuff, and I see that I'm having bad thoughts or whatever, what I've done is consistently pray, Lord helped me to overcome helped me to overcome change. My thoughts helped me to think the way you think helped me to whatever it is, and then next thing, you know, I don't like thinking that way anymore. Now may take some time. But the great thing is, is that God helps. He helps you to have different thoughts, or maybe I used to think one thing, and then come to find out, wow, that's a bad way of thinking. And I didn't realize it helped me to change my mind, Lord, help me to think the way you think helped me to help me to have right thinking. So you got to take responsibility for that. Also, if you're going to put away childish things, you must take responsibility for your decisions. Who are guilty of saying, So and so made me feel this way. So and So made me do this right there. Even today, once in a great while, wow, that made me feel this way. Well, folks, here's the truth. You nobody can make you feel anyway, nobody can make you do something that you don't want to do. Right? So when you say such and such are SO and SO made me feel? Nope, you have a choice on what you think and what you feel, and the decisions that you make. If you're making credit decisions. Take responsibility. If you make bad decisions based on your feelings, or your emotions take responsibility. If you make bad decisions, because you don't think through and gain quality perspective, take responsibility, if you make bad decisions, because you're angry, because you're lonely, because you're frustrated, because you're whatever, take responsibility. But when you are making decisions, they're your decisions. If you try to pawn them off to somebody else, then here's the question, how are you ever going to grow to make better decisions? How are you ever going to have a better decision making process? If you're blaming other people for your decisions, right? Another thing you need to do is to take responsibility for your own actions.

There is a great meme. I think it was on somebody's like sign outside of a restaurant or something like that. And it says, "well, well, well, if it isn't the consequences of my actions". I love that. I love that we need to make a t shirt or something like that with that it's just such a great saying, well, well, well, if it ain't the consequences of my actions. There they are right there. I can tell you doing what I do for a living, this whole business is built around God helping me to see the consequences of my actions, and helping me to see the consequences of other people's actions and learning how to fix those things. Why are we even talking about this show today? Because this is something that God has helped us to learn and grow with and take responsibility in change. I can change my decision making process, I can change the actions, especially the ones that are, you know, just static actions to bad situations or certain situations, I can change those things. But I have to start by taking responsibility. If I'm doing something stupid, I got to take responsibility for doing something stupid. If I'm treating somebody badly, I've got to take responsibility. If I'm responding horribly because of a situation, I've got to take responsibility. I understand. I've been there I do the same thing. I just tried to put these tools into place to help me to get out of those situations, right? To help me to take responsibility for my own actions. Folks, if you've heard people take responsibility. Another thing that we help parents to do, a lot of folks will come through next level of life and they as we go through this process, they see oh my gosh, this junk that was in my Pastor this thing that happened or this teaching that I had, I've perpetuated that to my kids. Yep. Well, crud, that means they're going to do the same thing. Yep. Or they already aren't doing the same thing. Yep. Well, what in the world do I do about that? It's easy. The answer is easy. The action stuff, you have to go take responsibility. What does that look like? You go in and say, This is what I taught you. This is what I've been showing you. This is the example I've been, I'm so sorry. Here's what I've learned about myself. You don't claim to be a victim, you explain to them and tell them that you're working on you to change those things, and you're going to do everything you can to help them to change those things. Well, I don't know if I could do that with my kids. Well, the reasons always the same, well, I'm afraid that if I do that, my kids are gonna see me differently, folks, they already know the things you're doing that's screwing up 30 were that the problem is, is so much of the time they think it's their fault. But if you'll step in and take responsibility for the actions that you've had with your kids, you'll be amazed at the immediate forgiveness. And the best part is, you will be teaching them not to do the same thing. Or helping them to not do the same thing. Another thing you need to do, to put away childish things, is to start fixing the things that are broke in your life. If you're going to put away childish things, don't leave things broken. Don't think don't leave things stuck. Don't leave things messed up. Well, but there's so much conflict in facing that, I get it, do something about it. Get some help. Get around somebody who can guide and direct you on what to do to solve the problem. But don't leave the thing or things broken in your life. Because what happens, not only does it stay broken, but it's going to affect other people, and then something else is gonna get broken, and something else is gonna get broken. And it's just going to compound, right?

You got things that are broken, fix them. Don't be afraid of it. Again, you're hearing this from somebody who has a highest, right? Somebody who's just made the decisions to do these things. If it's broke, fix it. Get in there, do something about it. Make a decision, gain perspective, learn some tools, but fix it. Because allowing it to stay broke is just going to add to your problems. Now listen, it's much easier to shift blame to others to play the part of the victim and not to be responsible. But here's the rub. If I'm responsible than I'm to blame for something that happens something negative. If I'm to blame, then I either take responsibility for it, or I don't write I mean, what are the options? So here's the funny thing, unless you've trained yourself differently, it's usually a knee jerk reaction to refuse responsibility. I mean, we see it all the time, right? We see people hey, here's the situation. Well, that wasn't me. No, I didn't do that. I didn't have anything to do with that. There are there are times that I will ask somebody a question about something hey, do you know where such and such as no button touch it? Did you even have enough time to think and process through where this thing is? And then when you find out where it is? Oh, okay, I guess I did put it over there. That's usually the knee jerk reaction is not taking responsibility, refusing responsibility. So let me say that again. Because there's actually some hope here. Unless you've trained yourself differently. It's a knee jerk response to refuse responsibility. So where's the hope? You can train yourself differently. You can train yourself to stop and run through a series of processes that allows you to take responsibility. When we come back, having taken responsibility for yourself, you're ready to lead others to do the same to delegate the taking of responsibility to those who you influence. But how do you do that? That's coming up next. Folks, if you've been listening to me for any length of time, then you know the number one issue when it comes to business, when it comes to family, when it comes to friendships, is having a lack of high quality communication, to make sure that you are absolutely winning in every aspect of your life. It all starts with having great communication. The best way to get that communication is to understand your personality style and to understand the personality style of the folks that you're spending the most time with, whether it be at work, whether it be at home, the best way to do that is to go to Chris Accardo COMM slash store and get your personality profile and personality profiles for your team to day get for your family members. Today, as you go through that profile, you will begin to see the greatest ways to communicate, go to Chris ducker.com/store today. So at the root of refusing responsibility is a system of surface level responses that are informing our actions, there's usually a battle of worth that's going on inside of us. If I take responsibility here, then what does that mean? Right? If I take responsibility, I'm probably going to lose worth. So what happens? We go into self protection mode, we go into defensive mode. Oh my gosh, I can't say yes, I did do that. Because if I do, then I lose worth or I'm a failure, or I'm a bad person, or I'm not good enough. Or I don't add up or or here's the crazy thing. What if we just stopped? What if we didn't need jerk respond? By not taking responsibility or blaming somebody else? Or acting like we don't know what somebody's talking about? What if we just stopped and ask ourselves the question, do I need to lose worth here? Is the thing that's being posed to me something that I need to lose a lot of work to? Is it a big deal? Just to answer the question? What if I do know where it is? What if I did move the thing? What if it is my faults responsibility, whatever? What if it is? And what if I just answer the question? What's the worst possible thing that can happen? Well, if we are playing victim, then we can come up with a whole bunch of things in our mind. But the truth is, what we discover when we just take responsibility is it's nowhere near the lies that we're creating in our minds.

We come up with all kinds of negative junk that we convince ourselves of. And that's the reason why we can't take responsibility immediately in the in the situation. That's what we have the knee jerk response to say, Nope, didn't have anything to do with that. Right? So the sooner we can recognize the reason why we're struggling to take responsibility, and that reason is that we are convincing ourselves that we are going to lose worth here and we must self protect, and we must defend and we must deny. The sooner we recognize that it's a worth issue, I am thinking that I'm going to lose worth I'm thinking, I'm not going to be good enough, I'm thinking I'm not going to add up on thinking I'm not going to count in this person's mind I thinking, I'm thinking that this person is going to rip my head off afterwards. Whatever it is, the the sooner we recognize that, that's the process that's immediately going through our mind, the sooner we can recognize that it's actually okay to just stop and answer the question. How many times has somebody asked you about something and you quickly deny it, you have this quick knee jerk response? And then they continue to push forward? Right, they continue to push forward to go now, are you sure? Because here's where it was. And here's where you were? And here's what you know, I asked you about, and then they start filling in information that points out. Yeah, you did. You didn't know where it was, you did have something to do with it. Now again, I'm talking about moving something, right. But think of anything, did you make that meeting? Did you tell that person? Something mean? Did you whatever it fill in the blank? It's the thing that we have that knee jerk response to where we immediately refuse responsibility? Well, here's what we need to know. How in the world, are we ever going to help somebody else? Take responsibility? If we are constantly lying to ourselves, about us taking responsibility? How are we going to convince somebody not to lie to themselves? Think about parents. Think about your kids, parents? How do you help them to take responsibility? How do you help them to not have the knee jerk reaction of No, I didn't have anything to do with it.

If they see that you don't take responsibility, guess what? You're going to teach them? The same exact thing. If you're not good at taking responsibility, how are you going to guide and direct them on taking responsibility? So for you to take responsibility and for you to help others to take responsibility? It starts with recognizing the lies that we tell ourselves. It starts with recognizing that we are saying to ourselves, I can't do this right now because of x. I can't take responsibility because I'm going to not be good enough. Whatever fill in the blank. So if you're going to help others to take responsibility, you have to recognize the lies that you tell you. But helping others to take responsibility by trying to help them to recognize their lives can be really tricky. And it can very easily end in conflict, it can end up in relationships being harmed, it can end up in bridges being burned, all that kind of stuff. Because it is a it's not easy. It's difficult. Why? Well, if you're self protective in these situations, guess what, they're probably going to be self protective, too. So for you to kind of understand what's at stake here. And why they're such a battle. Go back to last week, if you didn't listen to last week's episode. Why worth really matters, that was episode 455, I believe, go back and listen to that, right? That will kind of help you to see what all is at stake here. So getting people out of victim mentality is more than just throwing them a life preserver and hoping that they won't drowned. We don't just look at them and go stop being a victim. It's teaching them that they have control over their own thoughts and feelings, that they can move past what's been holding them back that that they can stop doing the things that are keeping them stuck, that they can let go of past wounds and offenses and stop passing the buck and blaming others. But it requires something important them to be able to see that you can do it, it's actually quite empowering for a person to realize how much control they have over their own mind over their own will, over their own actions. It can be just as liberating to teach people that they have very little control over the thoughts, words and deeds of other people. This is important, right, because so many people believe they can control the thoughts, words, deeds of others. When you recognize that you do have control over you, you can put tools in place to take your thoughts captive and change the negative self talk and change the self sabotage in your brain. And you realize you really don't have control over other people, you can only suggest that they think and feel a certain ways, then it becomes quite freeing, and quite empowering. For many people, this very realization will be their first step into the larger world of freedom and personal responsibility. It's a big one. So here's what you need to recognize. If you're going to help another person, take responsibility. The biggest book starts with you. The sooner you recognize all of these pieces, the sooner you can help somebody else recognize the very same things.