3: Three Kinds of Accountability (Why You’ll Never Get the Relationship Accountability You Seek Using Only the Conventional Kind)
In this blog post, we’re going to articulate and distinguish three different kinds of accountability; conventional accountability (the kind most all of us understand, refer to, and use), conventional relationship accountability (conventional accountability, just applied to intimate partner relationships), and genuine relationship accountability (distinct from the other two in that it refers to accountability characterized by high personal emotional investment).
Accountability, in the broadest sense, may be said to refer to how an individual conducts themselves with regard to an expectation or responsibility. Furthermore, what such conduct reveals about that individual’s character; their competency, reliability, trustworthiness, effectiveness, integrity, investment, and so on.
The problem- and it’s a big one, friends- is that we have essentially the same definition, as well as criteria, of accountability for our co-workers, business associates and the world at large as we do for our intimate partnerships. The same for our dearest loved-ones as we do for our scarcely-known workmates. What defines this- what we might call conventional- accountability is that it is ultimately transactional in nature. Meaning that, while entirely appropriate for business relationships, it is not well-suited for highly personal ones.
While it’s of course true that we expect a substantially higher level of personal investment (and of an entirely different nature) from our intimate partners than we do our professional acquaintances, conventional accountability doesn’t provide us with a sufficiently reliable means of assessing genuine, authentic, emotional investment; precisely that which we most desperately long to know about our partner!
The thing that defines conventional accountability (and what makes it highly suited to such contexts as corporate culture and commerce) is that it is motivated primarily (though not necessarily exclusively) by something external to the individual; money, status, recognition, acclaim, success, a perceived positive or negative consequence, and so on. This external influence prompts or compels the externally-motivated individual to behave accountability. But even though their conduct is technically accountable, there isn’t a purely internal desire to be so, which of course is precisely what distinguishes a genuine, loving connection!
(Note to some of our more authentically-oriented readers; if you’ve ever bristled at some of the various expectations of workplace accountability “culture” (find it to be somewhat inauthentic or downright phony) it’s likely due to an added mandate that employees conduct themselves as though their workplace accountability is wholly internally-motivated; done purely out of a high personal investment instead of for the salary which they rightfully earn. Such compulsory internal-motivation naturally rubs many people the wrong way, and authentically so.
What makes conventional accountability work, what makes a person behave accountably to someone or something external to themselves in the absence of a strong internal motivation or impulse, is that the external person or thing has POWER. Power to entice, persuade, compel or even force that individual’s behavior so that they will conform to that external agent’s will. Complying with such an external influence is due to the perception of a positive or negative consequence for doing so or for failing to do so.
Conventional relationship accountability (conventional accountability, just applied to personal relationships), in the absence of a definition distinct from conventional accountability, is conducted as well as assessed in the same manner; as though it is motivated or prompted by an external influence. (The problem of course being that genuine love and concern in a relationship are always internally motivated.)
This is precisely what makes it possible for people to provide half-hearted accountability to partners who, knowing nothing else, interpret such accountability as sufficient or the most they can reasonably expect. (In time, such insufficient accountability will likely become apparent, but in the meantime, a tremendous amount of valuable time and emotional energy are wasted.)
And while it’s true of course that accountability in a love relationship is often internally motivated (for many entirely so), we nonetheless have no clear, established definition of relationship accountability that pertains specifically to love relationships. Meaning we have no way to reliably measure the degree of true emotional investment of an intimate partner, nor how to identify those who are feigning their accountability or lack it altogether.
Genuine relationship accountability (which refers to genuine love and care), unlike conventional accountability and conventional relationship accountability, is motivated for reasons that are exclusively internal to the individual.
Most people, because they assume that their partner’s accountability is entirely internally motivated (while in reality it may not be), are unaware of, much less understand, the behaviors, characteristics, and principles of the kind of accountability that is exclusively internally-motivated and is specifically-suited to close personal relationships (even if, rather ironically, they themselves exhibit it completely in their own relationships). Nor do they realize that they are absolutely entitled to and justified in expecting and requiring such accountability from a partner.
Consequently, most people settle for conventional relationship accountability in their intimate partnerships because the only thing they’re equipped to assess IS conventional relationship accountability, not the genuine kind.
But have no fear! There's plenty of cause for celebration! Because the only things required for one to switch from conventional relationship accountability to genuine relationship accountability is that one understand the difference between the two, that genuine relationship accountability is the only acceptable kind of accountability of a truly loving partner, and finally, how to introduce genuine relationship accountability into their relationship.