“Accountability Plan” seems like big thing to have to do. Does every infraction need one?

Anytime you hurt someone, taking accountability is important. That doesn’t mean every infraction needs to be treated exactly the same, but the core of taking accountability is the same across the board:

  1. Acknowledge and understand what you did
  2. Understand the direct and indirect impacts of your mistake
  3. Make a sincere apology
  4. Repairing the damage where you can
  5. Learn what was the root cause of your actions and what could have been different
  6. Prevent it from happening again
  7. Accepting whatever consequences there may be due to your actions

Even for the smallest of infractions, this can feel uncomfortable and vulnerable. These feelings, and the many others you may experience, are normal and ok. Accountability will help you process your feelings while you attempt to make repair as best you can, whether its a mistake, an accident, a consent violation, or even just a choice that you made (and a choice you would make again) that hurt someone. When accountability is approached with a genuine desire for repair, negative emotions eventually fall by the wayside as they are processed, and you are able to fully embrace the growth and learning such a process provides.

Remember, It’s not about getting forgiveness, it’s about truly accepting responsibility.

Repair is often the hardest part, especially if what happened didn’t result in something that can be easy repaired, replaced, or paid for. In those cases, the repair has to be much more symbolic, but still concrete.

For accidentally hurting someones feelings, a minor injury, or accidentally stepping over a boundary, this may take the form of a good conversation and sincere apology, followed up by making sure that the situation doesn’t ever happen again.

For something that caused more damage to a person (physically, emotionally, or to their property) there may be more work to do to truly make repair. Mediated conversations, a comprehensive education program, therapy, offering to pay for the other persons healing,…it will vary based on the situation.

For major infractions like consent violations, ignoring boundaries, or lasting physical/emotional harm, it’s going to be even harder to repair the damage done and it may require a more extensive accountability process, not just for the sake of the person directly harmed, but for those around both of you and your community.

Any form of taking responsibility is an accountability process. It’s just the lengths that you need to go to fully take responsibility and make repair that varies. Importantly, it’s not really up to you to decide what lengths you need to go to. The level of impact on the person harmed and the impact on your community determines that. Which may feel unfair, but these are the consequences for causing harm. You’ll do much better for yourself erring on the side of doing more rather than less.

If you choose to not engage for whatever reason, or not undertake the work of repair and rebuilding trust, then you are choosing to let the harm remain and grow. You are choosing to destroy trust others have in you and the trust others have in those that support you. You may even be contributing to a community that is less safe because people may not feel that coming forward with the harm they’ve suffered will be taken seriously. You are also choosing to miss an opportunity to be better and prevent harm in the future. And that says a lot about how worthy of trust you are.

This site gives a lot of information about considerations for quite formal accountability processes. As you peruse the information on here, don’t just read the suggested actions, but consider the reasons they are being suggested. What are they trying to accomplish. There is no one size fits all plan, but the goals remain the same no matter how big or small the infraction. Tailor your accountability plan to meet those needs of the harmed person and your community. This is the time to confront shame and embarrassment and choose a more productive path.

What If They Hurt Me Too

This can happen and it’s a complicated situation. Being hurt yourself does not absolve you of responsibility for hurt you caused. And you can’t make the other person take responsibility for hurt they caused. You can only control yourself and your actions. Mediated conversations (preferably with a professional or someone with a great deal of experience with such things) may be able to help overcome these feelings of mutual hurt. But don’t use it as a reason not to learn, improve, and take responsibility for what you’ve done. In the end, you can only control yourself and live up to the standards you set for yourself.

Resentment and even anger can be common, along with feelings of shame or embarrassment. An accountability process will help support you as you process and move past those feelings and focus on your own growth and change.

What If I Don’t Think I Did Anything Wrong?

Maybe it’s not about what you did, but rather what you didn’t do. Sometimes we have to make choices and even if don’t see what we could have done differently at that moment in time, there very well could have been choices made earlier that made what happened inevitable. Even if there’s no way we could have anticipated the negative outcome, the choices made along the way ended having a negative impact. There is a lot of room for introspection, taking accountability, and trying to make repair in those situations too.

Perhaps you feel like they are simply misinterpreting the situation or taking things the wrong way. Maybe you are even questioning their motivations. Maybe they even consented to what happened, and didn’t safeword/revoke consent at the time and it feels unfair to hold you accountable for that. But even if you feel that way, take a step back and think about if there is even a kernel of truth underneath all of that. Try to get past the initial emotional response you might have and think about what is being said happened. There is still real impact on the other person which, even if not caused directly by your actions, still has a cause that you can be introspective on, have a conversation about, and may need to take accountability for. Consent doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and there are multitudes of factors to consider in terms of power dynamics (different ages, experience levels, authority, etc) that may not have been accounted for as thoroughly as possible. At the very least, really listening to what the other person is saying and trying to understand each other without defensiveness will serve you well. This site can hopefully help you dive a bit deeper so you can find as positive a path forward as you can.

If you are doing the listening and making sure you aren’t defensive, but still fundamentally disagree about the facts of the situation to the point where you don’t agree that you did anything wrong at all, an accountability process won’t be useful or honest. Other kinds of mediation or therapy may be more appropriate if everyone is willing to take part so that common ground can be found.

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