Personal Responsibility
People who take responsibility for themselves, their behavior, and the consequences of their behavior have a high degree of personal responsibility. They have a clearly defined set of ethics, or moral principles, that guide what they do and how they do it. These ethics help them make decisions even in complicated situations. People with personal responsibility show compassion, fairness, accountability, and courage.
Being true to your ethics means being true to yourself. It helps you develop and maintain self-respect, self-worth, and self-control. Sticking to your values and always trying to do the right thing means that no one can trick or manipulate you.
Social Responsibility
Taking the characteristics of personal responsibility and expanding them to include consideration of your employer, coworkers, customers, and community is what social responsibility is all about. For society to function smoothly and effectively, people have to be able to trust each other. We have to trust that people are going to do their jobs, for instance, and that no one’s going to steal or break company property. People need to respect and value one another enough to honor each other’s rights and dignity. Social responsibility means taking other people’s needs, interests, and feelings into account and acting accordingly.
It means not doing something to deliberately hurt or mislead others. It doesn’t mean that we always have to give up what we want so that other people can be happy. But, it does mean that we make an effort to get along with others. Society functions through a common set of ethical values and behaviors that influence our ability to judge right from wrong. Acting within those accepted rules and seeking to contribute to the common good demonstrate social responsibility.
Summary
Being responsible means a lot more than just doing what others tell you to do. It means taking a stand for what you believe in.
It means doing the right thing, even when the right thing is hard or unpopular. It means respecting other people and yourself enough to be honest, fair, compassionate, and courageous.
Having a good system of personal ethics in place will help you make responsible decisions and stick to them. It doesn’t mean that you’ll be perfect or always know what to do. But, it does mean that you’ll have less difficulty figuring out what to do when you’re in challenging situations. It’s not always easy to be responsible, but it’s always honorable to try.
Tags: Be Responsible
