The persons who are most likely to be entrepreneurs, or even those that will be handling important positions in corporations are more likely to be people who exhibit internal locus of control.  This means a person has to be believing that personal effort is the primary determinant of your outcome.  Do you know people who act as if everytime something is wrong, it is always somebody’s fault?

It is hard to teach responsibility, and that is one of the headaches in growing a company — finding good people who will actually be willing to be responsible.  It is really ironic that many people would come to me, and say that they cause the success of x, and yet when x fails, they are not at fault.  How can you make something successful, and yet you were not the one who make it fail?

Anyhow, there may be hope. Lately we have some people who we were reluctant to place into positions of responsibilities, especially if they have a track record of not being decisive, or who have not exhibited high discipline.  However, we do see that some people delivers when placed in the hot seat.

Maybe for some, they never had the opportunity to be assertive or to show what they can do when unleashed.  I guess one way to make people more responsible is really to risk putting them in positions of responsibilities.  Some will deliver, and some will come up to the test when their backs are pushed to the wall!  Some will even surprised you - and maybe themselves.