Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Howard Gardner is the Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is the author of more than twenty books translated into twenty-four languages. Gardner also holds positions as adjunct professor of psychology at Harvard University, adjunct professor of neurology at Boston University, and senior director of Harvard Project Zero.

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Responsibility at Work

"In this remarkable collection of essays, Gardner and his colleagues have given us an astonishing array of penetrating insights into the responsibilities, meaning, and ethics of work. Everyone, anyone, in any organization, can learn and profit from the wisdom in these pages."
Warren Bennis, Distinguished Professor of Business and University Professor at the University of Southern California and author of On Becoming a Leader

"Gardner and his colleagues boldly confront the ever-present tensions between professional action and professional responsibility with superbly crafted individual case studies as well as broad theoretical arguments. Taken together, the writers deepen our understanding of the challenges of leadership from classical ethical dilemmas to the seemingly mundane question of how to allocate one's time."
Lee S. Shulman, President, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

"Responsibility at Work is a crucial book for our times. It is horrifying to think that a willingness to take responsibility has so long been eclipsed by a demand for rights. It is responsibility that is the cornerstone of our society and is the key to "good work." This insightful, penetrating book gives fresh understanding of that vital and essential concept and how it can be applied in the workplace."
ALEX S. JONES, Director, Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, Kennedy School, Harvard University

"The key to building community, as argued here, is for citizens to take responsibility toward others. But where do people gain that sensibility? What social forces encourage it? What can we do to enrich it? In short, how can we revive people's commitment to others? Drawing upon hundreds of interviews from the GoodWork® Project, the authors of these essays wrestle admirably with these questions. Taken together, these essays are not only richly rewarding but reassuring: perhaps it is just possible we can find our way again."
DAVID GERGEN, Professor of Public Service and Director of the Center forPublic Leadership at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government

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Responsibilityat Work

Most persons strive to produce work that is of excellent technical quality, is pursued in an ethical and socially responsible way, and has the qualities of being engaging and meaningful. How can we attain this ideal of good work in a world that changes so rapidly and all too often features an ethically compromised milieu?

Filled with original essays by Howard Gardner, William Damon, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and Jeanne Nakamura and based on a large-scale research project, the GoodWork® Project, Responsibility at Work reflects the information gleaned from in-depth interviews with more than 1,200 people from nine different professions journalism, genetics, theatre, higher education, philanthropy, law, medicine, business, and precollegiate education. The book reveals how motivation, culture, and professional norms can intersect to produce work that is personally, socially, and economically beneficial.?At the heart of the study is the revelation that the key to good work is responsibilty taking ownership for one's work and its wider impact.

The authors examine how responsibility for work is shaped by both personal and professional components and explore the factors that cause a sense of responsibility, the obstacles that lead to compromised work, and the educational interventions that can lead to a greater sense of responsibility. Most important, this volume provides strategies for cultivating greater responsibility in both seasoned workers as well as the young people who will one day enter the workplace.?

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Responsibility at Work

Jossey-Bass

Chapter One

William Damon Kendall Cotton Bronk

It's not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what's required -Sir Winston Churchill

The buck stops here. -Sign on President Harry Truman's desk

SOME PEOPLE, WHEN THE CHIPS ARE DOWN, can be counted on to step forward and do whatever they can to salvage a difficult situation. They "take responsibility" for finding a solution, no matter how burdensome, risk-laden, or even hopeless the situation may seem. Others, fearing the personal costs of becoming entangled in a hard problem, find excuses for absenting themselves or looking the other way. They disclaim the problem, perhaps because they believe it was not of their making, or because they have not been given sufficient resources to solve it, or because they have other business that they consider more pressing. Whether explicitly or not, they proclaim "it's not my problem," assuming that someone else will step in to fix things.

Stories of people who have assumed difficult responsibilities to a heroic degree are well-known, as are those of people who have famously (or infamously) shirked them. Mother Teresa, for example, felt an intense personal responsibility to care for the ill and impoverished. She once said, "When a poor person dies of hunger, it has not happened because God did not take care of him or her. It has happened because neither you nor I wanted to give that person what he or she needed. Make us worthy, Lord, to serve those people throughout the world who live and die in poverty and hunger. Give them through our hands, this day, their daily bread, and by our understanding and love, give them peace and joy" (Global Catholic Network, n.d.).

Mother Teresa did not leave this consuming job to others, nor did she merely pay lip service to it. Instead she labored for years to help some of the world's neediest citizens. Even though she knew she could never eradicate hunger or end human suffering entirely, she did as much as she could. "I heard the call to give up all and follow Christ into the slums to serve Him among the poorest of the poor. It was an order" (Global Catholic Network, n.d.). Unlike many of us who are concerned about the world's poor but fail to do much about it, Mother Teresa took ultimate responsibility for helping them.

On the other end of the responsibility spectrum was Emperor Nero of Rome. In about 64 a.d., a devastating fire swept through Rome, destroying everything in its path. According to the Roman historian Suetonius, the self-indulgent emperor "sang and played the lyre while Rome burned" (Bible History Online, n.d.). No psychologist was present at the time to analyze Nero's behavior, but we might speculate that he threw himself into a state of denial because he felt inadequate to cope with this formidable challenge. Or perhaps it was all a self-serving ploy: at the time it was rumored that Nero had started the fire himself in order to make space for a new, more beautiful palace. But whatever the reason, it is clear that rather than taking responsibility for the people he ruled, Emperor Nero shirked his duty in dramatic fashion, thereby becoming an emblem for irresponsibility.

While Mother Teresa and Emperor Nero provide extreme historical examples of responsibilities assumed and shirked, more ordinary instances abound in contemporary society. Our focus in this chapter falls on the workplace. In most work settings, some team players can be counted on to stay until the job is completed while some leave as soon as their part is done, regardless of the state of the project. Some are committed to seeing a project succeed while others are content seeing themselves succeed. Why are some people willing to put themselves on the line in order to resolve a tough problem while others around them think it more prudent to withdraw? (Compare Horn and Gardner, Chapter Eleven, this volume.) How, that is, do some people acquire a sense of ultimate responsibility for the way things turn out?

The Psychology of Ultimate Responsibility

In recent years, psychologists have taken an interest in life goals. Such goals have been referred to, variously, as "current concerns" (Klinger, 1977), "life tasks" (Cantor, 1990), "personal projects" (Little, 1989), "personal goals" (Brunstein, 1993), and "personal strivings" (Emmons, 1999). In the Emmons formulation, which is closest to our own framework, personal strivings are aimed at enduring objectives that motivate the person's behavior over the long haul (Emmons, 1999). Many people strive for enduring objectives in their lives, but there is enormous variation in the intensity of their strivings, in how well articulated the strivings are, and in how much influence they exert on the person's life choices. Personal strivings that are especially pro- found, long-lasting, and central to the person's identity (who I am, what I'm here for, what I'm trying to accomplish with my life, what kind of person I want to be) are considered ultimate concerns that transcend and guide the person's lower-level goals. (Emmons, 1999).

Ultimate concerns differ from other types of personal goals in important ways. A personal goal, such as acing a math test or finding a date to the spring prom, is typically short-term; in contrast, an ultimate concern, such as finding a cure for cancer, reflects a long-term purpose that subsumes a string of short-term goals. Short-term goals can act as means towards the fulfillment of ultimate concerns (or they may come and go on their own, without larger significance). Ultimate concerns, however, are ends in themselves. An ultimate concern may serve as an organizing feature for one's personal goals. Returning to the cancer example, someone may have the short-term goal of getting a high mark on a test in order to be admitted into a competitive college so that he or she can go on to medical school and begin researching cancer cures. In this way, personal goals may move the individual closer to achieving an ultimate concern.

People with ultimate concerns usually act in service of those interests, and such activity can provide profound and enduring sense of purpose for their lives. A purpose may reflect a commitment to faith, a social cause, a talent, or a domain. A purpose may be noble or ignoble. Hitler clearly had a purpose in his life, though it was surely not a moral one. Although distinguishing between noble and ignoble purposes can be difficult, it is possible; however, that challenge is beyond the scope of this chapter.

In a study of adolescents, we interviewed a seventeen-year-old girl whose ultimate concern was caring for the environment. She felt it was her duty as a human being to preserve and protect her natural surroundings.

What I believe is that God created [the environment], and God created [it] for us to take care of it.... All those little trees out there, and every bird that flies and every unique sunset and sunrise, was created by God for me to be able to see and enjoy, but if I don't take care of it, it's not going to be there for me to enjoy. So I guess that's one of the big parts of why I'm so passionate about what I do....