• “What does excellence look like on this project?”

• “What does above-and-beyond mean here?”

• “How will we know when we’ve nailed it?

Excellence becomes achievable when excellence becomes visible. People rise to clarity. They retreat from ambiguity.

► 2. Expect excellence — because expectations leak.

Your expectations will show, whether you want them to or not.

If you act like people will avoid responsibility, cut corners, or barely skate by… they will. But if you communicate trust, belief, and high expectations, people step up.

This isn’t “toxic positivity.” It’s neuroscience.

People perform up to (or down to) the expectations they feel from others. Think Pygmalion Effect 2.0 — the remote-work edition.

If you want the people around you to take ownership:

• Stop rescuing them.

• Stop micromanaging them.

• Stop assuming failure.

• Start assuming capability.

Let your expectations be known: “I believe you can do this — and do it well.”

When you treat people like responsible adults, most of them become responsible adults.

► 3. Walk your talk — loudly and consistently.

In an age of inconsistent leadership, ethical meltdowns, and “do as I say, not as I do,” credibility is the ultimate currency.

A German proverb says: “When you walk your talk, people listen.” It’s true. People follow consistency.

If you want excellence:

• Don’t cut corners.

• Don’t skip the hard conversation.

• Don’t preach accountability while excusing your own slip-ups.

If you want people to take responsibility, show them what responsible looks like — especially when it’s inconvenient.

► 4. Draw out a personal commitment — don’t just assign a task.

Responsibility doesn’t stick until there is commitment.

And commitment doesn’t happen until a person says out loud that they’re in.

Ask two questions:

1. “Can you do this?” (ability)

2. “Will you do this?” (commitment)

Then go one level deeper: “On a scale of 1–10, how committed are you?”

If they say anything less than 10: “What would move it one notch higher?”

Responsibility grows where commitment is spoken.

► 5. Recognize, reinforce, ad reward responsibility.

 

People don’t take responsibility because they have to — they do it because it feels good.

A few modern truths:

• Recognition is the #1 driver of engagement in 2025 employee surveys.

• People will work harder for appreciation than compensation — but ideally both.

• Praise is the cheapest performance accelerator on earth.

Take John Huber, for example. Praise for his excellence turned him into an entrepreneur. As he said, “After reading your Tuesday Tip newsletter, I decided to put my woodworking talents to use and build Christmas gifts for my family. The gifts turned out awesome, and it was the best Christmas for me seeing the looks on my loved ones’ faces when they opened the gifts.”

John continued, “Later I happened to show one of my friends what I was doing with woodworking. He got interested, indeed excited, and wanted to help. We started showing pictures of my products to various people, found an investor and I am now one of three partners in a successful, growing woodworking company.”

Responsibility grows when people feel, “I matter. My effort matters. Someone notices.”

Thank you to everyone who completed last week’s survey about my new upcoming community and inner circle membership. Your feedback is already helping me shape a community that will be super valuable to each one of you. I appreciate your input more than you know.

 

► 6. Use forward-focused, responsibility-encouraging language.

When people take responsibility, they’re bound to make some mistakes and some correction is needed. How you do that is critical, however.

Indeed, the words you choose determine whether people shut down or step up.

Don’t talk about:

• “weaknesses”

• “failures”

• “flaws”

These sound permanent.

Instead talk about:

• “improvement opportunities”

• “next steps”

• “the next level”

• “what we can tighten up”

Language matters.

“Here’s what you need to fix” shuts people down.
“Here’s how you can level up” encourages people to take responsibility.

As Goethe said: “Correction does much, but encouragement does more.”

► 7. Break down the process — help people understand how their responsibility created the payoff.

People repeat what they understand.

If someone does something excellent — at work, at home, or anywhere — don’t just say “Great job.”

Ask:

• “What did you do differently this time?”

• “What new approach worked well?”

• “What steps led to this result?”

• “How can you replicate this next time?”

This transforms excellence from an accident into a system.

If someone had a stellar month in sales, a breakthrough in communication, or an unusually productive week — help them identify why the success happened.

Then excellence becomes repeatable. And responsibility becomes a habit.

In the past, a person could say “that’s not my job” and get away with it. In today’s world, the only ones who will survive are those who take sponsibility for excellence. With these seven strategies you can get people to do exactly that.