The following excerpts are provided as additional food for thought on the subject of the petty officer’s responsibility, authority, and accountability. Although you do not know how you will handle your responsibility, authority, and accountability until you actually take on the leadership role, you can think through what these terms mean, their relationship to each other, and their impact on everything you do in command. It is important to put yourself through this thought process prior to assuming command, because how you interpret and put these terms into practice will define what kind of a leader you will be on a daily basis. In thinking this through, consider your motivations for going into a leadership position, how you define a successful command tour, and how you intend to live up to your responsibilities. Once you have sorted this out, you are well on your way towards putting together your plan for your leadership tour.

“The ultimate confluence of responsibility, authority, and accountability is reached in the Commanding Officer of a ship at sea.”

Admiral George W. Anderson, Jr., USN

“Command and authority are very closely intertwined. Command is the authority (the legal basis) of a person in the military to exercise control of subordinates through the chain of command. Authority, therefore, is the legitimate power of leaders to control and direct the subordinates under them and cause subordinates to react to their commands, if in fact those commands are within the scope of the leader’s position.

Directly related to authority is responsibility. Naval officers receive certain responsibilities along with each assignment. Some responsibilities, such as discipline, morale, training, and troop well-being, are inherent in every job assigned. Others come from the authority bestowed on officers, petty officers, and noncommissioned officers alike. Responsibilities also originate from guidelines such as orders, regulations, directives, and manuals.

Commanders are accountable for their own actions and the actions of their personnel, and that accountability is based on the authority delegated and responsibility assigned to commanders as a result of their past performance, experiences, and judgment. Responsibility and authority increase with rank. In the Navy and the Marine Corps, they go hand in hand, and as an officer increases in rank, he must not lose sight of their importance, always remembering that he is 100 percent accountable for all of his actions 24 hours per day.”

Karel Montor: Fundamentals of Naval Leadership, page 518

General Eisenhower, in a discussion of military leadership, stated that “character in many ways is everything in leadership. It is made up of many things, but I would say character is really integrity. When you delegate something to a subordinate, for example, it is absolutely your responsibility, and he must understand this. You as a leader must take complete responsibility for what that subordinate does. I once said, as a sort of wisecrack, that leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well”.

Edgar F. Puryear, Jr.: 19 Stars A Study in Military Character and Leadership, page 289.

“What does command entail? To be a successful commander requires a willingness to devote twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to your command. This will often mean that your wife and family will have to take a secondary role to the mission. In addition, there must be a willingness for the commander and his family to live in a goldfish bowl, since their actions are closely observed by both subordinates and superiors. The commander must be willing to learn, teach, stress, and live with the basic and often elementary fundamentals necessary to develop his unit and still believe his talents for ‘bigger things’ are not being wasted. He must like to be with young people and to live with their energy and the problems they create. The commander of large units must be able to delegate; and, when he does delegate, he must be willing to accept the responsibility for the failure of his subordinates. Command is complex, and the commander must be able to simultaneously handle training, maintenance, tests, administration, inspections, communications, messes, supply, athletics, discipline, job proficiency, awards, and public relations. He must be able to do all of these things concurrently.” This discussion is based upon an interview with General Bruce Clarke and his article, “So You Want Command?”

Edgar F. Puryear, Jr.: 19 Stars A Study in Military Character and Leadership, pages 393-394.

Moral responsibility for the unit has traditionally been placed on the commanding officer. Article I of the Rules for the Regulation of the Navy of the United Colonies of North America, written in 1775, stated:

“The Commanders of all ships and vessels belonging to the thirteen United Colonies are strictly required to show in themselves a good example of honor and virtue to their officers and men, and to be very vigilant in inspecting the behavior of all such under them, and to discountenance and suppress all dissolute, unmoral, and disorderly practices; and also such as are contrary to the rules of discipline and obedience, and to correct those who are guilty of the same according to the usage of the sea.”

“Every day tests the strength of character, judgment, and professional abilities of those in command. In some cases, commanders will be called upon to answer for their legal responsibilities in a court of law. Virtually every day, however, officers in the Naval Service will be answerable for their moral responsibilities to their unit. A naval officer should want it no other way, for the richest reward of command is the satisfaction of having measured up to these highest of standards.

Karel Montor: Fundamentals of Naval Leadership, page 157-158.

“The relation between officers and men should in no sense be that of superior and inferior nor that of master and servant, but rather that of teacher and scholar. In fact, it should partake of the nature of relation between father and son, to the extent that officers, especially commanding officers, are responsible for the physical, mental, and moral welfare, as well as the discipline and military training of the young men under their command.

John A. Lejeune: Marine Corps Manual, 1920

“Command is not a prerogative; it is, rather, a responsibility to be shared with all subordinates capable of carrying out the implicit details of orders that may be given in only the most general terms. The leader who is unable to delegate the authority to carry out such orders erodes the flexibility and teamwork his unit needs to win on the battlefield.”

Karel Montor: Fundamentals of Naval Leadership, page 169.

“...we need to develop an officer corps that, within the triad of responsibility, accountability, and authority, has an ethical code that ensures that officers always do what is right and always use authority properly. Junior officers need to see that their leaders always act in an appropriate, proper, and legal way, so they will have confidence, when orders are issued, that those orders will be legally constituted and that authority will be properly used. We need to have an organization whose members must react to orders. In my view, the only reason for not obeying an order would be if that order was illegal or immoral. If we build a foundation that ensures that we do have a code and a corps of people who are honest, who react properly, and who never abuse that authority but use it for the good of the unit and for the mission, then we’ll never have an organization where people have to force that authority on people or say ‘You have to do this because I’m the boss’. It will be an instinctive reaction to follow their leadership, and it will be an environment where people know that the right thing will be done.”

Admiral Charles R. Larson, USN

“The division commander has nothing to do with controlling your ship, the captain is in command of the ship. The captain gives the orders to the ship, but the division commander gives the orders to the division, and the captain of the ship accedes to those orders. But if he is in a torpedo attack or an exercise of a torpedo attack, for example, and the division commander has given a certain course and the captain of the ship sees something wrong, he’s got to give orders to the ship right quick. He can go right to a left stop, back full, not always just to avoid collision, but to do the right thing. He’s taking authority that is not his, that is his division commander’s. Over and over again this happens, particularly in combat itself, where people do things that they aren’t authorized to do. Sometimes it’s wrong, sometimes it’s absolutely wrong and a lot of people die because of it, but more people will die if people never do what they are sure is right and should be done.”

Admiral Arleigh Burke

“For the actions taken in pursuance of his orders or instructions, a commander should be accountable fully. For actions originating with his subordinates or even taken against his instruction, a commander cannot escape his responsibility to lead and supervise. If the subordinates are not directly under him and he is leading through intermediaries, a commander has an indirect responsibility to lead and supervise, but even in that case his moral responsibility remains at all times, and legal responsibility is his in some cases.”

Admiral Teiji Nakamura, JMSDF: Karel Montor: Naval Leadership Voices of Experience, pages 102-103.

"I never knew a sailor who found fault with the orders and ranks of the service; and if I expected to pass the rest of my life before the mast, I would not wish to have the power of the captain diminished an iota."

Richard Henry Dana, Jr.: Two years Before the Mast