Kuleana Responsibility means you cease waiting for someone else.

“When people cease waiting for great leaders or prophets to solve entrenched problems and look, instead, within themselves —trusting their own thinking, believing in their own power— and to their families and communities for solutions, change will follow. In traditional indigenous communities, there is an understanding that our lives play themselves out within a set of reciprocal relationships. If each human being in the world could fully understand that we all are interdependent and responsible for one another, it would save the world.”
—Wilma Mankiller, former principal chief of the Cherokee Nation

Consider this: When you wait for someone else, you vastly underestimate what you are capable of, and you give your power away. Your power is your effectiveness, and you alone are responsible for using it to its optimal benefit. Using all the talent you have is your Kuleana and no one else's.

What can you do, and what are you waiting for?

Kuleana is the Hawaiian value of responsibility: See our Day One Essay for February for more.

Comments

[Rocky]

I really like this idea of Kuleana. One of the most important aspects of Kuleana is having the ability to take action. Great leaders take action. They do not wait for the optimal circumstances or situations. They are not paralyzed by fear of failure or of making mistakes. They take action. It is part of their Kuleana. Great stuff. Thanks.

[Rosa Say]

So true Rocky. We all have that ability to take action, however I think you've keyed in on a big determining factor in what makes a leader when you say,

"They are not paralyzed by fear of failure or of making mistakes."

...hence, they can easily make that connection to personal Kuleana.