Meaning & use
hold yourself accountable
Last updated
Meaning
phraseidiom
to accept responsibility for your own actions, decisions, or mistakes and their consequences
Grammar: Often followed by 'for': hold yourself accountable for your actions.
Patterns
- hold yourself accountable
- hold yourself accountable for something
- hold someone accountable
If you make a mistake at work, you should hold yourself accountable and tell your manager.
She holds herself accountable for the team's success by setting clear goals.
He learned to hold himself accountable for his spending habits and started saving money.
Common combinations
- hold yourself accountable for your actions
- A good leader holds herself accountable for her actions, not just her team's.
- hold yourself accountable to someone
- He holds himself accountable to his mentor by sharing his progress every month.
- hold someone accountable
- The committee promised to hold the company accountable for the pollution.
- be held accountable
- Public officials should be held accountable for how they spend tax money.
Synonyms and how they differ
- take responsibility
- A more general phrase; it does not always include the idea of accepting the consequences, which 'hold yourself accountable' does.
- own up
- Informal and usually means to admit a mistake; 'hold yourself accountable' is broader and more formal.
- answer for
- Often suggests that someone else will demand an explanation, while 'hold yourself accountable' is about your own choice to take responsibility.
Opposites
Word family
- accountable adjective
- Responsible for something and expected to explain your actions.
- accountability noun
- The state of being responsible and having to explain your actions.
Commonly confused: hold yourself accountable or hold yourself to?
hold yourself accountable vs hold yourself to
'Hold yourself to' means to make yourself follow a standard or promise, as in 'hold yourself to a high standard'; 'hold yourself accountable' focuses on taking responsibility for results.
Practice
After missing the deadline, Tom decided to ______ and apologize to his team.
Choose one answer.
The phrase needs the adjective 'accountable' after 'hold himself'. Option 3 adds 'for' but no object follows, so it is incomplete. 'Accountably' is an adverb and 'accounting' is a noun or verb form, so neither fits.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “hold yourself accountable”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.