We, meaning people in the West, are desperately seeking leaders at all levels who will take responsibility.

Take responsibility when failures of trust occur. Take responsibility when moral failures occur. Take responsibility when private failures occur.

As the Christian ethic in the West that used to ground the impetus to take responsibility in the hearts of people has eroded away, what remains is the tragedy of human failures. As well as the human tendency towards narcissism and hubristic arrogance. And the shame and guilt even materially sophisticated Western people can’t seem to shake, no matter how much any transcendent belief is materially dismissed.

I’m not naive. Humans have been failing into tragedy since the beginning of deep history.

But what the Judeo-Christian grounding provided for leaders in the West–as imperfect as it was–was an anchor to keep Western humans in leadership at least somewhat humble enough to know when–and how–to ‘fall on their swords’ when violations of public trust and even private failures occurred. This is the anchor we are sorely missing. Without the anchor, all that is left is bad behaviors, individual feelings, and collective anger and indignation at an amorphous “lack of responsibility” seemingly everywhere, among everybody, all at once.

In a morally and ethically shameless time, the leaders who can acknowledge they failed, describe where the failure was and who it impacted, and what material steps they will immediately take to correct the failure, win the responsibility “game.” By the way, without shame, either.