Skill vs. Will: Why Personal Accountability Must Return to the Center of Culture

Marcus D. Taylor, MBA
Jun 26
3 min read

Opening Reflection

There’s a moment from my military career that I’ve never forgotten. A Master Sergeant—wise, strict, and respected—once gathered us after a training exercise wasn't executed as planned and rehearsed. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t assign blame arbitrarily. Instead, he offered a clear and timeless framework:

“There are only two things I’m evaluating: your skill and your will. I can train your skill. But your will—that’s on you.”

That statement hit me like a stone in still water. It rippled through my leadership philosophy then—and it echoes even louder today. His message was simple, yet it encapsulated decades of leadership theory, ethics, behavioral psychology, and spiritual responsibility.

The Simplicity That Unmasks Excuses

Let’s be honest: much of what passes as “deep analysis” today is often overcomplication. We wrap personal failings in layers of language, trauma theory, socio-politics, or cultural ambiguity. While those contexts matter, they do not erase individual accountability.

The Master Sergeant understood this:

If someone lacked skill but had the will, he could work with that.
If someone lacked both, then it was time for a hard conversation.
If someone had the skill but refused to use it, that’s a matter of integrity, not aptitude.

In today’s society, we often reverse the process—we evaluate external pressures before we assess internal decisions. And that inversion is dangerous.

Courtroom Culture and the Decline of Accountability

We’ve created a "courtroom culture" in everyday life. People now:

Preemptively consider how to justify bad actions, not prevent them.
Use legal jargon and social media narratives to escape blame.
Depend on public perception more than private integrity.

Instead of asking “What will this action cost me morally, spiritually, or socially?”, the question becomes “Can I spin this to seem like I didn’t mean it?”

This has birthed an entire ecosystem of:

Image management over character development
Optics over ethics
Manipulation of truth over confession and growth

Skill and Will: A Cultural Litmus Test

The balance of skill and will must be re-centered in every part of society:

In education: Are students taught resilience and accountability or just how to argue a grade?
In the workplace: Are employees rewarded for real contribution or for managing perceptions?
In the justice system: Are we cultivating rehabilitation or just playing legal chess?

True progress isn’t just about access and opportunity—it’s about response to that opportunity.

The Biblical Response: Accountability Before God and Man

Biblically, this isn’t new. Consider:

“So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.” — Romans 14:12 (NIV)“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.” — Colossians 3:23 (NIV)

Scripture affirms:

Accountability is both personal and eternal.
Skill is a stewardship issue.
Will is a heart posture.

Even in the NCO Creed we say, “In every situation I find myself…”—meaning no matter the context, responsibility doesn’t shift to someone else.

Possibility vs. Actuality: A Dangerous Reversal

We’ve flipped the healthy use of possibility:

It was once used to imagine before action—to gauge consequences and avoid error.
Now it’s used after action—to deny consequences and avoid blame.

This misuse of “possibility” is a cultural virus. It infects judgment, warps justice, and stalls maturity.