Drawing from personal experience with a bitter and prolonged labor dispute between the administration and faculty union of the Foothill-De Anza Community College District, this paper offers observations about the factors acting as barriers to individuals taking responsibility for an institution's well-being. After outlining the problems that unfolded in the district, the paper defines the character of responsibility and irresponsibility within the context of an institution. Next, a picture is provided of the authoritarian, anti-authoritarian, and rational ideal types and the role people with these characteristics play in labor disputes. The paper then considers how individuals' experience affects their judgment, especially in situations of conflict, and how responsible behavior towards an institution is influenced by personal commitment towards that institution. Next, four barriers to the development of a sense of personal responsibility in members of an institution are presented: (1) the prevailing management ethos, which does not include staff as "owners" of the institution; (2) the inadequacy of current mechanisms of shared governance, which preclude the development of a sense of personal responsibility; (3) collective bargaining, which assumes that the interests of management and staff are opposed; and (4) the rise of a management class in the community colleges that tends to increase divisions within the institution. (HB)