This is worth dwelling on because it trips people up more than any other part of RACI.

A surgeon performing an operation is Responsible. The hospital's head of surgery, who is answerable if something goes wrong with that operation, is Accountable, even though they were not the one holding the scalpel.

A junior team member can absolutely be Accountable for a task, while a far more senior colleague is Responsible for doing the work. This often surprises people, because instinct says seniority should map onto authority. But RACI separates these deliberately. Accountability is about ownership of an outcome, not about hierarchy or experience. This is exactly what played out in the website redesign story above. The Project Manager's seniority was lower, but her role carried the accountability, and that gave her the standing to push back on the designer's work without it being a question of rank.

Criteria for assigning Responsible: does this person or team have the skill and the capacity to actually complete the task well? Criteria for assigning Accountable: does this person have the authority to make decisions, allocate resources, and ensure the task is delivered? Accountability without authority is an unfair position to put someone in, they are being asked to own an outcome they cannot actually control.