Leadership Essential: Accountability
Accountability can be very uncomfortable. After all, as a leader, you are constantly creating new places to go and new goals to reach, and those outside-of-your-comfort-zone steps can be scary! In order to stay on track t is essential to have a system of accountability. Applying accountability to yourself and others is really a very simple process, and with some commitment and communication, your accountability system will enable you, your team, and your business to achieve greater results!
How to Create a System of Accountability
Be an example of what it means to be accountable. You, as a leader, do so by being accountable to yourself, your plan, and your team. You have to do what you say you are going to do and by-when you say you are going to do it. Remember: you lead by example, and if you want your team to embrace their own accountability, you must do the same.
Communicate! Ask your team members for their permission to hold them accountable for following the plan and achieving the tasks for which they are responsible. Be clear, about what you want them to do, then have them repeat back to you what they heard to be sure they heard what you intended to communicate. Holding someone accountable for something they have not agreed to be held accountable for does not work. For leaders themselves, you have to ask, and give full permission to, others to hold you accountable too!
Don't assume anyone or anything. Don't make assumptions about what your team members know or don't know, and be open to questions. Actions based upon assumptions, no matter how well-intentioned someone is, can lead to disaster.
When Things Don't Go as Planned
Unfortunately, things don't always go as planned, and our team (or an individual) doesn't reach their agreed-upon objective. It is your job as a leader to help those responsible understand where they went wrong in the situation and to avoid the same costly mistakes in the future. This can be done effectively by using the following steps:
Ask permission to have a straight talk, and without making them wrong, find out why they did not do what they said they were going to do, by-when they said they would do it. Let them say what got in their way of being their word.
Make sure they clearly understand what not being their word costs the team, the company, the family, the progress of the job, and the image of the brand.
Again, allow them the opportunity to say what they need to say so that they can learn and grow and be more responsible for being their word in the future.
Re-establish permission to shoot straight and then communicate your expectations and any consequences if they should not keep their word in the future. (Tip: Speak from your own experiences of having done the same thing in the past.) And, get from them their commitment to being their word!
You, as a leader, have to forgive on your feet and move on to what is next.
When everyone on a team clearly understands and accepts that they are accountable for their actions, the possibilities for you and your team are endless. Owning accountability causes us to consider the potential consequences of our actions (or lack thereof) before we take them; it allows us to spend less time backtracking and making excuses for what we did or did not do, and it leaves little room for being stopped around a certain issue or assigned task. Accountability is a powerful tool that will help keep you and your team on track. Now, knowing what accountability can bring to you and your team, do not turn away. Embrace accountability and the possibilities it brings today!