Accountability has become one of the business buzzwords with such a broad meaning that it’s hard to use as a core “value” in many cases. For me, it meant taking some time and understanding what accountability means to me in the workplace and then realizing it was something I do focus on. As a leader in larger organizations, I view accountability on two fronts: personal and leadership.
Leaving textbook definitions to the side, for me personal accountability is the act of bearing responsibility for my own behaviors, processes, communications, and, ultimately, outcomes. Those items are in order in my mind. The first three are the critical three because the outcomes may or may not be aligned and can be out of one’s control in many cases. If I feel like I am doing the right things (behaviorally and process-wise) and am communicating the actions I am taking (and not taking), then I typically feel like I have done what I can, fulfilled my responsibility, and Ill let the outcomes fall where they may.
As a leader in the middle of organizations, this concept of leadership accountability can get tricky however. Are you responsible for every action your team takes? Or is everything on them to be accountable for themselves? What about the results of the team? Or the organization you are part of?
For me, leadership accountability focuses on the same 4 tenets I mentioned above. I ask myself (and the team) a series of questions: Have I set the right expectations for behavior and consistently enforced those expectations? Do we have the best processes in place and consistently follow them? Are we communicating internally within the team and externally to key stakeholders to keep them informed and aware of our situation to avoid surprises? If we are doing those three things, and the outcomes/results aren’t aligned with expectations, what do we need to change to create better outcomes?
Ultimately as leaders, we are accountable for results. Results are an outcome metric however, so my goal is always to find the key inputs/behaviors and drive those the right direction. If I can do that, I feel like I am meeting my responsibility as a leader to the best of my capability. If the results don’t match the inputs, then it’s a great opportunity to adjust the inputs, seek external advice, and/or assess the expectations of outcomes.
Also, as leaders, we have to determine where our accountability for our team members ends. I do not feel personally accountable for every action my team makes. This wasn’t always the case for me – it’s taken a few years to develop this. For example, if an employee on my broader team choses to treat a customer inappropriately violating the expected behaviors and established processes we have in place, I absolutely am accountable for the outcome – a bad customer experience – and must evaluate how to correct it. It could be anything from corrective action to termination for the employee in question, depending on why they acted as they did. What I am not accountable for is their willful lack of expected conduct – that is their accountability. While I personally will be disappointed and somewhat frustrated in these circumstances, I try to not allow myself to get to down about it. They neglected their responsibility, not me, so all I can do is continue to make sure expectations of behavior, process, and communication are clear and people are held to them consistently.
Far too often, accountability is also only considered (or at least spoken about) in my last example – something goes wrong. Being accountable means taking responsibility and pride in each day, each project, each interaction and striving to create an environment where success can happen while failure is used to learn not “holding someone accountable”. Accountability more often positive than negative and should be recognized as such. Highlight all the times you and your team did the right things – reward the accountability shown. Don’t wait for a failure to hold someone to account!
Finally, in life, business, and leadership, sometimes our outcomes are good and others they are not – we are responsible in both cases, but shouldn’t allow our self worth to be fully tied up with that. Far too often I see people, teams, and organizations confuse the final “score” for fulfilling responsibilities and being accountable – winning doesn’t mean you did all you could or even did the right things well; losing doesn’t mean you didn’t try hard enough or did the wrong things. If you can accurately define what is core to your success and hold yourself accountable/responsible for those things, you should be able to accept the outcomes with your head held high knowing you’ve done your best. And for me, that is being accountable both as a person and a leader.
View from the Middle 