3 Ways A Culture Of Accountability Demonstrates Leadership Empathy

The central role of leadership is to create an environment where employees feel valued, included, motivated, and capable of doing their best work in pursuit of common goals. I continuously see articles and quotes focusing solely on the importance of leaders expressing empathy to create a healthy and productive work culture. And I agree that leadership empathy is essential, but it is only part of the story. The truth is that one of the most empathic things a leader can do for their employees is to create a culture of accountability.?

Empathy and accountability might sound at odds with one another, but have you worked on a team that lacked accountability??If the answer is yes,?you probably experienced some of the following repercussions:

• Lack of team trust
• Ongoing team conflict
• Low-performance levels
• Missed deadlines

Leaders that demonstrate healthy empathy understand that accountability is necessary for team members to have high motivation levels, mutual trust, and performance.?

3 Ways Accountability Demonstrates Leadership Empathy

1) Accountability Builds Team Trust

It is hard to overstate the importance of establishing a pattern of accountability to build trust in our professional relationships. Accountability and trust are spoken of simultaneously because they are interrelated. This becomes even more pronounced as teams work virtually to complete their goals. In his HBR article, The Neuroscience of Trust, Paul Zak shared the following research on the importance of trust within organizations. "Compared with people at low-trust companies, people at high-trust companies report 74% less stress, 106% more energy at work, 50% higher productivity, 76% more engagement, 29% more satisfaction with their lives and 40% less burnout."

The leader's role is to establish processes and behaviors that ensure accountability because trust develops once team members realize their teammates are reliable. When team members deliver on commitments, trust is built. Accountability allows people to count on each other, whether meeting deadlines or fulfilling duties.

When employees or teams are off-track or miss deliverables, it should not be a reason for punitive actions from the leader. Successful teams understand that failure is part of success as long as they use the setback as an opportunity to learn, adjust, and take shared actions to get back on track.

2) Accountability Creates Clear Expectations

With the increase in virtual work and matrixed reporting relationships, creating clear expectations for employees has become a growing challenge for managers. Gallup's research shows that setting clear expectations is the most foundational element for employee engagement. All employees want to know what is expected of them in the workplace. Clear expectations provide employees with the benefits of clarity, focus, and increased performance.

Leaders must constantly focus their time and effort on getting everyone in the organization 100% focused on accomplishing the most important activities for success. Establishing clear expectations about what we are doing, how we will get there, who is responsible for key tasks, and when the tasks will be completed creates an environment that enables team members to have laser-like focus and accountability in the team's day-to-day pursuits.

3) Accountability Enables Accomplishment

For an employee to truly trust a leader, they must believe the leader can help them and their team get the job done while maintaining positive, trusting relationships. Employees feel accomplished when they have worked towards and reached their goals. In their book, The Progress Principle, Harvard's Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer describe their research findings on what makes people happy, motivated, creative, and productive at work. The authors describe the results of their research in the following statement: "Of all the things that can boost emotions, motivation, and perceptions during a workday, the single most important is making progress in meaningful work."

Every employee needs to feel a sense of accomplishment in their work. When employees experience a sense of accomplishment, they naturally become more engaged in their work and are more motivated to improve continually. This is why leaders need to support behaviors and instill processes that enable employees to feel a sense of accomplishment and success from completing tasks and achieving goals.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, many people perceive the concepts of empathy and accountability are at odds with one another. Accountability often gets a bad reputation because people are concerned that they will be unfairly judged if they fall short of expectations. The truth is that establishing a culture of accountability is one of the most empathic things a leader can do for their employees.

Leaders who demonstrate healthy empathy show awareness of and concern for the needs of their employees while also establishing a culture where employees are held accountable to deliver on their agreed-upon commitments. The duality of accountability and empathy is one of the many paradoxes of successful leadership.