Accountability: Delivering results

“A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody” (Thomas Paine, English born American Founding Father).

Wise words indeed from the 18th Century but they are hardly novel. Herodotus and Aeschines in the 5th and 4th Century BC were banging the same drum when talking about accountability of those in positions of responsibility.

So, why is it so important? Why is it important for leaders to demonstrate accountability? How do they go about doing so? How do they make their employees accountable?

In a word…

Let’s start with the word itself – accountability. What is the definition? There are numerous definitions. Let’s go for a simple one so that there can be no confusion.

“I am responsible for my actions and I am expected to account for my behaviours, words said and results achieved”. That’s pretty simple. No room for confusion.

Taking that definition and applying that to a leader would mean that I am to be judged on my behaviour, my words said and the results I achieve – completing tasks on time, meeting performance objectives, etc.

I am also to be judged on the behaviour, words said and results achieved of my managers. My managers are judged on the behaviours, words said and results achieved of their direct reports and so on.

So, in any working environment, accountability is key. It means that all employees are responsible – where one employee consistently demonstrates ownership of a task, produces results and displays accountability, trust is formed. As each person works in the same way within the team, people realise that their part within the team is appreciated and that the work they do is helping to produce a good result. Where each employee produces a good piece of work, other employees will trust their team mates.

The other side of the coin is pretty obvious – one person’s failure can cause widespread failure, one person’s delay becomes the team’s delay. As deadlines are missed, punctuality is ignored and work is unfinished or delayed inexorably – this becomes the standard, the default.

Just one person within a team not being held accountable can cause frustration and disengagement within the rest of the team. The team suffers and workplace culture suffers too. Where no-one takes responsibility or ownership of making decisions and doing any particular task or addressing issues and solving problems, things just don’t get done.

The challenge for leaders

So what should leaders do to ensure accountability cascades down to their employees? They could adopt the process adopted by companies like Apple – everyone in the team has a separate task. Everyone is individually responsible for what they do and each of their tasks collectively make a whole, so making it more difficult for anyone to pass the buck. That may work for some organisations but not all.

My view is to keep it simple. From top to bottom of the organisation, it’s about ensuring at each step of the cascade that each person

• knows their role and knows their responsibilities;
• is honest;
• says sorry and admits fault when something wrong happens (create a culture where the employee feels able to do this);
• does not over commit, and
• makes changes and reflects at each turn of their task.

This all looks great but how do you ensure that something like this is implemented and that each person can be held accountable? There may be a big stumbling block to this – it’s often down to the leader.

More often than not, the leader or the manager resists holding others accountable because they may find it uncomfortable to do so or they don’t know how to go about it.

Some leaders find it easy to sit down in a one to one and have that hard conversation; others shy away from confrontation despite the fact that they need to impress upon the employee or manager that there is an issue. So, for any leader, a system which works for them to reinforce accountability is imperative.

Practical actions

In the context of accountability, my view is that any leader will need to think of doing some or all of these:

• Lead by example and hold yourself accountable first – you set the pace, the tone and the level of performance you want to achieve. People will follow your lead.
• Set team goals – these need to be measurable, clear and challenging. Some organisations use the ‘OKR’ system – (objectives and key results). You can see how you are getting on by using clear objectives and easily identifiable results.
• Work on your feedback skills – those of you who meet with your teams regularly for check ins, quarterly chats, small team discussions where you have the opportunity to hear and to give feedback will enable you to give tough feedback when required.
• Create a culture of two way feedback – they say that good feedback is being able to dish it out and to be able to receive it.
• Make accountability a habit – those check ins and monthly team meetings are a great opportunity to build a habit around accountability.
• You could encourage peer to peer, face to face meetings for your employees.

When all is said and done, delivering results will only be achieved by a culture of accountability cascading through your organisation – set that example, foster trust, create that culture of responsibility and build credibility. The opposite should never be the default.