Accountability vs Responsibility Redux

Last week, I had the opportunity to speak to a large leadership team in Pennsylvania. Of course, the topic was accountability, which we at Forrest & Company are all about.

I always preface these talks by stating that lack of accountability is the root cause of all the problems in our world.

Many organizations like to make accountability a corporate value or a guiding behaviour. Still, just as words are metaphors for our thoughts, there is rarely clarity on what it really means.

When I say it is the cause of all the problems in the world, I mean because, at its root, it is about holding someone to account for their work or behaviour. Yet so much that is written about accountability belies an understanding of what it means to hold someone to account.

Even as I asked this week’s group, they inevitably defined accountability as a feeling that comes from inside us. The majority of publications use this definition, too. For Forrest & Company, however, responsibility?is about that internal personal feeling of obligation, not accountability.

Responsibility puts the onus on the individual.

In fact, this view abrogates the role of the managerial leader. We expect employees to have this amorphous feeling of personal commitment, as opposed to the clarity of what is objectively expected of them.

The role of the managerial leader is to define the expectations for the employees but, instead, we create an organizational value where the employee is expected to intuit the expectation.

The real problem with this narrow belief that it comes from the individual is that we are all different, diverse, and all have our own unique?levels of commitment.

Therefore, accountability is essential for management to set clear expectations through a dialogue between the leader and the led. Recognize that accountability is really about "holding someone to account."

If you see accountability as being held "to account" then there need to be consequences for actions. While often perceived that way, not all consequences need to be negative. Consequences need to be a spectrum of both positive and negative. If we fail to acknowledge when someone does something right or positive, we are also not holding them accountable.

Holding "to account" is about behaviour. We can't expect to know someone's intent, just how they behave. Far too often, we accept bad behaviour for great output, which impacts trust and creates issues in the workplace.

When observing behaviour, leaders need to use their judgement and discretion to judge the effectiveness of their employees' actions. In accountability, it is essential for leaders to make a call and have the necessary conversations to either reinforce the good behaviour or deal with the bad behaviour.

I won't go into the details of why leaders don't do this. But the first thing to ask?is whether we are creating a chain of accountability in our management. The chain starts with the manager of managers.

If you want to achieve the organization's Strategy, management needs to exercise accountability and avoid leaving it to chance that someone is driven internally in a particular direction.

Once organizations go down the true path of accountability, they realise that many of the systems, policies, and processes work against accountability. That is why we refer to it as the Accountability Management System; it impacts compensation, organizational planning, leadership development, and talent management systems to name a few.

So, as a managerial leader, ask yourself: Am I clearly outlining my expectations? Am I holding my people to account? Am I comfortable using my judgement and discretion? Am I exploring their behaviour and not just their output?

This is some food for thought as you go forward this week.