How to Create Accountability Without Losing Trust

Building a strong culture sometimes requires us to jump into the pit with our people and know how to help everyone climb out together.

We must create accountability while preserving relationships and trust.

In problem-solving, crisis management, retros, and evaluating the root cause of mistakes or failures, ask “what” and “how” instead of “why.”

It’s not about ignoring the “why,” but getting there in a more productive way.

As discussed in last week’s newsletter, a challenging aspect of leadership is operating within inherent dichotomies and complexities.

The space where context, focus, and intentions must be evaluated to decide how best to approach contradictory and complex circumstances.

For instance, this may seem less clear if a concept like Simon Sinek’s Start With Why principle comes to mind.

However, these are fundamentally different approaches.

“Start With Why” is about understanding and communicating the underlying purpose to inspire action and build a cohesive team, culture, and business.

What we’re talking about here, in contrast, is about objectively assessing outcomes and understanding root causes to improve future decisions.

Inspiration and motivation vs. learning and accountability.

The “why” is essential in both contexts; the deviation is where we start.

This is a simple approach we can use in situations when mistakes are made, or things go wrong.

The goal is to create accountability by objectively reviewing a sequence of actions or events and outlining lessons learned or areas of improvement to minimize the likelihood of future recurrences, all while maintaining trust.

The Pitfalls of Asking “Why” to Create Accountability

Asking “why” often drills down toward accountability in an unproductive way:

• Creates Perception of Accusation - It can quickly come off as accusatory or judgmental, leading to defensiveness, which impedes open communication and identification of the root issue.
• Degrades Trust - It can ignite blame, shame, and guilt, diminishing morale and trust. Blame alone amplifies this in the team when fingers are pointed in multiple directions.
• Impedes Learning - It looks for an immediate answer and root cause without allowing an opportunity to step back, reflect, and learn from the mistakes.
• Oversimplifies Complex Situations - It fails to produce a sequence of events or actions leading to the outcome. Explanations are oversimplified to answer the “why” question, often missing context and the full range of factors.
• Prevents Solutions - It tends to focus on reasons, explanations, or justifications for an action or behavior, which can inadvertently shift the focus toward blame rather than finding solutions.

The Benefits of Leading with “What” and “How”

“What” creates the space for objectivity, communication, and accountability, and “how” infuses curiosity, empowering the individual or team to identify solutions and lessons learned while keeping emotions out of the equation.

Eventually, they lead to the root cause or "why."

Asking “what” looks for objective facts and produces insights that lead to a deeper understanding of the root cause, informing better future decisions:

• Assesses Facts - It gathers objective information about the situation, helping to clarify the situation before jumping to conclusions or assigning blame.
• Produces Deeper Insights - It avoids jumping to conclusions with a more comprehensive evaluation of factors contributing to the decision, action, or outcome; this approach allows for better analysis and lessons learned.
• Builds Trust - It avoids an accusatory tone, circumvents blame, shame, and guilt, and encourages candid communication, fostering a more collaborative environment for problem-solving.
• Reveals Root Cause - It outlines the objective sequence of events and often reveals the “why” in a more productive, relationship-driven way. Instead of prying for the “why,” it is reached more organically without emotion.
• Encourages Learning and improvement - It promotes a culture of learning and continuous improvement rather than a culture of blame, identifying collective team issues and areas for individual growth.
• Creates Transparency - It organizes and lays out facts objectively for everyone, establishing shared responsibility to be taken in all directions and creating accountability in the collective.
• Prevents Recurrence - It enables a precise understanding of lessons learned; the only way for this to occur is by acknowledging and communicating mistakes and forming systems to prevent them from happening again.

Asking “how” adds a layer of empowerment and thoughtfulness - “How might we…” statements are one of the most potent lead-ins for brainstorming and problem-solving:

• Empowers the Team - It allows the team to explain their perspective, consider alternatives, and offer solutions independently. Instead of digging for the answer, we create space for the team to figure it out with our support.
• Explores Underlying Motivations - It uncovers motivations and constraints in decision-making. It signals the leader where to ask follow-up questions and produces a foundation for finding common ground.
• Encourages Thoughtfulness - It requires more detailed responses. “How” questions cannot be answered with a simple yes or no, which produces deeper thinking and analysis of actions leading to the outcome.
• Reinforces Trust - It builds trust by showing a genuine curiosity and interest in the perspective of the individual or team. Blame, shame, and guilt are avoided by creating accountability through a supportive, curious lens.

Try this out - you’ll notice a profound difference even by starting the conversation with “what” instead of “why.”

Instead of starting with: “Why did this happen?”

Consider: “What occurred to create this outcome?” and “How might we prevent this from happening again?”

This framework works for leading ourselves as much as it does for leading teams.

“What” and “How” can be used to internally reflect and assess our thoughts, actions, behaviors, or decisions without creating shame or guilt.

Instead of: “Why do I feel this way?”

Consider: “What is the situation causing me to feel this way; what is triggering me?” and “How might I get myself out of this emotion or feeling?”

Our job as leaders is to develop more leaders.

It’s about empowering our team to step out of their comfort zone, make mistakes, and learn new skills.

Our job is to coach, mentor, and provide feedback. As coaches and mentors, we should ask more questions than provide instruction.

Should we offer advice and counsel? Yes, absolutely. But only after we’ve done our diligence in uncovering the root causes.

We have to lead in a way that demonstrates we intend to hold people accountable AND help them learn and improve; as always, it is a fundamental dichotomy to operate within.

Everyone benefits from this approach.

The leader can gather the information required to course-correct, make decisions, and help the team learn from the mistakes, minimizing future recurrences.

The team is empowered to arrive at the answers independently while having the necessary support and guidance from leadership to know they have their best interests in mind.

The business or organization maintains a culture of teamwork to achieve results.

Above all, trust is maintained and developed as the foundation of a highly effective team.

Asking “what” or “how” instead of “why” is a simple reframe to head in the right direction.

Achieving results is unattainable without creating accountability. Holding teams accountable is impractical without aligning the team's commitment and setting expectations. Aligning commitment does not happen unless we create a culture and environment conducive to healthy conflict, debate, and conversation. And none of this can occur if we do not create a foundation of trust within our teams.

These factors collectively serve as a framework called The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, outlined in a classic book by Patrick Lencioni. I’ll go deeper on this in next week’s newsletter.