Many people and businesses fail to hit their goals, and the common denominator is often a lack of focus on accountability.
The concept of accountability has been evergreen in many of my personal relationships and every workplace I’ve ever participated in. It can be so easy, and necessary at times, to look to others for accountability, wondering when they will ever be held to account for their actions. I’ll get to that in a minute, but to start, accountability starts with you.
Teams that work well together, produce positive results, and are generally successful are built from the ground up with people that hold themselves accountable.
If you’ve spent time in any team dynamic, think about that leader who is a micromanager, insists on having their hands in everything, spreads themselves too thin, doesn’t properly delegate, and has a track record of not meeting deadlines that they set for themselves publicly. They bring strong experience and insight to any conversation that they are a part of, but everyone knows that any decision or process that they are involved in will be unnecessarily drawn out or never happen.
This person, at the core of who they are, may have a ton of passion for what the team is working on, but their relationship with personal accountability needs some work.
Starting with how you show up for yourself is the heart of personal accountability. It should be a cornerstone of your personal and professional brand and something that sets you apart from other people.
If you have work to do to improve your relationship with how you hold yourself accountable (we all do), start today. You are here, in this present moment, and you can start making small improvements right now.
How do you handle your own baggage? Are you leaning on others, or do you manage it yourself most of the time? According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, accountability is “an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions”.
If you’ve been complacent in the past, that’s ok. We all have.
Can you say the words “I’m sorry, I was wrong” out loud in a group setting when all of the attention is on you? If not, it may be time for some introspection, especially if you’re looking to grow as a leader. Vulnerability and having honest relationships with yourself and others will take you and your teams farther than you could ever imagine.
Thinking back to the leader from earlier, imagine the difference that would be made across the business if they were known for being someone that admitted when they missed a deadline and quickly addressed the issue so that a resolution could be achieved.
It’s Tuesday, the senior leader had previously committed to returning feedback on a document on the previous Friday. When their direct report asks about their feedback in a meeting what if the senior leader responded,
“I’m sorry, I promised to have that to you last Friday, and I missed that deadline. I’ll review it this afternoon and have my feedback to you tomorrow morning no later than 10a.m.”
instead of, “That is still on my to-do list, and I will try to get to it this week”.
As you read those two responses, how did you feel in your body? What did you notice?
Did a specific memory come to mind, and/or did you notice a visceral response?
The second response above would show that the leader has a loose relationship with personal accountability and provides some room for them to rethink how to lead themselves and their team to success.
In the book The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, The First Agreement is Be Impeccable With Your Word.
Stop for a second, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and let those words resonate with you.
What comes up for you as your eyes were closed and you sat with those five words? My guess is there may have been a mix of positive and negative thoughts surrounding that First Agreement.
How often do you hold yourself to the same standard as others?
You may think of a time where you said that you were going to do something but got distracted and never completed the task, or you may have judged someone else for the very same thing.
Where in your life today can you start being more impeccable with your word, and what would change in your life if you followed that agreement every day? It may seem like a very simple concept, but once you bring awareness to it, you may be surprised with what comes up for you as you navigate your daily life.
As we build cultures, teams, and organizations poised to make a radical positive difference in our industry and thus our communities, we have to start with personal accountability. Once our own house is in order, then we can move to expecting accountability from others.
As I’ve grown professionally and personally over the years, this is a lesson that I wish was more well defined for me earlier in my early career. I’m still a work in progress, as we all are, but I do my level best these days to hold myself accountable to a high standard for no reason other than I do it for me. The motivation for my personal accountability comes from my inner desire to be impeccable with my word so that other people will know that I am accountable to myself.
Just as personal accountability sets the tone for your personal and professional brand, it’s also the foundation for creating successful teams.
Personal accountability should be the bedrock of any team or organization. Accountability leads to success. Success leads to happy employees. Happy employees lead to a thriving enterprise.
To set your team and organization up for success, you must have people working with you that hold themselves accountable and are willing to take feedback on how to improve the way that they hold themselves accountable.
However, we are all imperfect humans and will need support from time to time. That’s where accountability structures come into play in an organization.
Channeling the leader that we’ve been discussing, think about this person being known for holding themselves accountable when they have a missed opportunity. They aren’t moving mountains, they are simply acknowledging their faults (we are all imperfect humans, remember) and quickly resolving the situation.
Their team and much of the rest of the organization sees this and knows where the bar is set. This shift from excuses to action is much more regularly mirrored across the business, and suddenly processes start to work efficiently and decisions are made more quickly. The business as a whole functions with less stress, it is easier to achieve goals and milestones, and employee attrition is low because people enjoy the environment they work in.
A culture of accountability starts at the top and should flow in both directions.
If the leader can hold their teams and direct reports accountable, the teams and direct reports can hold the leader accountable. When accountability doesn’t flow in both directions, the culture suffers. In truly accountable organizations, leaders and their teams hold each other to the same standard. If you want to see the definition of a toxic work environment, find an organization or team where accountability only flows from the top down, and I will almost guarantee the vibration of that organization is in a sad state.
There really shouldn’t be any issue with bi-directional accountability. However, it can be so easy for anyone on a team to allow their ego or defensiveness to be the forward presence during an uncomfortable moment.
Accountability isn’t just a workplace buzzword — it’s the foundation for personal growth and organizational success. Start with yourself, then build a culture where everyone is held accountable, no matter their title.
So how do we navigate these situations to get a positive outcome for ourselves, our teammates, and the organization?
I’ll be exploring ways to improve accountability in my next article and hope you look for it next week.
What’s one thing you’ve been putting off? Take a step today to hold yourself accountable and see how it transforms your results. I’d love to hear about your success.
Thank you for reading; I greatly appreciate your time and energy.
If this resonates with you, I’d love to hear your thoughts-specifically how you’ve navigated accountability challenges. Drop a comment, give me a follow, and stay tuned for more. I can also be reached via email at garet.writes@gmail.com.
The photo above is a picture I took in Lisbon, Portugal. It is from the inside of a castle on a hill looking through a window out to the city. Part of the castle and trees are in the foreground outside of the window, and red stone rooftops of the city buildings are in the background.