Accountability: the underutilized strategy

Accountability is an excellent way to empower staff and others around you. Many leaders struggle with what accountability really is and how to use it to move organizations and people forward. It is about being responsible to yourself and following through with commitments you have agreed to. It is about accepting responsibility for outcomes whether good, bad or indifferent.

What Accountability is NOT.

Our culture has allowed a victim mindset and competition to corrupt what accountability is and can truly be. Blaming, shaming and threatening are not ways to motivate others. I do not know anyone who is motivated by verbal threats about possibly losing something like a job or a relationship. Actually, these actions usually lead to distrust, dislike, and other not so good feelings about self and others. Accountability is about bringing people together and motivating them not pushing them away to feel isolated, alone and/or shamed.

Tough love gets mistaken for accountability and is also misused and misunderstood. Tough love is about setting boundaries and saying no with compassion. Most people think it is saying no and rubbing it in someone’s face (the competition influence, again). Some experience hardship with setting boundaries so saying no becomes so loud it hurts people’s feelings. This may be a sign to practice saying no. Again, accountability can be traced back to the classic saying, “Do undo others as you have others do unto you.”

How we can use Accountability

One of the Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz is keeping your word. For some time I thought it was about keeping my word to others and then I realized that it is about keeping your word to yourself. For me, this is what accountability is all about. Get to know yourself enough to make promises to yourself that you know you will keep and are passionate about.

Accountability is something to practice and adapt to your lifestyle. It took me years to embrace it myself. After trial and error of making commitments that were hard for me to keep. Courage showed up for me in ways that I did not image, it allowed me to ask for what I needed to fulfill my agreements. I was able to ask for deadline extensions, equipment, to engage other colleagues, ask questions about why a deadline was set and renegotiated so I could meet the new one without killing myself. All these things made me a better team member and more invested in the bigger picture.

There are times when you can say no. Should more duties come you way, prioritize your duties and see how you can team up with other colleagues. Get to know yourself enough to know what you are fully capable of. If your plate gets filled up, ask for help. Go to your manager/supervisor/colleague and talk out whom it would be appropriate to assign particular duties and ask about what should be priority. This way you bring your team together while gaining or polishing some of your skills. Notify and talk to your supervisor if you don’t think you are going to make a deadline and together you can make a plan of action to succeed.

For leaders and managers, accountability is about holding up the bigger picture and supporting others in the smaller steps to arrive at the bigger picture. The best way to support your colleagues is to 1) Role model accountability especially when you make mistakes 2) Hold yourself and others to the agreements/commitments and deadlines they have agreed to 3) Use “I” statements and 4) remind yourself and others that being honest about your gifts and talents helps everyone. Accountability is about showing ownership over your actions and decisions.