Want Accountability within Your Team? Start at the Top

Organizations with a strong sense of accountability and personal ownership thrive. But how do you get there?

Accountability has never been as important as it is right now.

Whether in board rooms in times of resource constraints or virtual team settings where progress is dependent on self-discipline and commitment, establishing accountability across a team is paramount for success within any organization. 

Most leadership circles agree that accountability is one of the essential traits of any high performing team. But if that’s true, then why is it that so many companies fail to establish a culture that nurtures accountable relationships? 

Since we as human beings are nuanced and complex, the process for establishing accountability should be equally nuanced. It requires us to engage fully with all our senses and be present; we must always keep the big picture in our mind. With our team members, we should celebrate progress beyond just results. We must acknowledge and provide feedback when demonstrated well.

Let’s consider what true accountability within a team requires.

Vision and Clear Goals

Every company has a vision and mission built upon a foundation of values and core capabilities. Your company’s goals take two forms, generally speaking: quantitative goals (e.g. Growth by X%, Revenue/Profit, Operational KPI’s) and qualitative goals (Particular leadership traits  and values, communication guidelines etc). In an ideal world, these corporate-level, macro goals are broken down into department level, micro-goals and measured through regular performance reviews. For example, you might have a monthly performance meeting comparing forecasted goals vs. actual performance. 

While some departments have concrete and measurable goals such as Operations (On-time-delivery, Quality), Business Development (Customer Satisfaction, Revenue), or Purchasing (Cost Reduction, Supplier performance) often horizontal departments such as Corporate Innovation or IT, serving these teams struggle with clear lines of accountability e.g. lack of direct impact to the quantitative goals of the organization and loss of sense of urgency thereof. Regardless of which role you occupy within an organization, every employee should have an answer to the following questions:

• What is the role of my department?
• What are my professional goals?
• What are the tools and resources to accomplish them?
• How does my service (or lack of service) serve our team/ division/company’s purposes?

The 3 C’s

Driving accountability is hard work. Establishing accountable relationships within your team requires years of experience grounded in trial and error, a whole lot of success and failure, and the ability to self regulate one’s emotions. There are some key traits every leader must possess in order to get what they want from their team:

• Confidence. As a leader, you need to understand your role and the ability of your department to meet overall objectives. You need to trust your skills and capabilities as well as the strengths of your team. For example, a team SWOT analysis can help to crystalize the core strengths, and you can confidently play into those strengths.
• Communication – Whether speaking to team members or clients, you need to offer clear requests, commitments, agreements, and deadlines in order to drive progress. Ambiguity can lead to miscommunication, resentment, or worse.
• Courage – Every leader needs to have the fortitude to have uncomfortable, difficult conversations. You need to instigate those crucial conversations when commitments are missed, remain open to criticism, push through the discomfort of conflict, and regulate fiery emotions in order to find the right solution. For instance, providing honest and specific feedback in a performance conversation is crucial for the development of an employee. Shying away from crucial feedback can be a selfish act, taking away the growth potential of an employee in exchange for the comfort of a manager.

Explicit Declarations and An Aligned CODEX

As leaders, our job is to bring people together from different geographies, time zones, languages, cultures, and upbringings. In our globalized business world, one word can have ten different meanings to ten different people. That’s why sharing your definition of success and creating a CODEX that works and speaks to each individual in your team is critical. Once defined, simplifying it as an easy to remember acronym is important to embed it in every mind. For example, in one of our team workshops we developed a unique CODEX based on the word PERFORM.

Purpose and Values

Empowerment

Relationship

Flexibility

Optimal Productivity

Recognition and Appreciation

Morale

Creating a CODEX as a team empowered every team member to actively participate in the definition and established the foundation of accountability through meaning and trust. Through this CODEX, we established how to run effective meetings and follow through with minutes. Our annual performance review conversations became more specific and measurable based on a defined set of actions and behaviors.

While most leaders do a great job of defining goals and possessing the 3C’s, very rarely do you find a leader declaring their version of success and painting a custom codex that defines the operating gears of a team.

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Accountability is the glue that ties vision to the execution. Investing in an accountable culture is one of the most important priorities of any organization.

And remember: accountability starts with self-management first. We cannot manage others until we learn to manage ourselves.

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