Imagine being in a ballroom with all of your colleagues and team members. On the front of the ballroom stage, a speaker poses the following question: “Raise your hand if you take personal accountability for actions and results.” How many hands do you think would go up?
After all the hands were lowered, the speaker posed a follow-up question, “Raise your hand if you think there is an accountability problem in the organization.” How many hands would go up this time?
Chances are almost every hand would go up with the first question, and almost every hand would go up with the second question. However, the results don’t match. If nearly every employee in the company believed they were accountable for their own actions and results, it would be impossible for an organization to have an accountability problem. The reason is:
Organizations don’t have accountability problems; people do.
Accountability is one of those words most people don’t like because it makes them uncomfortable. The thought of being relentlessly responsible for yourself or holding someone else responsible for doing what they say they will do comes with a level of commitment most don’t want. However, the best CIOs aren’t afraid of accountability and use it as a competitive advantage. The best CIOs use accountability as a competitive advantage.
If elevating accountability on your team or organization is a top priority, know you are not alone. Based on preliminary research by LearnLoft, increasing accountability is a top three leadership objective in 2023. Since it’s so important this year and beyond, let’s start by getting on the same page about what it is.
What is Accountability?
Accountability is one of these words that has been hijacked. I define it in Building the Best as; the obligation of an individual or organization to account for its activities, accept responsibility for them and disclose the results in a transparent manner.
It is the obligation of leaders to account for their actions and the actions of their people.
No team has a perfect record of accountability, and no leader gets it right every time. So many leaders struggle with accountability because they refuse to take responsibility. The hard truth is Leaders either:
- Created the problem
- Contributed to the problem
- Tolerated the problem
Leveraging Accountability to Improve Performance
Once you believe you are responsible by either creating the problem, contributing to the problem, or tolerating the problem, now you’re ready to leverage accountability with others to improve performance. But the trick is to again think differently than most CIOs.
Instead of thinking about accountability as something you do to someone, think of it as something you do with someone. The best leaders understand accountability as a collaborative process to create more positive behaviors in the future.
Accountability isn’t something you do to someone; it’s something you do with someone.
If you struggle with accountability, you are not alone. So if you are ready to get better, follow these rules.
1. Stack Uncomfortable with Comfortable
Joe Maddon, a successful Major League Baseball manager, has a unique way of leveraging accountability. When one of his players violates a team rule or isn’t meeting a standard, he asks the player to purchase a nice bottle of wine, then they open it and have a glass or two in a one-on-one meeting. Thus he’s stacking an uncomfortable conversation with someone comfortable while at the same time creating a deep sense of connection between himself and the player.
While this is a strategy only some leaders can use, Maddon understands this critical leadership lesson regarding accountability.
“Leaders must connect before they correct.”
Said differently, “Rules before relationships lead to rebellion.” The stronger your relationship with team members, the easier it is to stack uncomfortable conversations with something comfortable.
2. Set Clear Standards
For leaders in any organization, the most significant mistake is not setting clear standards or assuming people know them. By definition, standards define what good looks like. Think about them slightly differently. The best leaders don’t define what good looks like; they define what great looks like.
When you define what great looks like for your team and communicate it correctly, these standards will produce behaviors and habits that are vital to achieving results.
They also become the foundation for what you hold your people accountable to. Without their presence, it’s nearly impossible to be effective.
3. Turn Conversations Into Action Items
The quickest and best shortcut to raise the level of accountability on a team is to turn conversations into action items. In a recent Coaching for Excellence workshop in Atlanta, an experienced manager approached me and said, “I have been so frustrated telling team members what needs to be done, and when I came back days later, it’s not done. The biggest takeaway from the workshop was my lack of setting clear action items after coaching conversations. Moving forward, every conversation will have defined action items to improve our accountability.”
Even good and experienced leaders can fall victim to assuming people will make changes on their own. The remedy for this is asking, “When do you plan to get it done?” Their answer is what we call “AAIs, an acronym for “Accountability Action Items.” Use AAIs to follow up and follow through.
The Wrap
The best part about raising accountability as a CIO is that it will produce improved results. But accountability is challenging, and it doesn’t happen by itself. However, if you embrace personal responsibility, build strong relationships, set clear standards, and turn conversations into action items, you will be shocked at how effective your team will become.
