The Art of Accountability
Perusing many wonderful professional profile summaries on LinkedIn, so many leaders are claiming an advanced capability to hold their reports and teams accountable. Apparently, accountability—essentially accepting the responsibility to fulfill an obligation or commitment—is something desirable within organizations. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management, providing certain human resource functions for the Federal Government, considers accountability a virtuous organizational strength, citing these benefits.
Improved performance,
More employee participation and involvement,
Increased feelings of competency,
Increased employee commitment to the work,
More creativity and innovation, and
Higher employee morale and satisfaction with the work.
Not surprisingly, this looks like the same list of benefits espoused by promoters of all those initiatives, strategies, policies and behaviors that lead to employee engagement. Is accountability the panacea we’ve been looking for all along? Probably not, but it is, nevertheless, vital to a healthy organization and a thriving business. According to some data floating around the ether of numbers, statistics, anecdotal evidence and shameless guesses, accountability is notably lacking.
In a survey of executives, managers and employees conducted by AMA Enterprise, a division of the American Management Association, 21% of respondents believe that 30 – 50% of employees seek to avoid responsibility. And it’s not that employees don’t understand their responsibilities, as nearly half of the respondents reported that 49% of employees fully understand the extent of their obligations, and how satisfying them contribute to their organization’s success.
According to some data floating around the ether of numbers, statistics, anecdotal evidence and shameless guesses, accountability is notably lacking.
Based on the belief that shirking responsibility is somehow rooted in the emotional center of our brains (the limbic system), I’m guessing that we don’t like the repercussions of having screwed up. We’re afraid of being punished, yelled at, chastised, publicly shamed and losing our jobs. If leaders were so capable of holding people accountable in ways that drive engagement, productivity and innovation, would people be so afraid? How many LinkedIn profiles reflect emotionally intelligent ways of fostering accountability that drive organizational excellence? Not too many, I fear. I once had a boss who said we simply need to “get on” sales reps who weren’t delivering results. I’ll leave it to your imagination on how that organization fared culturally.
When people are holding themselves accountable, they’re conceivably making a bunch of excuses. Big, fat, lame excuses. Exploring the link between excuses and dodging responsibility, I sought out who I would consider an undisputed expert on excuses. Enter Art, my local government hearing officer who entertains a daily parade of citizens fighting litanies of parking tickets, moving violations and other assorted breaches of civic statutes. Art is one of those guys who immediately gives off a vibe of “look, I’m not your friend, here,” yet he’s friendly, matter-of-fact and unfailingly fair. And, as I found out, he has a nicely-evolved sense of humor, so I—of course—engaged him way beyond disputing the few tickets I’ve found contestable over the years.
I’ve always encouraged Art to write a book on all the creative stories he’s heard over the years. It turns out he’s pretty much neither entertained nor impressed by them, believing he’s probably heard them all throughout his years of public service. Over coffee one day, I asked Art if he believes that fines (and sometimes worse) are effective at instilling accountability in our citizens, to which he replied “nah.” People still make the same mistakes and simply pay the fines or fight them from within his office in the government center.
I wondered where Art attained his own sense of accountability. He is quite the solid, law-abiding citizen, and his relationship with responsibility didn’t stem from serial fines and punishments for breaking the law. He comes from a family of law enforcement professionals, where his “parents had no tolerance for making excuses. If we did something, we dealt with the consequences.” Art’s approach to this issue would make some of us wish he had raised our children.
So maybe Art is onto something that is relatable to the work environment. Rather than leaders maintaining accountability through the imposition of negative consequences, maybe they should simply MODEL it for their peers and reports. No special initiatives, costly consultants or time-consuming workshops—just be accountable, yourself! If you make a mistake, own it. Publicly.
None of this means that, as a leader, you won’t need to address the failures of others. There are myriad ways to do this in constructive, productive fashion, all starting with a calm and compassionate demeanor. For those who continue to avoid their commitments, and make the same mistakes over and over, there are other options, all of which can be administered without emotional charge. But in the end, if it’s an environment of accountability you want, don’t say it, BE IT!
Honor your commitments, take responsibility for your obligations and, if you screw up, don’t blame anyone or anything. Others will follow your lead, and a better culture will arise.