Accountability 101: How to Drive Uncommon Results With Unusual Ease

Read Time: 2 minutes 57 seconds

The single most common question I get as a coach:

“How can I hold my team more accountable?”

The problem is the people asking me this have it backward. They skipped the necessary steps to set up their system to work for them. Now they’re scrambling to cover up these mistakes by getting their people to work harder.

Accountability is an outcome, not a process step.

It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that most people want to do a great job. They want their work to contribute to the mission and drive impact. And yet they regularly make promises and then break them. We all do.

So if we have people with the right skills who naturally want to do a great job, why do we even need accountability?

Because our people are just as imperfect as we are.

Why Don’t People Keep Their Commitments

If you’ve been leading a team for more than a week, chances are you’ve already encountered reasons:

• I forgot

• I got distracted

• I never agreed to that

• I have too much on my plate

• I don’t have the resources I need to do it

• I thought something else was more important

But lurking beneath those explanations - which often feel like excuses - is something more fundamental.

Fear.

Fear of failure. Fear of letting people down. Fear of saying ‘No.’ Fear of admitting the need for help. Even in some cases, fear of succeeding.

And depending on the archetype of your team member, they’ll deal with that fear differently:

Overconfidence: Some will build a facade of bravado to mask their fear. They’ll overestimate their ability and take on too much.

Optimism: Some will believe everything will break in their favor and fail to account for any friction. Or if they fall behind, they believe they’ll recover.

Deferral: Some will simply hide, hoping the problem goes unnoticed or that something solves the issue. For them, pain tomorrow > pain today.

Pleasing: Some will fall prey to the pleasing paradox. In an effort to not disappoint you, they’ll say Yes to the impossible.

So how do we get our teams past the fear and build a culture of high-performing accountability?

SAFETY: The 6 Steps to Sustainable Accountability

Set Expectations

“Where are the fries I didn’t order?” While we can hope that our people can anticipate our every need, hope is not much of a strategy.

Clear expectations are the cornerstone of accountability. Without an agreed-upon target, you’ll never be able to agree if your team hit it.

Ask

“Did this meet our agreed expectations? Did this meet your expectations? How do you think this went?”

Everyone wants to rush to feedback, but more often than not, you lack the full picture. By asking any of these questions, you gain three pieces of info:

1. Do you share the same expectations?

2. Are they holding themselves to those standards?

3. Was the additional information and context you were missing?

As a bonus, the ownership stays with them, and they feel heard.

Feedback

I’ve already provided an in-depth breakdown of empowering feedback, so I won’t rehash that here.

But three quick reminders when it comes to accountability: