06/10/2019

Instilling a "Shared Fate" Can Boost Team Morale, Engagement

Transform your team with this innovative approach

Accountability. Good employees are accountable. Good leaders hold their employees accountable. Good organizationshave accountable cultures. But what does it really mean to beaccountable? And what happens when someone isn’t accountable? How leaders deal with non-accountable behavior goes a long way to defining the culture of an organization.

The generally accepted definition of being accountable is that “you do what you say you are going to do.” Yet everyone will inevitably fail on this accord. Does that mean they are not accountable? I think it is when someone does not “do what they said they would do” that accountability is determined. Someone who is non-accountable will tend to make excuses, point fingers, deny, deflect or refuse to change. Accountable people will take responsibility for not delivering on the desired results and start doing something different until the desired results are achieved.

Wouldn’t life be great if everyone exhibited accountable behavior 100 percent of the time? As great as that idea sounds it is not realistic and leaders must decide what to do when one of their reports is not acting accountable. This action is generally known as holding someone accountable. To effectively hold someone accountable the leaders sets the foundation by setting clear expectations, contracting, incentivizing and putting feedback mechanisms in place. If the employee does not deliver on the desired results and then doesn’t act accountable, the leader has to step in and coach, reassess, train, or even (re)set consequences. Continued non-accountable behavior can lead to disciplinary actions and even termination.

Please select this link to read the complete blog post from Great Leadership.