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Accountability, in leadership, means more than just a buzzword; it indicates a very influential competency that affects the dynamics of the teams, trust, and performance. Engaged leaders with a strong sense of accountability will ensure the value of responsibility and liability among their team members, stimulating them to give more concrete performances. It is never easy, though, to embrace accountability, especially when the outcome does not come out as expected. This is about being courageous enough to open the doors and be brave in accepting responsibility both for successes and failures.
Today, accountability is of greater importance than ever due to some recent workforce trends. The Great Resignation in 2021 witnessed many employees leaving jobs in search of better opportunities, respect, and flexibility.

Leaders who provide accountability training can eradicate these issues as they provide a work environment where the employees are respected, supported, and trusted to perform with ownership. An accountable leader gives the employee the freedom to want and not micromanage; gives them hard but constructive and backs them in becoming competent members of their team. This is how accountability training leads to retaining staff members by building up the organizational culture that values and develops its people.

Let’s start by going over what makes a leader accountable and why this training is important. We will then review what gets in the way of those leaders embracing accountability and, finally, what actionable strategies are there for building a culture of accountability in your team.

What is Accountability Training?

Accountability training is meant to prepare employees and leaders in the skills that will hold themselves and others accountable for their behavior, commitments, and results. Accountability training generally relates to developing and strengthening certain behaviors that epitomize accountability. These accountability behaviors include:

  • Giving and taking feedback in a respectful, constructive manner
  • Ownership of commitments or promises made to actually follow through on them
  • Pro-activity rather than reactivity
  • Ownership of mistakes and being able to learn from them
  • Ability to ask for help when it is needed
  • To have real discussions with colleagues when needed
  • Ability to make sound decisions working in line with organizational goals
  • Standing by core values
  • Take appropriate risks to foster growth and improvement

The behaviors are often modified by accountability training programs for specific job functions or industries. As an example, accountability in healthcare has direct relevance to the safety of the patient and procedural compliance, while in manufacturing, it might be more related to worker safety, product quality, and process efficiency. Accountability training can directly impact performance through targeting specific behaviors most pertinent to a specific role or industry.

Why Accountability Matters in Leadership

Accountable leadership is not merely the blaming game; instead, it’s about being accountable for results, having high expectations, and motivating followers to do the same. Accountable leaders create trust, consider team members their role models, and train the latter about responsible and value-based behavior. Accountability by both leaders and others fosters cohesive teams and proves to be a resilience-building and pride-sharing experience.

Accountability develops a culture of:

  • Higher Trust: The members of the team find themselves trusting their leader when they see that person being accountable for their results. Accountability is a marker of integrity and transparency, and in such environments, more people tend to take responsibility.
  • Stronger Resilience: Teams are stronger and more resilient in situations where accountability prevails; since such teams can learn from mistakes, adjust, and become even stronger, they develop resilience as a mindset.
  • High Performance: Informed expectations and empowerment toward responsibilities inevitably tend to result in better performance, as the teams can be motivated by goals and achievement. 

Why Accountability Matters to the Individual, Leader, and Team

Accountability is a multifaceted concept that impacts the culture of the organization as well as job performance and satisfaction. Here’s how accountability training will benefit the individual, leader, and teams:

  • For Individuals: Accountability training helps employees handle problems in the workplace, such as procrastination, perfectionism, complacency, and avoidance of receiving feedback. Accountability training allows employees to take responsibility for their actions by seeking opportunities to grow, admitting and learning from mistakes, and continually improving themselves.
  • For Leaders: Leaders are trained to provide tough feedback, hold others accountable, and enforce accountability by example with their teams. Accountable leaders are a tough example to set for employees, making them look up to responsibility and fulfilling commitments from the highest level down.
  • To Teams: The encouragement of accountability causes team members to shun “social loafing” and instill trust among each other. Accountability makes a team feel free to hold out the best out of each other in pursuing common values and goals. Team members become more willing to take decisions and risks because they know all of them are bound to do their best.

Core Accountability Coaching Practices

To build accountability, leaders would need to establish clear expectations, continue providing feedback, and praise accomplishments and shortcomings. Some of the core accountability-coaching practices that a leader should embrace include:

Establish Clear Expectations
Explain the unique roles of each team member and the general goals of the team. Clarify what is expected of each and all of them and what the expectation is about what should be achieved at the end.

Ensure They Have Competencies and Resources
Identify if there are competent skills and access to the resources by them to achieve their expectations. If not, then facilitate training or hand over to other people who are more capable of doing the work.

Agree on Milestones and Success Metrics
Set measurable milestone activities to define success at every step. This clarity allows for check-ins on the pathway and easier resolution of issues early in the track.

Provide Constructive Feedback
Provide feedback that will be based on facts and observations rather than assumptions. This will create a way of interaction that is two-way, as team members feel free to outline their challenges and receive support from another team member.

Define Rewards and Consequences
Furthermore, share positive consequences from the completion of set goals and potential consequences that are accrued if such targets are not accomplished. This openness fosters responsibility among the team members

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Common Barriers to Implementing Accountability

Accountability is a critical concept, yet some leaders fail to embrace it entirely. This reality impacts the general morale within the team plus the effectiveness of the team. Some common barriers that prevent leaders from embracing accountability include:

Fear of Failure and Consequences
Leaders who do not take failure well might create an environment where ownership of failure is not encouraged. This may result in a superficial commitment and lack of willingness to take ownership to the point where seeking help is not an option.

Overestimated Expectations
Where expectations are unattainable or unrealistic, the team member will tend to just be formal, showing a half-hearted commitment to the outcome. Goals and objectives have to be clearly outlined through communication as well.

Vagueness in Roles and Objectives
Undefined roles and purposes may lead to misunderstandings and deter members from accepting responsibility. Clarity in communication is essential in setting purpose and goals.

Varied Goals or Benchmarks
Varied goals and benchmarks can cause instability and demoralize members. A person needs to be stable and settled to gain impetus and focus.

Lack of Accountability by Leaders
When the leaders are not accountable, the rest of the team is not willing to be accountable. Leaders have to be held accountable as well by being responsible for their acts and decisions.

Self-Coaching Questions that Promote Accountability

Self-reflection is a useful tool to enhance accountability. Reflect upon the following questions:

What are some of the difficulties you faced in being accountable?

Reflect on whether this has been an age-old problem and what other people’s feedback has helped to explain this point.

What happens if you avoid accountability?

Think of a time when you did or didn’t take the blame. What occurred? How did that impact your relationships and reputation?

Do you have a past error for which you haven’t taken responsibility?

Reflect on the issue and what you can do to deal with it constructively.

Practical Strategies to Improve Accountability

Building a culture of accountability demands ongoing self-awareness, open communication, and a commitment to growth. Here’s how to practically create accountability:

Self-Awareness: Reflect on Blame Shifting
The times you may have blamed others for any failure are the same ones that limit your power to make improvements in outcomes.

Open Communication: Encourage Honest Conversations
Talk openly about what you do not want someone else to do and encourage honest discussions with others on what they do not want you to do.
When appropriate, hold people accountable. Requesting someone to be accountable opens opportunities for personal growth on both sides.

Involve Team Members in Goals and Objectives
Work with your team to agree on your goals, timelines, and milestones. This sets the proper level of buy-in and keeps accountability in place.

Be an Accountable Leader
Hold yourself accountable in just the same way you demand of your employees. Demonstrate to your team how responsibility is a strength and not a weakness.

Hire for Accountability
Identify people with a strong sense of responsibility and integrity. Ask them about experiences where they assumed ownership of mistakes or learnings made over time.

Accountability Development: Action Plan for Leaders

Developing accountability in your organization through a planned approach can encourage the right behaviors and enhance the learning process. Explore the following steps to create a responsible team environment:

Set Organisational Goals
Make sure that all participants comprehend the critical goals and how their contributions feed into the organization’s mission. Focus on clear, actionable goals.

Share KPIs
Align department and personal KPIs with business objectives. Stay focused on leading metrics that drive holistic performance.

Create Open-Ended Feedback Loops
Regularly request and give feedback to enable the team members to witness their own progress and discover the development areas that they can work on before they become a problem.

Encourage Intrinsic Innovation and Risk
Establish a culture of no blame that the employees feel to take a risk. Foster creativity and agility, and reward effort regardless of the outcome.

Ensure Peer Accountability
Ensure that members of the team also hold each other accountable for teamwork. The development of peer accountability ensures that there are resiliences built in and trust.

Express Appreciation for Accountability
Rewarding those who show accountability increases the sense of accountability so that the others emulate too.

Accountability Training: Measuring Success

Remember, “If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.” Improving accountability training calls for a method to monitor progress and help ensure that the training is having the desired impact. Here are a few of the most successful methods of tracking accountability:

Self-assessments: The self-assessment can be taken at the beginning of the session so that present strengths and weaknesses regarding accountability are identified. The participants would come back to the assessment after having completed the training for an appraisal of their implementation and how their behaviors have developed over time.

Accountability Checklists: A set of questions or a list can be very useful to track progress. Teams can raise those questions during meeting times; or, managers can ask them in one-on-one meetings to make sure team members are practicing key behaviors.

Pulse Surveys: Conducting periodic pulse surveys can recognize certain behaviors that are undertaken in association with accountability. For instance, UiPath utilizes pulse surveys for the question, “Did you have a good conversation lately with your manager?” It is an easy yet powerful way to assess whether accountability training is influencing the quality of workplace discussions.

360 Feedback: A 360-degree is an appraisal whereby one gets feedback from peers and supervisors, even direct reports rating an individual on his accountability; hence it gives the overall view of that individual’s progress. This can raise blind spots and see how others really perceive accountability.

Behavioral Nudges: The reminders, or “nudges,” promote accountability behaviors and remind them of the learning that occurred from the training. These nudges might be some simple action reminders to continue practicing giving feedback, taking responsibility, or following up on commitments.

Measurement tools that use accountability training will enable organizations to know if accountability training really works. With it, one can track progress that will support accountability behaviors and continuous improvement.

Should You Build an In-House Accountability Training Program or Hire an Outside Expert?

But in putting in place accountability training, organizations really have only two choices: either an in-house program or a hired external expert.

In-House Development
If an organization develops an in-house accountability training program, it can customize the program to fit its particular needs, values, and goals. For example, NextGen Healthcare developed a program internally that concentrated on accountability for its leaders and behaviors most likely to affect their organization.

In-house might be beneficial because it takes a very tight focus on company-specific competencies and desired outcomes. However, actually creating such a program requires significant time, resources, and expertise in accountability and instructional design.

Hiring an Outside Expert
It’s also the case that with an outside expert, a problem can be solved much more quickly and streamlined. Professional accountability trainers offer more highly refined programs tested and optimized across many industries. For example, LEADx offers specialized accountability training programs that organizations can leverage, with less internal development required.

External programs are usually less challenging to implement and require fewer internal resources. Moreover, unless the vendor provides customized solutions, they may not fit your company’s needs as well.

Both approaches have their advantages and disadvantages, and what will work best for you depends on the exact needs of your organization in terms of your resources and long-term goals.

Conclusion

Leading with Accountability for Lasting Impact Leadership isn’t about trying to push people around. Rather, it’s a standard set by example that people want to follow. Accountability takes strength in leadership and inspires others to exercise the same. This is what builds trust, drives performance, and creates a culture of integrity upon which long-term success builds.

Being an accountable leader will act like a personal commitment toward continuous improvement on accountability for self and team. One needs to realize that accountability is not about the blame game but empowering everyone to take ownership of roles, learn from mistakes, and celebrate successes. With this key skill mastered, you can create an environment where everyone feels valued, responsible, and motivated to reach their full potential.

In fact, accountability training is an excellent method for building a positive, productive company culture. Accountability training empowers people, builds leadership, and fosters teamwork. Empowering employees through accountability training to take ownership and encouraging leaders to hold themselves and others accountable can create environments that grow, innovate, and succeed.

Whether conceived within an organization or with some outside expert, accountability training should be on the list of priorities for any firm that wants resilience, adaptability, and constant progress. Accountability training is a worthwhile investment for companies interested in cultures in which every member contributes toward shared goals and feels empowered to perform at their best.

Read More: Building a Strong Culture of Accountability in the Workplace