An effective way to give accountability that is received as a gift

Holding ourselves accountable is important.
But it is so much easier if we don’t have to do it ourselves. Often, this is the main reason why people pay for fitness coaches.

In leadership, holding someone accountable for their actions can be awkward, but that’s because all of us have to navigate our egos. Think of all the new year’s resolutions, or promises to abstain from addictive behavior that we have all made to ourselves.

It takes work to hold our egos accountable, to make sure that we follow through on our commitments, and to make sure that we learn something and take conscious action - if we failed to follow through. After all, sometimes, the right thing to do is to let go of the commitment.

Holding others accountable works very effectively.

Under one important condition: The person receiving the accountability check-in needs to trust the person providing the accountability.

If there is no trust, people feel that they have to guard themselves. This self-guarding can show as them hiding the truth, trying to avoid the accountability check-ins, avoiding and re-directing responsibility to other people. It’s not because they are bad, but because they are humans with a built-in self-preservation mechanism.

Therefore, as a leader, holding the team accountable is not as straight-forward as setting up a weekly meeting with your team, in which you ask everyone: “So, have you made your sales target last week?”, or “Have you figured out how to fix the supply chain issues?”

It is not that simple.

Leaders have to build trust.

How does it work? Well, according to research, people trust each other for different reasons, but the most important ones in business are competence, reliability and benevolence.

In times of high uncertainty, competence and reliability can sometimes by difficult to gauge. If the world or the goals are changing, the perception of what competence and delivering reliably means can shift easily.

The concept that we always have some control over, is benevolence. If you can show that you care, not only about yourself, but the higher goal that everyone shares, people are more likely to believe that you have their best interest in mind. This sounds very obvious, but is sometimes easier said than done.

If the news is bad, such as underwhelming sales or problems with the supply chain for your production, leaders likely have a reaction themselves, such as fear and anger. If the leader exposes these feelings to the reporter of the bad news directly, the reporter might end up with the impression that they have to take care of the leader’s feelings, and temper the truth a little. Or they take on responsibility for fixing the issue without asking for help.

Therefore, it is important to keep some distance. Ideally the leader knows exactly what they are looking for, and before approaching the team directly, has seen the data in writing. This way, the leader can feel all the feelings before approaching the team in a synchronous meeting. Synchronous meetings are not for showing and exchanging big reactions. That crushes every planned agenda.

With time to process, the leader can then reach out to the team and easily show that they care:

• They can cite the results that the team provided, whether good or bad. And they can show that they care about the team’s work.
• They can guide the discussion through storytelling that frames the situation as a challenge the team is navigating together, reminding them of the common goal. And show that they care about the company’s success and demonstrate their competence.
• They can ask questions from a point of clarity, such as: “What have you found out so far?”, “What have you learned, and what are your suggestions or plans to fix the problem?”, “What support do you need?” or even “How do you feel about this?”. All these questions demonstrate that the leader cares about solutions, the individuals, and positions themselves as a partner for their team.

It is a simple process, but leaders and teams sometimes forget about it.

Especially when the sea is smooth, and accountability is frictionless. In those times, the team and the leader can easily verify their competence and reliability. But those can quickly be questioned, if a storm brews up and transformational change is necessary.

With care,

Martin