Human Resources
Building a Culture of Accountability
Apr 26, 2016
There are easy ways to ensure that we have the right balance, between holding our team accountable without micromanaging. Make accountability a part of your team’s normal way of operating. You should take the time to come to a common understanding of what accountability means in the workplace. Talk about it and share ideas with your team so being accountable is an overall organizational goal.
1. Goals are the first step in holding your team accountable. Setting clear goals that clearly describe what success will look like for each person will ensure that everyone is on the same page and knows what direction they are headed. This will also allow you to hand over weighted responsibilities and give you a measurement of progress and performance.
2. Train your team. Instead of doing all of the work yourself and hovering over them to see how the work is being done, invest your time in communicating from the beginning and be sure everyone is aware of the expectations. Check in on the progress, but only as a resource which continues to allow them to grow and stretch their accountability. Make it clear to your team to ask for more training if this is necessary for their success.
3. Provide feedback to help build trust and encouragement. Giving feedback and setting up a consistent time to have one on one conversations with each team member about their work and goals, keeps you focused on their results, but it also develops feedback and a dialogue that will set both you and your team to continue pursuing their goals. If your team member is not progressing as you know they should, talk about it. It might mean simple feedback or helping them to develop their skills or possibly it is a performance issue or we have tried to put a square peg into a round hole and this isn’t the right fit.
Creating an accountable culture delivers many business benefits: lower turnover, more creativity and overall a better work environment. In a successful business everyone is accountable for their goals that have been set. Great leadership ensures all teams and team members have goals to meet, and they will get out of the way of their team as they move forward to achieve their goals.
Accountability is taking responsibility for our actions. As a manager and leader it is import that we lead by example.
“Accountability breeds response-ability”
– Stephen Covey
