Do you know the essential ingredient for high performing teams? Accountability. Without it, things stand still or fall apart. Accountable teams make stuff happen.
With accountability at the core of your workplace culture, your team will be more productive, proactive and, ultimately, successful. When people are accountable, they take responsibility for their actions. They do what they need to do. It’s a key component in building trust and achieving goals.
A Gallup study revealed that only 50% of employees have been set clear expectations for their work. If you don’t know what’s expected of you, how can you achieve it or be held accountable for it? How would your team members answer that question?
In this blog, we’ll explain how to create a culture of accountability, why it matters and how to spot a lack of accountability in the workplace.
What is a Culture of Accountability?
When you have workplace accountability, all employees take responsibility for their actions, behaviours, performance and decisions. Leaders empower their team members to take on problem-solving, decision-making and task management. When managers trust their employees to do their work, there’s no need for micromanaging.
Personal accountability – individuals feel a sense of ownership and responsibility towards their work
Organisational accountability – collaboration and teamwork are vital for achieving both team goals and wider company goals
Peer-to-peer accountability – accountability doesn’t just come from the top down. With an organisational culture of accountability between team members, there’s a shared responsibility and increased empathy between employees.
What Happens When There’s a Lack of Accountability at Work?
I often talk to my clients about this, and I refer to The Point of Power. In this example, high performing teams or individuals are above the point of power and low performers are below.
The low performers have a victim mentality and display behaviours like blame, excuse and denial. They’ll find reasons why it’s not their fault, finger pointing at others. They ignore situations and bury their head in the sand. Their work doesn’t progress. They’re not accountable.
With this lack of accountability comes:
- Low team morale
- Lack of focus
- Decreased employee engagement
- Unmet individual and team goals
- Low levels of trust
On the flip side, successful people and teams display ownership, accountability and responsibility. The accountability and sense of ownership leads to passionate involvement, diligence and care. These accountable employees will be your high performers. The ones who put in the hard work to get tasks done on time and strive to reach their full potential.
What are Some Best Practices for Building a Culture of Accountability?
Whether you’re looking to fix a lack of accountability or are building accountability into your company culture, it starts from the outset.
Hire the right people: take on employees who understand accountability is important. In interviews, ask questions to find employees who are willing to admit mistakes and solve problems. It’s important they’ll fit into your accountable work environment.
Clarity when onboarding: share clear expectations and make sure new hires are aware of the company values from the outset.
Peer to peer accountability: involve all team members in the accountability culture, not just managers and employees. Make sure that individuals feel comfortable with others in the business holding them to account.
7 Ways to Create a Culture of Accountability
1. Lead by Example
As a leader, you need to role model the behaviours you want your employees to display. If you turn up late to meetings, they’ll think that’s fine. If you don’t take responsibility for your mistakes or decision-making, why should they?
2. Define Clear Expectations
Be very clear and specific about what you want teams and individuals to do and achieve. Setting goals is an essential part of creating a culture of accountability in your business. Set goals for every person – as well as team goals – giving them KPIs to achieve by key milestones.
3. Monitor Progress
After goal setting, don’t just forget about it until the next performance review meeting. It’s important to monitor progress towards goals with regular check-ins. Check metrics and analyse data to track performance. But also, chat to your employees about their progress and experience. Goals aren’t set in stone and may need to be adjusted along the way.
4. Provide Constructive Feedback
Giving your team and direct reports regular feedback is so important. Sometimes, you’ll need to deliver tough feedback or pull someone up for their behaviour. If you have frequent, open communication with your team members, it’s easier to have the more difficult conversations.
5. Make a Two-way Dialogue
As a business coach, I’m hired to hold people to account, but I also ask them to hold me to account. It works both ways. Having open communication and sharing experiences helps to build trust in relationships.
It’s important to encourage team members to give you feedback, as well as you providing it to them. They need to feel that they’re in a safe space where they can share honest, open thoughts. Gathering employee feedback can open your eyes to possible problems, help you to think differently or alert you to people and achievements that should be celebrated.
6. Keep to Commitments
Don’t say that you’ll do something if you’re not going to do it. Hold yourself to account. If you promise someone regular check in meetings, book them in. If you lift spirits in a team meeting by suggesting a reward or social event, make sure you follow through and make it happen. You want your team members to be accountable for their responsibilities, so you have to role model that behaviour too.
7. Show Leadership
As a leader, it’s important to convey the company vision clearly and get buy in from your employees. You need to motivate them to get engaged and work hard to achieve set goals. By making employees accountable, you show that you value and trust them. That’s a great motivator and promotes a positive work environment.
Accountability starts at the top. Your teams look to you for answers and advice. Continuous leadership development and skills updates are vital to enhance your performance.
Does Your Workplace Have a Good Culture of Accountability?
Has this made you think about your own workplace culture?
To create a culture of accountability, you need clear expectations and goal setting, open lines of communication and strong leadership. Once you trust people to complete necessary tasks, to show up daily and to work hard to achieve business goals, you can focus on your role more. A successful business is down to teamwork, and teams work better when everyone trusts each other.
I’ve been holding business leaders and managers to account for over 25 years. I can help to keep you on track too. Let’s talk
