Why I am not taking Accountability?

When a high-performance team falls back to the normal team?

Accountability is the issue! If you can't find a way to get people to be accountable, you're going to find it hard to make anything else work, let alone your business. Robert Lebow; Randy Spitzer, Accountability

One of the pivotal issues I have noticed which are stopping the team to become High-Performance team is, about accountability from each team member.

I am finding leaders are screaming every issue because team members are thinking like silos, not owing end to end deliverables, criticizing each other, finding fault from each other, etc

Accountability is a statement of personal promise, both to yourself and to the people around you, to deliver specific defined results. Brian Dive, The Accountable Leader

Lack of accountability is absolutely contagious!

When we encounter our team members are not taking up ownership, our mind like viruses get infected with the same thought.

It spread like wildfire! Except for a few high energy passionate individuals, rest all to start defaulting in ownership.

When we are accountable, we take ownership of situations that we are committed in. We see them through, and we accept responsibility for what happens–good or bad. We don’t blame others if matters go awry. Instead, we do our finest to make things right.

When did Leaders fear to empower team?

When they think that team can not fulfill the deliverables which have an immense consequence in the outcome.

The moment leader realizes that team is owning and taking end to end accountability of the aftermath, leaders will slowly empower the team members. Else Control and Micromanagement!! Be content with this if you can not modify your ways of taking ownership!

When individuals don’t accept accountability and things commence going awry, as they don’t feel ownership they move into spectator mode and observe as things fail.

Whereas when individuals take ownership, if things start to go wrong, then they step into solution mode. They commence to try and figure out what’s going wrong, investigate and fix it.

Behavioral change expert, Peter Bregman, presents it effectively in his HBR article on accountability: “Accountability is not simply taking the blame when something goes wrong. It’s not a confession. Accountability is about delivering on a commitment. It’s the responsibility to an outcome, not just a set of tasks. It’s taking initiative with a thoughtful, strategic follow-through.”

Why Team is not taking accountability? How can we enhance the same?

A team’s success depends upon accountability.

It is a leader’s responsibility for designing a culture of accountability on the team. All the team members require to inspire for a common purpose and big vision. Team members require to be hooked into the common mission.

As a Leader, we have to assign accountability to the team members. They need to know that if something happens to the end result, they have to take end to end ownership.

As Leader, we require to be clear about what we are expecting. Team members are not taking accountability because they do not know what is expected of them. There could be a possibility that they do not know what to be done, as they are not competent to perform the same. Leaders need to be a mentor for them to ensure there will be assistance, but deliverable need to show up and all of us are responsible for the consequences. It is not to blame some, but to strengthen the ownership of the given assignment.

As a Leader, we need to ensure, if team members are not over-committed something. When we have too many things to be done, we occasionally can not express, but we stop taking accountability for some of the items. It is fundamental that we speak out and convey what will be the consequence to the team and leaders.

When leaders provide feedback, team accountability improves. Every team members need to express and take the feedback positively about what best can be done. Once team members know where they stand against the set expectations and leaders have given them actionable tasks to work on, it is easy for them to see a clear path for development and success.

Leaders when they establish control culture and micromanage, it generates a fearful culture. In the fearful environment, team members always serve for short-term gain. Their mind does not look for long term commitment, as they do not own the end result from their heart. As a leader, we need to create a fear-free long-term goal. No blame for any mistake, inspire, and encourage team members.

As a leader, we need to convey performance improvement points. No blame on individuals but analyze the performance gaps and what could be the steps to improvement. As a leader, we should not tolerate the poor performance and need to deal with structurally how to overcome those competency issues. Team members will feel more accountable as they are growing and will own the end to end outcomes. Understand the challenges employees are undergoing and try to coach them.

Teams keep leaders accountable for the goal. Individuals connected to no one can change the goal without accountability. John C. Maxwell, The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork Workbook

In the VUCA world, things will not be very clear. All together, we need to have a mindset where we are figuring out and ensuring we do our best. This should demonstrate in our deliverables that we tried our 100% and we own the consequence.

I have visited many places in India. Every year we managed to travel to a different place to stay at. One of the stories which distinctly appear in my mind where I could discover the accountably of an individual was 100%. We were in Aurangabad to visit Ajanta and Ellora caves. The day I have booked the hotel, since day one, the individual ensures, everything goes smoothly. He ensures we get the finest room. The car he arranged, the driver we got, the places we visited, the foods and other activities that we did in Aurganbad was perfect. I have lost my sandals in Ajanta! the driver took us to the city and assure; we purchase my required sandal as well, other than sandal any other things also without any irritation. The end to end journey with very minimal affordable cost, the individual demonstrated the greatest level of accountability from his side. As a tourist, I felt wow commitment from that individual, which I yet to find another person like this. Complete end to end integrated service he has arranged for us.

I do see that when we are all accountable for what we are doing, things will start changing at the team level, we all need to look for this and remind each other, is there a possibility to improve the accountability whatever state we are in today?