Rob Lancit, VP of Franchise Development at Stratus Building Solutions, is a seasoned entrepreneur with 30 years of franchising expertise.
It’s time to put a permanent end to our “blame game” culture.
When you undertake a new sport, try to master a certain skill or pick up a different hobby, success never comes overnight. It takes patience and requires learning, training, repetition and consistency to become proficient. It’s common to enlist the help and support of others during this time—especially those with prior experience and expertise who can help guide and coach you along the way.
When you respond to this kind of assistance and demonstrate your effort at improvement, you’re holding yourself accountable. Whether your progress is for personal or professional reasons, accountability is what helps you reach your stated goals.
It works the same in business. While trust is the foundational pillar of interpersonal relationships, accountability is the mechanism that reinforces it. Today’s executive leaders must understand the value of building trust among their employees, which can only occur if they demonstrate a commitment to being held accountable for their own actions, decisions and outcomes.
It works the same internally as well as externally—leaders need to hold themselves accountable by setting clear goals, being as transparent as possible in the decision-making process, seeking continual feedback and owning up to mistakes when they’re made. And when workforces and individual employees understand what’s expected of them, they too can be held accountable by management in the assessment of their performance and successes.
Upholding True Accountability
For both leaders and employees to buy into the accountability factor, there must be an open environment of communication where feedback and constructive criticism flow both ways. Just the same, when goals are achieved, success must be celebrated. When goals aren’t met, both sides must openly address the issues that prevented success in an honest, consistent and constructive way.
The majority of executive leaders in corporate America want accountability in their teams. The drive to build, nurture and maintain high-performing teams creates stronger trust and establishes a culture of continuous improvement. But only by holding one another accountable can both sides achieve these desirable results, while also reducing ambiguity, improving execution and fostering better business outcomes.
If there is a lack of accountability in your organization, it’s an issue that should be addressed openly and honestly. Both executive leaders and the workforces they manage need to work together to make accountability a priority.
One of the best ways to improve this situation is to embed accountability into your core values and mission statement. Everyone must be given the equal opportunity to take ownership of their own roles and responsibilities within the company, which can best be achieved by aligning incentives with individual performance—from the top down.
Creating this type of corporate environment is about modeling the behaviors expected from others. In such a culture, accountability means taking equal ownership of wins and losses and being willing to answer for either outcome.
Authentic accountability is the perfect case study of leading by example. When leaders are vulnerable and relatable enough to evaluate their own quality and performance in an open and transparent way, employees can feel safe to do the same. This core value can be a catalyst for strengthening the bonds within an organization, building trust, support and ultimately, self-confidence and improvement.
Creating a solid feedback loop, where individuals are encouraged to be open and honest about their performance, is an advisable starting point. Internal surveys can go a long way in providing insight on where employees feel more accountability is needed—as well as where it’s most impactful. Collaborative exercises such as these and others can have a powerful and lasting effect on both personal and professional development.
Be Ready To Take Accountability
Ultimately, accountability equates to responsibility. The high-stakes world of business today is not for the faint of heart. It’s a hyper-competitive arena where every employee wants—and expects—the opportunity to learn, grow and advance. But without accountability, progress can never be truly guaranteed. Blaming others for our failures has always been an easy way out, but never a winning strategy in the long run.
Accountability matters and is a crucial part of the corporate equation that demands our attention. There’s a reason President Harry S. Truman had the phrase “The Buck Stops Here” engraved on an outward-facing sign that sat right on his desk in the Oval Office.
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