Phony and Genuine Accountability

There’s a lot of talk about accountability in organizations, but precious little of actual accountability.

What we normally see is a statement like, “You’re accountable,” and then actions by leaders that diminish that comment. These actions include micromanaging, randomly inserting ourselves into the middle of decision-making processes, creating overlapping or parallel accountabilities for the same things, and requiring multiple reviews along with approvals from above. The result is a sense of disempowerment, which leads to making excuses and pointing the finger at others.

To be meaningful, accountability has to be tightly defined. We need to provide the authority and resources to pull it off. Then, as much as possible, we need to get out of the way and stay out of the way until we reach a key milestone, deadline, or commitment date. People have to know, “This is my baby and there’s no place to hide if things go wrong. I’d better focus, work hard, be tenacious, ask for what I need to accomplish the work, get help with problems as necessary, and deliver the goods.”

Accountability is a great concept, but it’s just words unless we make it real in the conversations, actions, and decisions of those who are…really accountable.