Workplace Accountability: Creating an Accountability Mindset

Leadership development is a big part of my work with organizations, and accountability always comes up. In the workplace, accountability can be seen in a negative light. If your manager were to say, ‘Hey, I want to talk to you about accountability,’ you wouldn’t likely be skipping down to their office.

Too often, accountability becomes a weapon we use against one another when our expectations are not met.

But accountability doesn’t need to be like that. In my TEDx talk, Why Accountability is Not a  Dirty Word, I share the different ways we can get accountability right to create connection and give meaning to our work.

At Lighthouse NINE Group, we’ve created an entire accountability toolkit to work through with teams, further demonstrating its importance and how it doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

What is Accountability?

Accountability is a commitment to a result. It’s a motivation you apply to yourself to get something done within a given timeframe. It’s also a mindset, skill set, and organizational system.

Accountability is often used alongside responsibility, but there’s a distinctive difference.

Responsibility is a motivation someone puts on you by communicating an expected action and attaching a consequence if the expectation is not met.

We choose to take on accountability, but responsibility is put onto us by someone else.

By defining accountability in this way, we begin to see its positive impact on work and how we can unlock its potential by improving accountability mindsets, skill sets, and organizational systems.   

Building an Accountability Mindset

I define accountability as something we put on ourselves. If we truly believe this, then as leaders, we need to model the positive accountability mindset we want to see and talk about the difference between accountability and responsibility.

Modeling positive accountability is how we grow a culture of accountability in our organization that promotes collaboration and compassion. We can model a positive accountability mindset when speaking to others in four ways:

1. Communicate the impact the work we assign has on the outcome, others and the world.

We need to give a reason for why someone would commit to a result (remember, this is how we define accountability).

Share directly why you are asking someone to do something and what it means for you, the company, and others.

Our accountability grows as we feel the positive impact of our work on others. Too often, we are given responsibility for something without knowing why it matters or who it affects and there is an expectation that we will be accountable for the end result.  More often than not, this ends in resistance and pushback.

This also applies to self-assigned tasks. When we see our work’s impact on others, we are motivated and inspired, and our work takes on meaning.

Accountability is how we assign meaning to our work and take pride in our results.

2. View accountability as the ultimate sign of respect

When we hold others accountable, we are demonstrating respect.  It shows that their contributions are important enough for us to discuss it with them and ensure they have what they need to complete it.

Holding others accountable in the workplace is actually supportive behaviour. It is for their benefit.

Just think about trying to pick up a new habit. We want our friends to come to us when we fall off the wagon, and they show us ‘tough love’ as a sign of respect and support.

To this end, after work is completed, we can celebrate its importance and positive impact on the team. Accountability doesn’t have to be reserved for when something goes wrong.

Be mindful that you communicate respect as you delegate tasks and discuss accountability.

3. Embrace a ‘We’ mentality

When accountability is only discussed after something has gone wrong, it can feel like ‘me against you,’ and we may lose the distinction between accountability and responsibility.

There are better approaches to accountability than this. We can model a better mindset by showing what is behind the work assigned and focusing on the team effort rather than just an individual’s contribution.

The role of accountability doesn’t just sit with the leader.  This is an enforcement mindset and often happens after things go wrong.   Instead, work collectively to define the ways in which we will hold ourselves accountable and how we will communicate when things change.

When we shift ‘me against you’ to ‘we work together,’ we can further develop a healthy accountability mindset for our team that spurs a two-way conversation to navigate difficult conversations and find better ways to work together.

4. Change the Approach to Failure

What happens when we fall short of our commitments?

When accountability is not done correctly, missing a commitment or deadline becomes a failure. This should not be the case, and it often happens because accountability is seen more as a responsibility than a collaborative process.

Missing a work deadline or falling short of a target shouldn’t be glossed over but an opportunity for growth and coming together. Accountability is the vehicle for helpful conversations in this opportunity to move forward together.

When a manager and employee have healthy accountability, missing a commitment creates a two-way conversation and a collaborative process for uncovering what happened and what should be done.

When we change our mindset and approach failure differently, we remove shame from the equation and turn potential conflict into productive conversations and growth.

If we are fearful of making a mistake, accountability doesn’t work.

A Culture of Accountability

These four strategies will be the beginning of thinking about accountability differently.  Instead of being a ‘bad word’, it will be something your teams will want to embrace.  A mindset where accountability, compassion and respect go hand in hand.

If you’re looking to work on your organization’s approach to accountability, at Lighthouse NINE Group, we offer in-depth training supported by a comprehensive toolkit.

Reach out, connect with me on LinkedIn, and let’s empower one another to be our best through good workplace accountability.

Christi Scarrow

Christi Scarrow serves as Managing Partner at Lighthouse NINE Group and leads the firm’s Insights & Organizational Accountability practice. She also supports clients in the areas of Strategy, Sales & Supply Chain Effectiveness, Leadership Development and High Performing Teams. She draws on over 20 years of leadership experience in market research, business analytics, and sales.Christi works with organizations to help them create a culture of accountability and insight-based decision making. Her work and her book, Truth Warriors, helps individuals, teams and organizations to understand how they currently make decisions in order to build systems, processes and individual action plans to close the gaps between their current and desired state.For Christi, analytics is a means to achieving the desired change for clients, and she excels at turning multiple sources of information into meaningful, clear recommendations. She is a skilled facilitator, both in person and virtually. She works with retailers, manufacturers and professional services in both the corporate and not-for-profit sector.Christi and her Lighthouse NINE colleagues understand the importance of providing client-focused solutions. Christi achieves this by developing an in-depth fact driven understanding of the unique challenges and priorities of each client. She is known for being an innovative problem solver with a drive for action that achieves lasting results.

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