Accountability is a Two-Way Street
Leaders tend to talk about accountability only in vague terms. They only look at the person they want to be accountable, only rarely at themselves and what their contributions have been. We argue that accountability starts with you as the leader. You can't hold other people accountable when you haven't set them up for success.
A client recently asked me how they can get someone on their team to take more ownership. It’s clearly defined as one of the guiding principles, but the person hasn't been living up to them. Feedback has so far yielded zero changes, only excuses and deflections. That’s a common situation, especially for folks who are new to management. How do you get them to own their part of the organization? How do you get them to be accountable for what they own?
The problem with ownership is that it’s just the word, just like accountability. At work, they tend to show up as a pair. You can’t have one without the other. Words can mean different things to different people. The vaguer the language, the harder it is for folks to live up to whatever expectations the word is imbued with. Business lingo on its own is never helpful, neither are values that lack meaning.
It’s not wrong, of course, to expect someone to take ownership. But the questions to ask as a leader are:
- Do they know what ownership means in practice, i.e., what I expect from them?
- Are they skilled and capable enough to fulfill these expectations?
- Have I done enough to set them up for success?
The problem with ownership and accountability is that both are pointed towards someone else. That person needs to show ownership. They need to be accountable. Reflection rarely happens on the part of the person who’s expecting things from the other person. What instead comes up are frustration and impatience.
Someone who has been in a managerial role for only a couple of months, with no prior management experience, can rarely live up to every expectation of the role. It’s likely they’ve been an individual contributor before, having picked up what they perceive as the way of working along the way. They’ve built up protective barriers over time. They may trust or distrust upper management, wanting to either protect their team, or prefer to be fully hands-off. In short, any expectation for them to change and adjust to their new role quickly is shortsighted. Here’s your new role, own it, be accountable, thank you, moving on.
It’s easy to be frustrated when these things don’t materialize. It’s hard to reflect on whether you’ve set them up for success. It’s easy to conclude they’re not the right person for the job. It’s difficult to look inwards and admit that there’s only one person who put them there: yourself. You’re accountable for their issues. It’s your job to help them do it well.
The argument against that comes easily: “We’re a startup, so we need to move quickly.” Or “I don’t have the time.” Just like the person you’re frustrated with has excuses and reasons for why they’re not doing the thing you want them to, so do you.
Management isn’t a rush job. People don’t just learn things on the spot, especially when it comes to the work of interacting with, coordinating, and communicating with other people. When you put someone into a new role that they’ve no experience with, any expectations for instant success are a pipe dream.
When clients talk to me about accountability, they’re often frustrated with someone who isn’t living up to expectations. I invite them to take a moment to reflect. It starts with the three questions above that help them face reality and their own contributions to the situation. That’s challenging but also freeing. It creates a space to talk about what needs to happen now.
First, now’s the time to reset expectations. If there’s feedback you haven’t yet given to the person, do that as well, but make sure it’s fair and acknowledges your own contributions to how things got here. Spelling out expectations may feel like you’re micromanaging them, but it is really all about setting them up for success. Having them spelled out clearly also gives them a chance to opt out. Someone who’s been promoted into a manager role and who now sees the role mapped out in full glory for the first time may also realize that it just isn’t for them.
As both of you commit to these expectations, also discuss what support they might need and what you can provide. That also includes continuous feedback throughout rather than only when performance review season comes around. Frustrations only grow when feedback isn’t timely.
You should either take the time to get them up to speed on work and responsibilities they’re not familiar with or give them a budget to hire someone to help them (could be us). They need to feel supported. When they don’t, defensive barriers will continue to go up, frustrating you and them.
Ownership and accountability are often used as umbrella terms that push all responsibility elsewhere. The challenge of being a leader is accepting and acknowledging that that responsibility actually lies with you. You hired them, you promoted them, you set them up with a job they’re not familiar with. Now you need to help them be successful. And if they’re not successful, at least leave them knowing they had every chance and all the support they needed to succeed. In the end, the work may simply not have been right for them.
Now go listen to our latest podcast episode where we talk more about accountability and what it’s really like in practice.
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