Are You The Biggest Obstacle In Driving Accountability in the Workplace?

We all want our employees, co-workers, or team members to embrace personal accountability in everything they do to make sure things get done. Why is it so hard to make it happen? Could it be you?


Driving A Culture of Accountability Starts at the Top 
You may be wondering why it seems that you cannot effect change as quickly and efficiently as you would like when you already are:

• A great strategist with a clear vision for the project or the business as a whole
• A clear communicator of what needs to be done and the role that each team member plays in the scheme of things
• A structured thinker that can break complex projects into easy to understand and logical task groupings
• A great supporter of empowering people to make sure things get things done
• An advocate of recognizing and rewarding performance
• A great evaluator of talent and leadership skills

Even when you have read about best practices and things like the ultimate guide to accountability in the workplace, and you have put all of these tenets into practice, you still wonder why is it that things are still not moving forward?  Why is the culture of the organization so hard to change?  Why do we revert to the old ways of doing things so quickly?

The Personal Effect

So let’s analyze the typical misconceptions and easy-to-miss root causes that prevent a culture of accountability in the workplace from taking hold.

1. Clarity

Surveys have shown that even in highly successful and empowered organizations, only around 50% of people believe that they understood the mission, the vision, and/or the overall strategy of the organization, let alone understand how what they do fits in.
Do you think you have succeeded in communicating these things to your employees, co-workers or team members? How often do you do it? Weekly, monthly? How do you do it? In person, at team meetings? Do you ask for their feedback to confirm their understanding and buy in?

2. Alignment

Have you asked yourself whether what is expected of the organization or the team is achievable with the resources they have and in the timeframe you demand? Are the team members passionate about what is being done beyond the idea of just receiving a paycheck? Is it challenging, rewarding, interesting, good, visionary, a step in the right direction?
Addressing all of these questions will help you embark on a journey with a team that is properly aligned with the task at hand.  If we do not have a truly committed team, how can we expect to have a High-Performance Organization (HPO) to make sure things get done, on time, as expected.

3. Obstacles

We should also take the time to identify and remove potential obstacles (e.g., policies, processes, partnerships, technologies, money, people) before we move forward with any new endeavor.

Recognizing Obstacles and a Little Introspection Helps Drive a Culture of Accountability
Why let an easily removable obstacle derail an effort where we have already successfully communicated where we are going, what we are doing, and where we already have a committed and aligned team to make it happen?
Clear the path from obvious and potentially fatal obstacles before starting.

4. Introspection

Now the hard part.  Make sure that you walk the talk now that you have taken all the preparatory steps to make a culture of accountability in the workplace develop and take hold.
Make sure that when a crisis hits, you are not the first one to revert back to the old ways of doing things:

• Step in and begin micromanaging
• Take over and eliminate empowerment
• Resolve things with anger, fear, or shame
• Fail to recognize contributions

Lead By Example

At the end of the day it is all about leadership. Developing a culture of accountability in the workplace requires steadfast, consistent, and relentless leadership. Without it, an organization’s culture will never change. Are you consistently exhibiting the leadership traits required to make the change happen? Are you walking the talk even when under pressure?
Using an accountability platform like CommandHound can also provide an invaluable level of consistency to help leaders drive accountability deep into the culture of any organization.
CommandHound is a task management platform that not only relentlessly tracks what needs to be done with reminders, escalation points, and monitoring, but it keeps track of actual performance at the individual and team levels to drive accountability.

Make Sure Things Are Getting Done at a Glance with CommandHound’s Dashboard
 
Would you like to learn more about how CommandHound drives accountability in the workplace and how it improves business performance as a result?