Build your character with personal accountability

By Darren Finkelstein
By Darren Finkelstein

The Accountability Guy®

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Each employee contributes equally when it comes to being accountable for their actions and work and resulting in a good performance. But when it comes to building a good environment in the office, then we are talking about having a good character at work. So, first, let’s understand what personal accountability is and how it can help anyone build character.

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HOW ACCOUNTABLE ARE YOU?

Discover your Accountability Score and increase the probability of smashing your GOALS and Getting Sh!t Done!

What is personal accountability?

Personal accountability is someone willing to accept the consequences resulting from their actions, choices, and behaviors. So if someone is personally accountable, that means that person will be able to think analytically, give solutions, and then predict what repercussions there could be.

That will make your leaders or subordinates believe in you that you are trustworthy, dependable, and willing to take ownership if anything fails. Not only that, how you behave with your colleagues and juniors also shows how responsible you are towards a healthy environment.

How can we build a good character with personal accountability?

Here are a few steps on how we can build a good character with personal accountability.

Be Honest With Everyone

Being honest with everyone around you is one of the first characteristics that one could adopt at work. When you have honest reviews for your colleagues and people working for you, then you can help them improve and make them understand where they need to work more. This way, people will come back to you for more advice and opinions as they will know that you are there to help them.

Understand Your Role

Decision-making is one of the characteristics of personal accountability, as you can understand the crucial nature and then take ownership if the outcome of it is not favorable. You have to understand your role in your team and how important it is to understand your tasks and responsibilities clearly.

Don't Blame Others

Do not blame others for something that is completely your misjudgement. You should be able to take ownership of your mistakes and miscalculated decisions. This will make you a good leader for your team. Your juniors will look up to you as good leaders, and they will also learn from you.

Be Quick To Apologize

If you have understood that you have done something wrong, then immediately plan for rectification and apologize if required. If you learn to apologize for your own mistakes, then you will be able to learn from them and hence not repeat them in the future. People around you will learn to respect and trust you even more.

Know Your Limits

Understand your limits, like where you have to say no, what the timeline is expected of you, how far you can go in your decision making, and others. Once you understand your boundaries, you will be able to make your team understand how to deliver results and when to deliver them.

Be Open to Change

Change is always good, as you can learn more and it can be more challenging for you. It can open more boundaries for you to explore. So be prepared for the changes that come in front of you, along with the feedback that has been provided to you. As you receive more feedback, whether positive or negative, it allows you to improve and learn more about the scope of work.

Outcome Driven

Whether you are a manager or an executive, it is very important that you clearly understand what outcomes are expected of you. Once you understand what the goals are that you are working for, then you will be able to work in the right direction. That will keep you committed to the task that is in front of you.

Be a Better Team Player

When you work for any organization, you have to understand that all the employees work together towards one goal: the success of the organization. Whether you are a hotel porter or a hotel general manager, both work towards the same goal: customer satisfaction and increased revenue. So you have to understand that all the employees are working in one team. As a team, we all have to achieve the target. So you have to be respectful, faithful, and responsible towards other members of your team. So they can believe that you are working with them as a team and not alone.

Concluding Thoughts

As a good human being, you have to understand the core values of personal accountability. Once you adhere to these core values, you will see that people around you respect, understand, have faith in, and consider you responsible as well. They will believe that you are honest in giving them the right feedback about their behavior or their work.

Many people will look up to you and come to you for good advice for better performance. Once you build trust, managers will come to you to complete more tasks because they will believe that you are more responsible and dependable to manage work and get good results. Once you become a good team player, then your organization will deliver better results overall.

Personal accountability will bring out the best in you at work.

Accountability quick images
HOW ACCOUNTABLE ARE YOU?

Discover your Accountability Score and increase the probability of smashing your GOALS and Getting Sh!t Done!

False Sense of Security

Unless you’re desperate or have been backed into a corner due to your financial situation, there is a sense of security that lingers around. You always feel like you’ve tomorrow to do the rest, and it’s not like if you don’t get it done today, you won’t have food on your table.

This sense of ‘I’ve a lot of time’ and ‘I can do it whenever I want’ never lets you lift your business off the ground. It keeps you interested enough, but you never get to define a course of action to achieve those dreams. There’s always a tomorrow, right?

Distractions All Around

While we’re living in a world of ultimate convenience, it also has its downsides. You always have something to do – from posting useless posts on social media to watching videos on YouTube. Sometimes, it’s not the digital world but your social life that gets in the way. Your startup office turns into a party spot.

If you’re not going out of the way to keep yourself away from distractions, chances are you won’t be able to get anything done. There will always be something you would want to do more, and that false sense of security of having ‘tomorrow’ will lure you in.

Psychological Barriers

This is a challenge that takes many shapes. Sometimes, you believe you’re not good enough for what you’ve started. You begin to think that you won’t ever be able to achieve your dreams, which starts to affect your ability to work.

On the other hand, some people are too perfectionist to delegate. They don’t get that sense of ultimate satisfaction until they’ve done everything by themselves. Consequently, they get caught up in too much work, which again means delays, declining quality of work or worse, a total burnout.

Poor Resource & Time Management

You’d be surprised to learn how bad people can be at managing their funds and time. Sometimes they haven’t sold a single unit, but they’re almost out of their working capital because they spent it all on international patents. Similarly, many times they keep pursuing objectives that add little to no value to their businesses.

Managing your resources as well as time is a skill not everyone has. One of the reasons why many people fail to get things done, at least the ones that matter.

No One Cares

Often times, people who have started a business don’t have anyone around who cares about what they achieve. Deadlines fly past by them, and the sky doesn’t fall. There’s no one to answer to. Who cares? That is a frame of mind that holds progress back and gets in the way of getting things done.

How to Counter These Issues?

For starters, you need to change your perspective. When you’re in business, time is money. You may think that you can get something done tomorrow, but the time you’ve wasted is the time you’ve given your competitor to win an edge over you. And in the period of a few months, that edge soon turns into your competition being miles ahead of you.

You are literally losing money when you’re getting nothing done. If you’re serious about your business and want to be a high performance entrepreneur, you need to change that. Not tomorrow. Not the next hour. Right now.

If you’re struggling with all these issues and your business isn’t doing well, you need an accountability partner. That’s yours truly, Darren Finkelstein. Here’s what I can help you with:

Selling More & Earning More – Accountability will help you create opportunities, and opportunities are where you make money.

Improving Efficiency – It will also help you get more things done in less time, enhancing the overall productivity of your business.

Creating Accountability Culture – You will start to lead by example when it comes to being accountable and delivering on your promise.

Learning to multi-task – Accountability will save you enough time and resources to handle multiple tasks on a daily basis.

Conclusion

There is a multitude of reasons that can hold you back from delivering your hundred percent. Some of it is your own fault, some of it is external factors. That’s why you need a professional with years of experience to come in and conjure up a plan for you. Someone you will be answerable to – not as a punishment – but to create a sense of accountability that comes from within. It’s for your own good!