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Fostering Accountability In The Workplace

By Darren Finkelstein
By Darren Finkelstein

The Accountability Guy®

Fostering Accountability In The Workplace

Lack of accountability at work may be fatal for businesses, especially those who are experiencing rapid expansion and are focusing on retaining and engaging their workforce.

Being able to trust your staff to do their best work is a solid definition of an ownership culture or culture of accountability. In this case, encouraging accountability and ownership in the workplace is crucial and ingrained in day-to-day work life. There are various strategies to promote accountability at work, beginning with the onboarding of new employees.

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Set Clear Expectations

It’s crucial to be very specific about what you expect from your staff and why before communicating your expectations for accountability, responsibility, and ownership to them.

Giving workplace ownership examples that serve as a sort of FAQ for your existing accountability standards and eventual objectives is also beneficial.

You should involve many stakeholders in the process of improving and formalizing your efforts because these accountability expectations are (or will become) standards.

Employees experience less stress when they are aware of the goals of the firm and the standards to which they are held accountable.

Setting a goal to be accountable, such as “raise sales from previous year,” could be too broad an ownership competency example when giving context to taking personal accountability at work and clear examples.

Show Leadership

To continue fostering an accountability-oriented workplace culture, be sure to demonstrate leadership. Setting a good example for your team members can encourage them to adopt constructive conduct. Gaining leadership experience, reading leadership-related publications, and attending leadership classes are all ways to build your leadership skills. Leadership consists of:

  • Being a great example for others in the workplace
  • Effective and frequent employee communication
  • Having several methods of staff motivation
  • Making an effort to develop your leadership skills and learn new things

Hire Accountable People

While it’s important to concentrate on making your current team more accountable, we shouldn’t overlook the significance of choosing accountable employees. As we previously said, accountability spreads, thus adding more accountable colleagues will also benefit current ones.

Ask the candidate throughout the interview how much responsibility they accept for past errors. Inquire about a project that failed in your previous employer’s presence. as well as “What have you learned from your biggest workplace error?” If the candidate tries to gloss over their response, blame someone else for their mistake, or arrogantly dodges the subject, press the issue further. Accountable individuals provide open answers to these queries.

You can also inquire about this while interviewing for leadership positions: “Have you ever accepted responsibility for someone else’s error at work?” Owning their team’s errors is a trait of responsible leaders.

Be Accountable To Other People

Leaders in an accountable culture don’t merely hold workers responsible for their performance. Everyone is responsible for everyone else! Each employee is accountable for the overall success of the company, not simply for their own individual accomplishments. Once more, leaders can serve as role models, provide knowledge, and support this ownership mentality.

Esure Results And Efforts Are Consistent With Each Other

We previously talked about building a safety net within your team to prevent employees from being punished for owning up to their errors. Some groups interpret this to suggest that people shouldn’t suffer the repercussions of their mistakes. That is untrue.

It’s inappropriate to penalise someone for acknowledging their errors. However, how they grow from them should be considered when evaluating them. Otherwise, building responsibility is a fruitless endeavor.

Analyze How Effective Your People Are

To determine your level of success, look back at how you handled the situation. Make sure you have the appropriate strategies in place if you want to succeed over the long run. It’s a terrific technique to hold you responsible as well.

Recognizing your mistakes is one approach to hold oneself accountable. You may inspire confidence in your leadership by outlining what went wrong and how you fixed it.

Be Compassionate

And finally, even though frequently holding people accountable entails holding them accountable, you shouldn’t burn them in the process.

The Covid-19 pandemic has put everyone through extreme strain and strain, but it has also frequently resulted in a workplace that is more caring and understanding. By discussing the difficulties of a project with them, assisting them in appreciating how they have evolved as a result, and underlining that you are always ready to assist them, you may sustain that environment.

The Takeaway

Overall, encouraging an accountable culture within your team will not only increase productivity and employee morale, but it will also provide your team the autonomy and sense of responsibility they require to succeed. Changes need to be made if you believe your team lacks accountability.