How Do You Show Accountability in a Business?

Picture of By Darren Finkelstein
By Darren Finkelstein

The Accountability Guy®

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How do you know that your business is headed in the right direction and doing what it needs to do? This is a critical question for every concerned business leader. The answer is gauging accountability in your workplace and how successful you are in implementing it. 

There are various ways to achieve accountability, such as setting goals, tracking progress, providing feedback, and more, so your employees feel responsible. Let’s discuss how to demonstrate financial accountability in the workplace and help your business reach its true potential.

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Table of Contents

Taking Responsibility

The baseline of financial accountability is taking ownership of your work and fulfilling your responsibilities. You must go the extra mile to ensure the assigned tasks are completed on time and follow the correct protocols and standards. However, taking responsibility doesn’t just mean starting a task and ending it after a certain period – it’s a complex process that involves the following steps:

  • Anticipating potential roadblocks
  • Proactively seeking solutions 
  • Deliver results that meet or exceed expectations

For instance, if you’ve been asked to craft a sales report, your job isn’t just compiling data. You must also analyse trends, identify areas of improvement, and provide valuable insights for strategic decision-making.

Following Through on Commitments

Trust is at the core of any business relationship. When assigned a task, following through and ensuring completion depicts reliability and financial accountability. Usually, it involves the following:

  • Meeting deadlines
  • Keeping stakeholders informed about the progress 
  • Explaining delays 
  • Delivering on your promises

For example, if you are a business leader who heads meetings, it’s critical to come prepared, facilitate a productive discussion, agree on some action points, and follow them afterwards.

Communicating Effectively

Open and honest communication is an indispensable part of financial accountability. When completing a project, it’s crucial to share updates on the progress and candidly express the hurdles you’re facing. It shows that you’re actively working on a problem and actually want to resolve it. 

Similarly, it’s important to prevent problems from escalating. Whenever you encounter a roadblock, discussing it with your team and collaborating on solutions is crucial. It builds credibility among your team and shows you’re committed to the best possible outcomes for the organisation.

Learning from Mistakes

Making mistakes is part of complex corporate tasks; how you respond to them matters. Owning mistakes, admitting shortcomings, and actively seeking to improve your approach signals a commitment to financial accountability. However, it doesn’t mean uselessly dwelling on the error with remorse: it involves analysing the overall situation, what went wrong, and implementing solutions that ensure a similar situation doesn’t occur again. 

For example, you missed a crucial detail in the last executive meeting. The right thing to do is acknowledge your mistake, identify the missed information, and ensure it doesn’t happen again.

Taking Feedback

A true leader is actually a successful collaborator who is receptive to feedback. For instance, an employee might suggest changes to your current marketing strategy to improve your outreach. If you’re an accountable and receptive leader, you’ll listen to it patiently, try to understand it, and then determine whether it can benefit your organisation. 

Business leaders who don’t tolerate feedback neither benefit their careers nor the organisation. That’s because they never have an outsider’s perspective of where they could be wrong. As a result, they’re unlikely to improve and build upon constructive feedback.

Abiding By the Procedures

Every company is bound by specific external laws and regulations to ensure everyone follows ethical business practices. Similarly, internal controls and procedures are equally crucial for maintaining a productive and conducive work environment. An accountable workforce follows all the laws, regulations, and policies that apply to their trade. 

For instance, your company might have to follow environmental or data privacy regulations like the GDPR. Therefore, every employee should abide by the laws and regulations to ensure the organisation has no legal or financial consequences.

Showing Financial Accountability - An Overview

Aspect 

Description 

Taking Responsibility 

You take responsibility for your decisions and complete your tasks on time without sacrificing quality. 

Fulfilling Commitments 

You follow through with your commitments and keep all the stakeholders informed while completing a task. 

Communicating Effectively 

You’re an honest communicator who discusses their hurdles with the team to overcome them.  

Learning from Mistakes

You learn from your mistakes by analysing what went wrong and doing things differently. 

Taking Feedback 

You’re open to honest feedback from the team to improve your understanding. 

Abiding By the Procedures 

You follow all the laws and regulations governing your company and the assigned tasks. 

Conclusion

While financial accountability is undoubtedly critical, you must also focus on showing it correctly. Certain actions, such as listening to honest feedback, learning from mistakes, taking responsibility, and more, depict your commitment to accountability. 

That’s only possible when you have quality accountability training from a capable mentor. I’ll provide industry-leading accountability training to help you navigate the modern workplace and economy like never before. As a business leader, it’s your job to ensure financial accountability in your workplace, and I’ll make sure you understand the ins and outs of it. 

So, contact me, and let us get to work right away.