Posted on: 12/01/2023
Accountability is an essential part of any successful organization. It plays a vital role in developing and maintaining healthy team relationships. It helps in bringing transparency and clarity to work. The individuals are dedicated and goal-oriented. The employees are empowered to make the right decisions at the right time, and it also helps groom them with proactive behavior. We all know about accountability, but what if accountability is not practiced in the workplace? What if the employees are not taught about accountability? Or does the leadership think that accountability is optional in the workplace? Then, what will happen? Have you ever wondered? So, today we will discuss this scenario and what will happen if there is a lack of accountability at the workplace.
It is easy to teach but challenging to practice accountability at work. Especially if the leadership team doesn’t practice it, how should the managers train their employees about responsibility? So, let’s look at the six pitfalls of lack of accountability.
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The most significant impact you will notice with a lack of accountability is a lack of confidence in each other as a team members. Accountability encourages employee engagement and builds stronger relationships based on trust and respect for each other. So, employees will not learn to trust each other without accountable behavior at work. They will not learn to respect each other.
As they are not able to trust each other. Respect each other’s differences. Therefore the employees will be more involved in playing blame games and encourage a hostile and political environment at work. If they get busy playing the blame game, they will not remain focused on the assignment they have to complete. The managers will not teach their staff how to be focused; instead, they will be busy pulling another manager down. They will not learn to stand up for their failures but impose their losses on others.
As mentioned above, in case of failures or inability to meet the goals, the responsible employee will run away from taking ownership. He will instead keep blaming the factor or other people who made him fail. This way, the employee will not learn from his mistakes, instead will keep running away from his failures, resulting in the company’s overall failure.
As employees will not learn from their mistakes, and managers will not know how to handle the situation, this would result in more arguments and a hostile environment at the workplace. As the employees would continue to blame each other and create more negativity in the team, this would result in low commitment at work and less understanding among team members. Then employees would not feel happy and would like to switch jobs often.
Management wouldn’t demonstrate responsible behavior. The managers would boss others around, would not be open to listening to any new ideas, and would often shout when it would come to showing results and others. Therefore, the managers would not set good examples for the employees to learn. This situation would lead lack of leadership and transparency from the leadership team. The managers wouldn’t be able to groom future managers efficiently.
Leaders must demonstrate accountable behavior to feel responsible for working towards employee development or grooming them better in their roles. Employees look for job satisfaction and growth in their roles as they remain committed to their job roles. As the leadership won’t feel responsible for giving good clarity towards the job and expectation and growth, the employee would feel stuck in their roles and not get the proper training to develop and learn at work.
Most importantly, the employee’s commitment and dedication to perform at his best would be affected if the proper accountable behavior is not demonstrated. The employee would not gain any opportunity to improve or learn in the current role, due to which he would feel stuck and wouldn’t grow to the next level. The manager himself would handle insecurity, so he would not work on grooming his staff for future roles because his employees would not gain trust in their managers. As the employees would not build a more robust and better relationship with their managers and peers, the project and its success would be impacted deeply. The managers would save time-solving blame games instead of generating new ideas and projects. A lack of accountable behavior in managers would not allow them to be open to their team members and listen to their challenges or new ideas. The brainstorming sessions between managers and their employees would not be practiced. As a result, the employees would feel disconnected from the company’s policies and culture, and in the end, they would leave the job for better roles at other organizations.
Darren Finkelstein, The Accountability Guy®, is the founder of TICK THOSE BOXES, a specialised accountability coaching practice. Darren is a formidable international accountability coach, business advisor, mentor, and author/speaker, fostering development and measurable results in entrepreneurship, leadership, and accountability. Darren’s tale is one of perseverance, self-reinvention, and resilience.
With compelling execution, Darren has empowered high-achieving individuals and teams from Australia and New Zealand to Latin America, Europe, Asia, the UK, and the US to embrace accountability; after all, it is your superpower.
Darren’s one-on-one and group coaching programs are based on his bestselling business book, “The Accountability Advantage – Play your best game” and the latest, release “NO’ – Building a life of choice without obligation”.
Darren has an impressive background in business, having held the role of “Manager of Commercial Markets” at Apple Australia during the Steve Jobs revolution.
He enthusiastically “walks the talk,” having also successfully sold and exited his lifestyle businesses, which served as the impetus for establishing his coaching and mentoring business.
Join Darren on this transformative quest to accomplish the remarkable.
Read Darren’s full bio here:
https://tickthoseboxes.com.au/about/
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I was excited to join Tia Harmer on The Work in Progress: The Personal Productivity Science Insights Podcast! We dive deep into the science of goal setting and the power of accountability—two cornerstones of business and personal success.
