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The Accountability Guy®
One of the latest buzzwords that you can hear in a workplace is “Accountability”, But what does it mean? What can it do for a company?
Accountability is the act of taking responsibility for their actions. Whether it is a success or a failure in your personal or work life, taking responsibility is a vital aspect that helps build your personality.
Working in a company with no proper accountability can spell doom very easily. This is especially true in the case of a growing company that focuses on retaining its current employees. However, having a company with a good culture of accountability can do wonders for your booming business. But how does it work?
This post will give you the gist of what accountability is and how you can create it in your company.
So, let’s get started, folks!
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The best way to define a culture of accountability within a company is where all company members, from the senior-most employees to the freshers, are accountable.
By working in an organization with a clear culture of accountability, you will realize that all employees properly communicate, understand and work towards the company’s mission.
The act of accountability itself is determined energetically. This means, instead of pointing fingers at other employees and playing the blame game, they will immediately step up and take responsibility for the action.
However, there is more to accountability than just taking responsibility. It also improves your problem-solving skills and helps you perform better within the company. This way, you will instil a sense of ownership within every employee, and they will strive together to reach the company’s goals.
Who wouldn’t want to be a part of an organization that functions this well! So if you own a business, you might want to read this till the end so you can create a nurturing culture of accountability.
Keep in mind that accountability is a practice that follows closely with leadership. This will send across a clear message to the other members of your company. So as a leader, what can you do create this environment?
Listed below are eight ways you can build and honest culture of accountability at your workplace
It can be very easy to preach the act of accountability without preaching it. However, if you want to leave a lasting impression on the rest of your employees, you need to start walking the talk.
As a leader, it is your responsibility to stand as a good example to your employees. You need to be able to say, “I accept that I have made a mistake, but I know what I’m going to do to fix it.”
These kinds of positive statements help create a positive work atmosphere where employees are honest without worrying too much.
When a problem arises within a company, the employees often waste a lot of time finding who is responsible. However, this is a problem that you can easily avoid just by setting crystal clear expectations and standards of what each employee needs to do.
You will also need to make sure that your employees understand these expectations and standards. This will help them avoid errors, even before they start their work and get you the desired results!
To get an employee’s best efforts, you need to get them to make more commitments. A poor excuse for this is “I’ll try”, which only brings compliance and resistance.
However, an employee who makes commitments to give their best to a task and overcome all challenges will be more compliant with its vision and mission.
As a leader, you must make your employees feel safe in their workplace. One such aspect is listening to feedback.
Often, employees are scared to open up to their superiors and give feedback as they tend to shoot the messenger. Therefore, make your employees feel safe within the company and also be open to feedback, both the positive and negative kind.
While looking at a resume, a candidate’s experience and technical skills are often the deciding factors of whether or not they get the job. However, make sure that the individual is also a good culture fit for the company.
This way, they will admit their mistakes without hesitation, motivating others to do the same.
Not all your employees come from the same backyard. Therefore, they may not have had the chance to learn accountability.
However, if you teach them this from the ground up, they will learn new behaviours and skills that can benefit the company!
One of the main reasons why people fear accountability is its consequences. However, you need to assure them that they will also be incentives if they perform better.
Without consequences, employees will start to give their bare minimum without worrying about the after-effects.
If your workplace has a good culture of accountability, everyone will hold everyone else accountable. Even if you are the senior-most employee in the company, you should not always blame the freshers for errors. If the error is on your side, you should hold yourself accountable for it.
This way, you will be a good leader in your company.
Whether or not your company will have a good culture of accountability depends on the leader. It might be a difficult habit to teach, but it will completely transform your business for the better.
Therefore, you must practice the principles mentioned above consistently to introduce a culture of accountability in your workplace. Good luck!
Darren Finkelstein is The Accountability Guy®. This involves being an International Accountability Coach, Business Advisor, Mentor, Author, and Speaker.
Darren works with high-performing teams and individuals across Australia/NZ, UK, USA, Latin America, Europe and Asia to help get results, achieve their wildest dreams, and smash goals. He does this by leveraging over 30 years of experience working in the corporate world and small businesses.
A successful business owner himself, Darren won the Australian Entrepreneur of the Year award for Dent Global after building a wonderful lifestyle business, successfully sold and exited after 15 years.
Before this, Darren worked for over 10 years at Apple Inc. as ‘Manager of Commercial Markets’ during the inspirational Steve Jobs era. While there, he was awarded the prestigious Golden Apple Award.
Darren’s lessons in accountability can help individuals and teams at all levels of a business or organisation across the globe, and are based on actions and results:
Know what to do first
know what to do next
know what to do more of
1. Take the Accountability Scorecard
How accountable are you? Discover your accountability score and increase the probability of smashing your goals and Getting Sh!t Done. Take the quiz
2. Read my book "The Accountability Advantage - Play Your Best Game"
Eliminate procrastination and overwhelm and start playing your best game.
Buy a copy
3. Book a complimentary Accountability Assessment
Invest 15 minutes now and avoid months or years of struggle. If you genuinely need help becoming more accountable, it can’t hurt to find out. Book here.
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