The Culture of Accountability

There is one core cultural value that no truly successful organization can do without: personal accountability. Personal accountability requires team members to take responsibility for their own actions and help other members to take similar responsibility.

Organizations that master this value consistently have higher levels of employee morale and significantly outperform organizations that do not embrace it. Building accountability at all levels of the company is key to making a business sustainable. Without accountability throughout the organization, the result is chaos.

Accountability—like most things—starts at the top. You have to hold yourself accountable and set the example before you can expect to hold others accountable. This is a measure of your capacity to be answerable for your personal actions. Personal accountability is leadership by example. A leader who has mastered personal accountability will inspire his/her subordinates to exhibit the same behaviors and encourage leadership development within the team.

Accountability is not something you “make” people do; you must implement the culture and you have to have people accept and “buy into” the concept. You need to understand that this may be a new, unfamiliar way to work for your employees, and therefore, you need to teach and coach the concept as a benefit and not as a penalty.