Six Signs Your People Are Not Holding Themselves Accountable, And Six Ways To Do Something About It

There has been a lot of news coverage recently about Wells Fargo committing massive fraud. CEO John Stumpf repeatedly promised that he would take ‘personal responsibility’, but as yet there has been no indication that he will keep to his word.
I often work with companies who want to hire people who take responsibility for their work and who hold themselves accountable if things go wrong. Of course this is an excellent way to move business forward. But what happens when the senior people in the company do not have those same qualities? Like Wells Fargo, for instance.
A case in point was a high profile company who called me in because they had lost a very high proportion of their employees over the previous 2-year period, incredibly well over half. The company was consequently spending a fortune in recruitment fees to replace leavers and on training new starters, while at the same time losing business and even more money due to customers feeling insecure about trading with them.
After I interviewed each senior executive individually I brought them all together around the board room table.
I opened the meeting by going directly to the core issue I uncovered, saying that if you interview for accountability and hire the right people, as soon as they realize that the seniors do not hold the same ethos, they will feel like a round peg in a square hole and leave. The CEO promptly walked out of the room.
This lesson shows that, unless senior people behave in a like manner to that which they expect of their employees, inevitably there will be an unusually high staff turnover.
So what is accountability? Look at it as an attitude. So low accountability is a bad attitude and is the most common reason for companies to fire people, outside economic reasons.
Employee accountability is key to a successful company. It is the foundation of trust and support which keeps teams positive and effective. It is taking responsibility for positive outcomes and resolutions for customers, colleagues and stakeholders. When people fail to do what they’re supposed to do there is extra work load on everyone else and a downward spiral begins.

If you are interviewing and looking for a high level of accountability, I would offer the following advice.
You may be looking for a person who looks successful, is articulate and their CV is oozing with academic qualifications. This is a great start, but be careful to probe hard to establish if their attitude seems to indicate that they feel they have proved themselves already and can now sit back because all their hard work is behind them. This person is likely to have low personal accountability and quite frankly very hard to motivate.
Or how about the attitude of the person who thinks they can handle a wide range of roles or tasks but doesn’t seem to be too bothered unless their manager is standing over them. Again not exactly high on the accountability scale and motivation is likely to be pretty low.
The person you really want on board is someone who is motivated, enthusiastic and has a positive outlook whereby they learn from mistakes and pick themselves up quickly to get on with the job. They are driven, but at the same time mindful that they are not perfect. They will be high achievers, popular and hold themselves accountable if there are problems.
If you can you can fill your headcount with people like this it’s a win- win, but only if the senior people and the company foster and actively promote a culture of accountability. One way of working out if you and your company are doing well is to answer the following questions:

Do you work in a culture of blaming others?
Do you hold onto the familiar even when things are not working out?
Do your people hold onto information and try not to share it with colleagues even when they need it?
Does everyone plan things meticulously to the point of perfection, but often miss outcome deadlines and habitually appear anxious?
Do you perpetuate an ‘Ostrich’ mentality by avoiding negative news for as long as possible?
Are your people critical of others?

If you said ‘yes’ to these questions, there is work to do if you want to develop a company or departmental culture of accountability. Here are a few ideas that have helped others:

Congratulate success, without always favoring one person.
Have an open door policy so people know they can come to you for support before things that may arise get worse.
Encourage a culture of people helping one another outside of their own responsibilities.
Make regular announcements about where the company is going and the bigger goals, so that people feel part of a common community and they want to succeed. Thus taking the spotlight from the individual and more on the success of the team.
Lead by example – do you respect everyone by seeking their opinion, returning their emails quickly? Take time to have conversations with people and be interested in them. They will follow your example with your customers.
Share food together. The psychology behind this is sound and long-established, this will help build a respectful workforce who care about one another.

These tips are just some that I have observed which have worked for many companies. It’s worth a try – poor accountability is expensive.

Post by

Lynda Shaw ,

Contributor

About Micheal Aigbe

This is a short description in the author block about the author. You edit it by entering text in the "Biographical Info" field in the user admin panel.