The Challenge of Accountability and Why it Doesn’t Have to be difficult

Holding people to account and having difficult conversations are the two areas that frequently come up in my coaching sessions with both new and experienced leaders. Many leaders know accountability is an important part of the role, yet few feel confident in enforcing it consistently.

If you are a new leader who finds holding people to account and having difficult conversations a challenge, you are not alone. Remember, accountability is not a personality trait, it is a leadership competency that can be learned and refined. Once you understand how to approach it, you will learn it is not something to be feared and soon it will become part of your arsenal. Sadly, some leaders never invest in developing this competency and continue to avoid it.

Why do new leaders struggle with accountability?

1.     They want to be liked – this is a normal human response and anyone who says they don’t care about being liked are not being honest with themselves. Many new leaders are promoted from within a team they used to be part of. They fear that delivering tough feedback or calling out poor performance will create tension or damage relationships. Remember, to be a good leader is to be respected and that respect comes from having high expectations.

2.    They don’t want to seem tyrannical – new leaders often associate accountability with punishment, they think about the stick to beat with. In reality, accountability is clarity and follow through. Your team want to be held to account; they want boundaries, they want praise when they do a good job and they want clarity on how to do a better job. Remember, hardworking and dedicated team members will quickly lose trust and respect for leaders if poor performance is allowed to continue unchallenged.

3.    They haven’t defined clear expectations – it is impossible to hold someone accountable to expectations that are vague, incomplete or never communicated. New leaders often assume ‘common sense’ is shared but it rarely is. When a team member doesn’t do what is expected of them, the majority of the time it is down to a lack of clear expectation and not because the team member doesn’t want/can’t do it.

4.    They avoid conflict – conversations about performance can feel uncomfortable and there is no denying that. New leaders may delay having these conversations hoping the issues resolve themselves only to find they get worse. The necessity for a ‘difficult conversation’ can actually be eliminated if there is a clear system for accountability.

5.    They lack a repeatable system for accountability – without a structure to follow, accountability can feel subjective and personal. Systems give leaders the confidence to lead in a way that works for them and removes the emotion from the process.

A repeatable system for accountability

If you are a leader struggling with the accountability of your team the best way to think about it is as a journey. It is not just about checking on how the team are progressing, or having difficult conversations when performance is not as expected. It starts much earlier than that. It starts with communicating what needs to be done and modelling expectations so that team members are clear on what you are asking them to do and what the consequences of not doing it are. I am not talking about the stick as a consequence, but instead the reason to do something. So rather than ‘if you don’t redesign our promotional materials I will have to speak to the CEO about your work ethic’ it might be something more like ‘if you don’t redesign our promotional materials we won’t get the customers we want which will impact on our end of year figures’. It is at this early stage that clear final and interim deadlines are communicated as these are what will make or break your accountability structure.

Within your journey you need multiple check points that can be reminders of the final deadline or an opportunity for you to quality assure what is being done. New leaders often give a final deadline and assume team members will meet it, and then they become frustrated when for whatever reason the deadline is missed. These check points provide your first fork in the road – if progress is not in line with your expectations you either tackle the non-compliance or praise and acknowledge the progress that is being made to keep team members buoyant and motivated.

The second fork in the road is in how you tackle the non-compliance, do you need to provide more training and support because they genuinely didn’t understand what was asked of them or do you need to have a low-level ‘difficult conversation’?

The check points and resulting action may be repeated multiple times for big projects ahead of the final deadline. And it doesn’t end at the final deadline – that is your time to reflect on the outcome and decide do I need to provide more training and support, praise for a job well done or have a high level difficult conversation?  

This journey can be seen as a flow diagram. You may decide that multiple check points are necessary if you have junior or inexperienced members of your team and that allows you to build a strong relationship based on trust with your team members.

Accountability System Flowchart

New leaders struggle with accountability not because they are weak but because they have never been taught a structure that makes accountability feel natural, fair and can be delivered in their own style.

Remember your team want those clear boundaries and expectations. The leadership is in setting clear expectations, building relationships based on trust and making decisions that are consistent.

If you follow this structure consistently, you will find that accountability isn’t about confrontation and difficult conversations, it is about aligning and leading towards a common goal.