Accountability in leadership: how to hold teams accountable
This is the final article of a four part series on the topic of accountability:
As we’ve seen from the first few articles in this series, accountability can be a tricky business. Many of us working in engineering organizations struggle with it, whether it’s avoiding holding ourselves accountable because of previous negative experiences in the workplace, or as leaders, failing to build a culture of accountability that teams can thrive in.
I get it, holding others accountable can be hard. I once worked with a company that had very low accountability. Many leaders there, myself included, grappled with the idea of accountability, and felt that asking anyone to take responsibility for their actions would risk their goal of building inclusive teams with psychological safety. We shied away from giving each other any constructive, critical feedback. Instead, lots of people gossiped or shared dissent behind each others’ back.
You’re not alone - I know many leaders struggle with the same issues. So, I’ve put together some commonly asked questions about how to hold teams accountable, which should be useful not just for you as a leader, but also for the members of your team.
What accountability means and how it works
Isn’t accountability just about punishing people?
Accountability shouldn’t be about firing people; at its core, it’s about upholding a high standard and performance. It does not start when something goes wrong and an executive asks “who’s accountable?”. It’s a process that begins with you as a leader taking responsibility for your actions, and includes:
Set clear goals and expectations
Take ownership for your tasks and communicate progress,
Acknowledge and learn from your mistakes, and
Accept responsibility for your actions.
Accountability isn’t the start, but the end of a process. It means building a culture where everyone can own their work and its results. If (!) you’ve done that and someone on your team isn’t meeting expectations for their role, and your repeated (!) feedback doesn’t lead to improvements, don’t delay taking action. Depending on your company and legal requirements, these may include a formal performance improvement plan or similar performance management tool.
How can I tell if I have accountability in my organization?
You know that you have high accountability in your team if everyone:
Knows what’s expected of them
Takes ownership of their tasks,
Gets stuff done (or lets others know if there are delays)
Makes their work visible
Gives and receives feedback regularly
Learns from their mistakes, together.
Why accountability matters
Why should I care about accountability?
Accountability means upholding a high standard of performance. It supports ownership, visibility of work, and high-performing teams.
Accountability (or lack thereof!) builds culture: Culture is the behavior that you reward and punish. What you give praise to, promotions for, as well as what you ignore, will send a signal to your teams about what’s okay. If repeated mistakes or harmful actions go without any consequences (feedback, warnings, or even termination of employment), it will send a signal to everyone else that these behaviors are acceptable.
Accountability vs. your values
How do you fit accountability into your leadership value system?
For me, building a culture of accountability has become a big part of my work, but it wasn’t always this way. Making accountability work started with defining for myself (1) how accountability fits into my leadership values and (2) what accountability I expect from myself. Only then was I able to define how I hold others accountable.
Some of my values are:
Leading by example: I demonstrate the behaviors that I expect from my team members. I own my mistakes. I apologize (properly!), and work hard to not repeat the same mistake.
Clear goals and expectations: I let people know what I expect of them, and what they can expect from me. And I expect that everyone on my team owns their work, and is accountable for the results (and how they get there).
Follow-through: I get done what I commit to, and keep folks in the loop if this changes.
High visibility: I’m as transparent as I can be by sharing context, letting my teams know status and risks, and keeping stakeholders informed.
Learning: I’m convinced that all humans and organizations are capable of learning in the right conditions. I ask for and listen to feedback, determine what I want to act on, and get back to the people who gave me feedback to let them know.
Building inclusive organizations where everyone can do their best work is really important to me. To achieve this, I need to set clear standards and expectations towards everyone.
All these are foundational to accountability. And there’s a last one: I lead with trust.
Trust isn’t earned, it’s given. This means: I believe it’s my job to create the conditions and culture where clear accountability is possible.
I feel like accountability collides with my leadership values. I want to build a blameless culture and psychological safety and feel like those go counter to accountability.
Some leaders feel like accountability goes counter to their values. Aiming for a blameless culture and psychological safety are great goals, but they also reinforce the common misconception that accountability is “punishing people”. There’s a spectrum between “punishment” and “letting everyone do whatever”, and too often I see leaders err on one of these extremes. True accountability culture is in the middle, and it goes beyond well-intentioned but empty phrases. It means doing the work to set clear goals and sharing critical feedback quickly. And that’s work! “Caring about humans” and “blameless culture” aren’t just ideals, they require action.
I want an agile culture with lots of autonomy. How can I make accountability work in this culture?
Keep in mind that agile organizations aim for lots of ownership and autonomy, but both are only possible and sustainable with accountability. Agile practices like daily standups or retrospectives, are, at their core, about visibility and accountability. From the Agile Alliance: “Agile teams are not immune to accountability – to doing what they say they’ll do. A mature Agile mindset regularly demonstrates the characteristic of being accountable. Accountability is part of a healthy Agile culture. It is an individual responsibility, a team responsibility, and an enterprise responsibility.”
I had bad bosses who micromanaged me, and I don’t want to become like them.
You may also have had bosses that were unpredictable (“seagull management”), or equated “accountability” with “scolding people in public, blaming, and firing people with no warning”. Now that you’re in a leadership position, you don’t want to repeat these patterns.
Remember that you don’t have to repeat these behaviors, and the fact that you’re recognizing them is a good first step. There’s a whole spectrum of culture-building involved in accountability. Implement the elements of a high-accountability culture described above, and get feedback from your teams at least every few months.
Accountability in practice
What can I do to show that I’m being accountable, or what can I look for in other people to see if they’re demonstrating accountability?
Some examples of how accountability can show up:
Set clear expectations, including checking for understanding to make sure you fully understand it
Speak up when you have feedback or concerns
Be on time (for meetings, deliverables)
Share solutions > problems wherever you can. That’s not always possible; you can still tell your boss about your ideas or ask for their help in brainstorming.
Listen to feedback, considering it, getting back to the feedback giver with what you decided to (not) do about it
Don’t deliver sloppy work. We all make mistakes, but do your best to do good work.
Don’t gossip or triangulate feedback. Tell people directly about your concerns.
Keep others in the loop on your deliverables, don’t wait for them to ask you.
Personally, I don’t find tools like the “ladder of accountability” super helpful. When people are in a reactive mode, for example, unaware of what’s going on, waiting for direction, blaming others, or making excuses, those can be some signs of low accountability. However, as shown in the articles of this series, accountability is complex, and there are usually reasons why people end up in this mode. I believe it doesn’t do justice to this complexity to then blame them for “not taking accountability”.
My boss/executive asks “who’s accountable for x?”. What should I do?
I often find that, “who’s accountable?” is another (not very productive) way of asking “how did we get here?”, and “what are we actually doing to fix this (because from my purview, it doesn’t seem like we’re doing anything)?”
This is a pretty common situation. I recommend:
Trying to understand their motivations. What are they trying to do? What are they concerned about? What would be helpful for them? Many executives do understand that stuff is complex, but are e.g. surprised about certain issues, don’t have much visibility into what’s making it complex, or don’t feel like teams are making progress towards resolving recurring problems.
Communicating in a way that helps them understand. Many engineering leaders struggle with “translating” our work and its intricacies into terms that resonate with non-engineers and folks with business backgrounds who don’t share our context. This guide offers some helpful pointers for tailoring your communication.
Increasing visibility. Show what you’re doing (differently) to fix things.
Showing how you’re holding yourself and your teams accountable.
Building accountability is a process, but one that should be tackled from the get-go. So much of what I’ve outlined in the answers above is about leading by example, transparent communication, and implementing healthy leadership practices that should already be on your radar. Remember, crafting a culture of accountability is good for everyone.
Read part one, two and three of this series for more on accountability:
