Creating a Culture of Accountability

Can you remember the first time you were held “to account”? It was probably a negative experience and most likely involved getting a big fat red C on a test at school. Almost every time we use the word accountability, it's because something has gone wrong. So, no wonder we have a negative visceral reaction when we hear it!

Yet the paradox is that, as leaders, we are told we need to hold people accountable. But let’s pause for a moment and think about the assumptions that underlie this:

1. Workers are not capable of achieving outcomes on their own

2. Workers won’t do their job to the high standards we expect

3. Workers are not self-motivated

These assumptions are a legacy of the industrial era when managerialism was rife. But the nature of work has evolved since these days, and leadership is more about motivating and understanding our people than reprimanding them. Rarely can we achieve the outcomes we are responsible for without collaboration and input from others. How then do you hold someone accountable?

Toward a system of accountability

It’s time we move beyond seeing accountability as solely the domain of the individual with oversight of their manager. Numerous studies now demonstrate that accountability emerges from the interaction between multiple organisational and individual factors[i]. We call these ‘organisational conditions’ and the ‘human experience’ at work as shown in figure 1. The critical mediating factor influencing the relationship between the individual and the context is leadership. Let’s explore each of these.

Culture: the hidden force shaping how accountability is experienced

Culture includes both the influence of societal culture as well as your organisation’s culture. In high ’power distance’ societal cultures, there is a greater acceptance of unequal distribution of power and authority. Employees tend to follow formal rules and show deference to higher-ranking positions. Conversely, in cultures like Australia, where egalitarianism is valued, people prefer a smaller power distance. This makes traditional, top-down accountability uncomfortable and often resisted.

Moreover, every organisation has its own unwritten rules and norms. In some companies, performance and accountability are regularly discussed and expected, while in others, mediocrity might be tolerated, and there are no significant consequences for poor performance. The latter creates an environment where accountability is difficult to enforce.

Where you are aware of it or not, both societal and organisational culture influences how accountability is experienced by those in your organisation. Without conscious attention and effort, culture may hinder the accountability you want to create. You may be fortunate and find that it supports your efforts, however it’s probably not something to leave it to chance.

Systems and processes: water follows the pipes

You can’t hold a person or team accountable if systems inhibit them from doing what they need to do. The role of leaders is to identify these bottlenecks and remove them. However, I’m yet to see an organisation that doesn’t have sub-par processes or systems somewhere along their value chain. Acknowledging the pain points is a start, but it can’t excuse people from getting things done. We all have far more agency than we realise.

As the old saying goes: What gets measured gets done. KPI’s and other performance measures drive behaviour. The risk lies in how people go about achieving these results. In one organisation I worked with, a team KPI led to unhealthy relationships being formed with areas that controlled the needed resources. This spread to counterproductive competition among departments with visible undermining. Hardly the ideal culture of accountability.

Monitor your processes carefully to ensure that a culture of shared accountability is being created.

Leadership creates the container for accountability

Amy Edmondson’s[ii] research into high performing teams found that teams with high psychological safety and high accountability were the most effective. High psychological safety means an environment where people acknowledge mistakes and seek to learn from them. One of the most common complaints we hear from leaders is that people do not take ownership when something happens – either bad or good. But a psychologically safe environment isn’t enough. High accountability is needed to encourage learning and continuous growth. Otherwise, people remain comfortable and keep doing the same thing.

A primary focus of leaders is to create the space, the container, for accountability to emerge. Leaders don’t have to hold people ‘to account’. We all know when we’ve made a mistake. Most of us punish ourselves far more than anyone else could. What we need instead is a safe space to acknowledge this, learn from it and move on. Ironically, to create a culture of accountability you need to focus less on accountability. Focus instead on creating this space through these two techniques.

1. Frame work as learning problems, not just execution problems. If work is seen as learning, then we’ll try new things, be creative, fail, learn and try again.
2. Model curiosity by asking lots of questions. When we are curious we use the strategic part of our brain that explores possibilities, remains open and positive. Many leaders accidentally trigger a threat response from their team members’ brains by responding in a negative way. Even an inadvertent eye roll can destroy psychological safety. Leaders need superpower-like levels of self-awareness.

Which takes us to the human experience component of accountability that is driven by the all-important relationship between an employee and their manager.

Accountability through Meaningful Work

According to a meta-analysis of empirical studies, when people experience meaningful work their engagement and job satisfaction increases by 74%[iii]. Through our research, we define meaningful work as consisting of these 4 elements: Agency; Belonging; Contribution; and Significance.

A sense of Belonging is felt when people feel safe, valued and supported. In other words, an environment of psychological safety. This leaves us with the three remaining factors: agency, contribution and significance.

Contribution => Means
Do you have the skills and resources to do what you need?

First, assess whether the individual has the means to complete the task. This includes the skills, experience, and resources to do the task well. So often we jump to conclusions about why someone didn’t do a good job when the reality is they may never have done it before and so found it difficult the first time. If they don’t have the skills or resources, it’s the leader’s responsibility to address the gaps.

As a leader, don’t jump to conclusions here. People are motivated when they have the opportunity to use their skills, so if something hasn’t gone to plan remain curious and explore whether they had the means in the first place to do the task.

Agency => Role clarity
Do you have the clarity about what you are expected to do and have control on how you go about it?

Freedom, control, autonomy. These are core motivating factors for living a positive life. In the workplace we call this agency, and agency is a prerequisite to experience meaningful work. The starting point is to know where the boundaries of our agency are. In other words - role clarity.

A person can’t be accountable if they don’t know what they are accountable for.

While setting clear boundaries and expectations for a role is always important, there are particular times to really lean into these conversations. Especially when a person is new to a role or a task or the operating environment is complex. The role of leaders is to make sense of the environment and provide a clear sense of what needs to be done.

Significance => Purpose:
Do you know why your work matters?

We all have tasks that we just don’t want to do. If we don’t like a particular task we won’t be motivated to do it. An individual’s lack of motivation can stem from a variety of factors, and as leaders, it’s important (again) not to make assumptions. A primary reason why people may not do a task to your expected level is because they don’t understand why the task is important and how it contributes to the greater objectives and strategies. In other words - why this task matters. Explaining why the task is important can increase the chance that they will do it well in the future.

Better yet, if you can co-create this meaning with them to foster a deeper connection to their work.

Engage in open conversations to understand the underlying reasons for their lack of enthusiasm. A simple statement like, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like you aren’t motivated to do this task,” can open up a productive dialogue.

Creating a culture of accountability

Start by focusing on the human conditions to foster regular dialogue about accountability. Use the questions above as a guide to have regular conversations that over time will result in a culture of openness, transparency and accountability. They might be uncomfortable at first but slowly openness emerges and so too does psychological safety.

These conversations start to uncover issues impacting accountability, but a broader approach is needed to create a system of accountability. Here, leaders work together to enhance the environment within which people work by:

• Being aware of how processes, such as measurements, may undermine accountability.
• Actively removing system roadblocks.
• Being cognisant of how societal culture influences people’s approach to accountability and actively addressing behaviours or rituals that undermine accountability in your organisation.

A leader’s role is less about holding people accountable and more about creating the space where people can hold themselves accountable. Once people are self-motivated and experiencing meaningful work, then accountability is the natural result.

Perhaps it’s time we focused less on the ‘account’ bit and more on the ‘ability’ part, the ability to make a difference.

[i] For example, Pearson H, Sutherland M (2017), "The complexity of the antecedents influencing accountability in organisations". European Business Review, Vol. 29 No. 4 pp. 419–439, doi: https://doi.org/10.1108/EBR-08-2016-0106

[ii] Edmondson, A. C. (2019). The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth. Wiley.

[iii] Allan, B. A., Batz-Barbarich, C., Sterling, H. M., & Tay, L. (2019). Outcomes of meaningful work: A meta‐analysis. Journal of Management Studies, 56(3), 500-528. doi: 10.1111/joms.12406