One of the most elusive concepts in management is
accountability. In leadership roles, accountability is the
acknowledgment and assumption of responsibility for actions
within the scope of a role or position, encompassing the
obligation to report, and be answerable for resulting
consequences. Once accountability becomes a part of your
management style, you will see improved results and more
satisfied employees.
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One of the most elusive concepts in management is
accountability. In leadership roles, accountability is the
acknowledgment and assumption of responsibility for actions
within the scope of a role or position, encompassing the
obligation to report, and be answerable for resulting
consequences.
So what does this really mean? A senior manager cannot
delegate responsibility, he can only delegate authority to a
subordinate and then hold that subordinate accountable for
due performance. One of the biggest mistakes managers can
make is to continuously frustrate their employees by not
holding them accountable. Believe it or not, it can
frustrate your employees as much as it does you.
Accountability is the key to achieving results and helping
identify the opportunities in your organization. Holding
employees accountable helps them to know the satisfaction of
achieving a goal and performing to a standard.
There are five basic requirements for creating
accountability. You need to ensure you have:
- Understood Goals - the subordinate must understand what
the they and their team are trying to achieve;
- Buy in - subordinates must believe in the goal and be a
part of the success;
- Benchmarks and a Quantifiable Result - subordinates need
milestones and a result that can be measured;
- Two-way Feedback - feedback from the supervisor to the
subordinate and from the subordinate to the supervisor;
- Evaluation - once a goal is accomplished, celebrate the
success. Conversely, do not shy away from criticism if
performance falls short.
To be successful, the manager must also hold himself
accountable to following through with accountability. One of
the biggest failures is to start the process and not follow
through with it. This causes the subordinate to lose respect
for the process and to question a supervisor's commitment,
which can undermine the entire organization. Once
accountability becomes a part of your management style, you
will see improved results and more satisfied employees.
The Author
After 25 years consulting to small and medium sized
companies,
Mike Anderson,
principal of
Train Me To Be a CEO
realized that the most important part of his work was
training the CEO, and the reason he was such a good
consultant was that he did that very well.
Trained as an engineer, he became a CEO of a midsize
corporation at the age of 35. After a spell at Harvard
Business School he entered the world of consulting.
3. Ongoing mentorship. Begins with a
minimum two day one on one, but continues with monthly or quarterly follow up sessions. (Smart
and probably Best!)
.
References
A New England Contractor
"Mike Anderson has been working diligently with the upper
management team at (our firm). Mike is
extremely knowledgeable and has an exceptional way of
dealing with many different personalities. He has worked
very closely with the Sales Team to impress upon them the
importance of using a consistent method of estimating. He
was instrumental in restructuring our accounting procedures."
