A culture of ‘accountability’ is the most important element in ‘making things happen’.

It doesn’t matter how good the vision is, or the strategy to deliver that vision – if you don’t have a culture of accountability you’re ‘wheel spinning’ – putting in tons of effort, making lots of noise but not actually going anywhere!

What is the accountability ladder and why is it important?

Well, as with all behaviour – it starts with the leadership. The level of accountability within an organisation is directly related to the level of accountability that your leaders display.

I am amazed at the number of people that ask their team members to do something and then never follow up on it. If the team member does the action and no one checks it – was it really that important? How does it make the team member feel when they’ve worked hard on something that hasn’t been acknowledged? 

This is important because people don’t remember what you say – they remember how you made them feel.

Imagine if you were at school and the teacher set you homework. If they never collected it – would you do it? Probably not. If they don’t see the value in you doing the work why would you?!

It sounds ridiculous but the same behaviour happens in business all the time.

People get asked to do things and they do them. But when the manager stops checking or forgets about the action – that person is left wondering whether it was actually necessary…

Leaders can never afford to forget the actions that they created.

It is not good enough to ask someone to do something and then ‘forget’ to ask if it was done or for an update on the progress of the action. If you do, the underlying message you are communicating is that the action wasn’t important.

Accountability starts at the top. The state of accountability is a reflection of the leadership culture.

I think that this is something that the military have absolutely nailed. To outsiders we are disciplined, to each-other we are simply accountable.

If one of my Marines said something was going to happen – it happened. I could rely on an 18yr old straight out of training to do what I asked them to do every single time. ‘Asked’ not ‘Ordered’. I don’t think I gave many orders in my career in the Corps –  I didn’t have to.

I only realised that the Military were unique in this respect when I left. I thought everyone worked like that – it was a symptom of my experience in the Corps – and it took some time to realise that the world doesn’t work in the same way.

‘You can’t change anyone else, you can only change your approach.’  This was something that I had to learn quickly.

Most Military Officers assume that they’re good leaders because they’ve had training – and to a large extent they are, they’ve been trained to do a job and they’re competent. What they underestimate is the value that the military’s ‘organisational culture’ plays in helping them to be successful.

They have people supporting them, helping them to be successful – who are accountable. This is an enormous cultural factor that directly (and positively) impacts their own leadership performance.

The fish thinks it’s pretty fast – and it is – in it’s world. But take the fish out of water and it’s not very fast at all. It has to adapt quickly to it’s new environment or it won’t survive.

I have stumbled through that metaphor but I think you’ll get the point!

So how do you move it in a positive direction – how do you help people to become more accountable?

The first thing that you need to do is establish where ‘the locus of control’ exists in your organisation.

Do people ‘feel’ like they have permission to be accountable or are all decisions made by the leadership?

The Ritz-Carlton hotel are a great example of an organisation that wants its people to be accountable. So every employee from the CEO to the receptionist has the permission to spend up to $2000 to deal with a customer complaint without seeking permission from a manager.

Take a moment to think about that – everyone has a ‘complaints budget’ of $2000. That’s unbelievable given that there are companies out there that don’t allow you to order stationary unless you go through procurement.

The reason they set this $2000 limit is that they want to be known for having exceptional customer service. So they give their employees enough control to be able to make sure that this happens. They push decision-making into the organisation to the front-line – where the decisions need to be made.

A practical test of ‘the locus of control’

If you want to test the ‘locus of control’ in your organisation, get some (or all) of your people to fill out the following form.

Print out a few and get them to circle box 1 if they strongly agree or box 4 if they strongly disagree. Boxes 2 and 3 indicate a mild preference either way.

Ladder of accountability - identifying your locus of control.

Take the total scores and work out the average. An average below 25 indicates that people don’t feel that they have control in your organisation – so how are they meant to be accountable unless they feel like they have some control?

Your people need to feel that they are in control before they can become accountable. Trying to build a culture of accountability before you give them control will not work.

The way in which you increase the locus of control is by listening to them and finding out why they feel like this. Once you’ve got some of these issues out in the open, you can start to create some actions around improving the situation.

Take this seriously and fix these issues. If you fail to do this – you will undermine yourself and it will be twice as hard when you decide that this is important in a few months.

Once you have started to improve the situation – watch for clues in what people to say to see if you are having an effect.

On the right hand side of the graphic below, you can see the type of language that people use which indicates their locus of control and their accountability level.

Ladder of accountability.

If you print off a few of these and place them in your conference rooms, you can use this document to challenge people. When they say that they’re waiting for something to happen. Ask them for a due date. If they don’t know, get them to find out. Repeat until the behaviour changes.

I am not trying to be flippant – this will take time and energy. But that’s what leaders need to do if they want to solve their accountability problem.

It is part of the responsibility that comes with part of the moral contract that you signed when you took accountability for the performance of other people – not just yourself.

Have a go – give it a try. If it doesn’t work, try something else. If you chose not to try anything – where does that put you on the ladder of accountability?

Leadership Forces provide leadership training that takes the principles of high performance from the Royal Marines, elite sport and the nuclear sector.

 We believe that great cultures are the reflection of great leadership. We work in partnership with organisations to develop their leaders.

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