Accountability in Business – What it Means and How to Do It Right

​We frequently hear the importance of being accountable, or of holding others accountable. Your government might even have a strategic objective of being more accountable to constituents.

But – what does being accountable actually mean? Just because the root of the word “accountability” is the same as the root of “accountant”, that doesn’t mean accountants have any inherent understanding of this concept. 


Definition of accountability
Webster’s Dictionary defines "accountable" as "subject to giving an account" or "capable of being explained". The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as "responsible for what you do and able to give a satisfactory reason for it". Thus, to be accountable you must explain why you did what you did, especially when the results were not as good as expected. Explaining what happened, why it happened, what you learned, and what you will do differently next time is a good recipe for dealing with an unhappy boss, spouse, co-worker or elected official.


So, what should you do as a leader to hold your employees accountable?

Before we lay out the proposed steps, there are a couple of things you need to keep in mind:

1. You need to be clear that accountability is not punishment. If you are asking people to do important things and to multi-task, there will be times they aren’t successful. That is okay as long as the effort was there, and they learned better what to do next time. Making the same mistake is what becomes untenable. You will ask employees to explain poor results but will use the information to improve results in the future.
2. You should realize that most people, including leaders (perhaps even you), don’t like to hold people accountable. They avoid conflict. They avoid confronting others over fear that they won’t be liked. You have to get over this. Realize that even though most of your employees don’t enjoy being held accountable, they want to know that what they are doing is important. If they do a poor job and no one notices, they feel that what they are doing isn’t important. They may not try as hard in future efforts under the belief that no one cares.
3. ​You need to model accountability for your employees to see. Look for opportunities to stand in front of the group saying what went wrong, why, what you will do differently next time. 

In order to hold someone accountable, here are the 3 key steps

1. Make sure that the person you’re wanting to hold accountable knows what is expected. Give them clear instructions, including deadlines, budgets, and expected results. Whenever possible make these instructions quantifiable to specific outcomes.
2. Coach them through challenges. This requires you to be in close enough contact with them to know when they are facing challenges. It is helpful if you have created a good enough personal relationship that they feel comfortable coming to you to discuss any challenges as they arise. 
3. Confront them when results are poor or when they didn’t keep a commitment. Ask them, what happened, why did it happen, what did they do about it, why didn’t they bring it to your attention earlier (if applicable), and what they will do to remedy? Ask for as many specific details as possible so you get a full understanding of the situation and the problem(s). It’s also important that you don’t accept vague answers. For example, if a deadline was missed, an insufficient answer is, “I was late because Johnny didn’t provide the requested info to me on time.” With an answer like that, you should ask for details, such as: what was Johnny supposed to provide? When did you ask Johnny for the information? What date did you ask Johnny to provide it by? When and how often did you follow-up with Johnny? Who did you escalate the request to and when? When did you know the deadline was in jeopardy and what did you do about it?

​It is important for you to be accountable in your life and your career. Help your employees be the same by holding them accountable, too.

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​If you have more questions about accountability in business, feel free to reach out to Kevin directly:

[email protected]
(510) 593-5037
 

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