A Contemporary View of Accountability

And why it’s so damn difficult to achieve

What is “accountability”? An old-school control tactic?

If you google accountability, you may come to that conclusion. Historically, holding people accountable simply meant controlling them, or, in some cases, an easy way to place blame on others in order to terminate them (cue a major eye-roll from all the HR professionals out there). I want to show the value of building a culture of accountability and what it looks like in a modern tech company that prioritizes a strong and inclusive culture.

Think about it: Everyone is accountable to someone. At home, you’re accountable to your spouse, your children, your family. They depend on you to demonstrate that you care about and respect them through delivering what’s expected, whether it be help with homework or a home-cooked meal. At work, it’s no different. During the day, you’re accountable to your peers, your manager, your clients. Even your CEO is accountable to the board of directors. Everyone is accountable to someone.

Isn’t this just responsibility?

No. Accountability is often confused with responsibility, and while both are critical for success, they’re different. Responsibility is more of an internal feeling based on personal values that motivates you to complete your work because you feel it’s for the greater good. While this is critical to high-performing teams, a leader can’t only rely on internal responsibility alone to motivate their team.

Accountability, on the other hand, is usually a two-way exchange where you agree to deliver something to another person. In order to show we respect others and are doing our share in any community, whether it’s personal or business, we should also always hold ourselves accountable. For example, your tech lead asks you to complete something before Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference. You should hold yourself accountable by writing down the deadline and thinking through the necessary steps to ensure you’re delivering what was asked for. The tech lead needs to step in to hold you accountable if the deadline passes and the expectation was not met.

To some, holding people accountable can sound uncomfortable or unkind, but it’s actually more kind to ensure everyone in the community is doing their part to keep it a respectful place where everyone pulls their weight, meets their commitments, and can be trusted.

Did you make an execution plan?

Many organizations are successful at setting vision and strategy. That’s fun, and many companies are good at this big picture thinking. The hard part is creating an execution plan, breaking it into manageable pieces, setting clear expectations, and then holding people accountable to actually achieve the big picture. As research shows (covered well by Lawrence Hrebiniak), execution is more important than strategy, because execution is where many organizations fail.

The key here is to have buy-in from all levels of the organization on how to implement the vision. Top-down, bottom-up, side to side — having alignment on how to best break up a vision and assign pieces of it in a way that’s meaningful for individuals will help establish the internal feeling of responsibility. If it’s just coming from the top down, there’s a wider margin of error because there’s less communication and buy-in from the teams actually doing the work.

Where does accountability start? With our leaders!

Even in organizations that are very much bottom-up, leaders play an important role in providing guidance and upholding accountability. Let’s talk about the three types of work for people leaders:

• Day-to-day tasks
• Large projects that promote change
• People management

While the first two are the most visible type of high-impact work, the third can be seen by some as “optional” for those in a fast moving startup, though it’s perhaps the most important when it comes to creating accountability. For example, when you need to deliver a new sales strategy to your CSO, it’s very easy to cancel your team meeting to ensure everything is perfect with your project. While you may meet the expectations of your CSO in this example, you will likely fall short in meeting the expectation of your team because holding others accountable and being clear about expectations is not just a top down exercise. In today’s climate, managers and leaders are responsible for balancing their strategic workload with people management tasks. When it comes down to it, establishing accountability in the right way, that still promotes healthy risk-taking and creativity while not creating a rules-driven culture, takes time.

As the managers I coach would say: “Yes, this is all good, but how do I actually establish accountability?” While not all aspects of management are as simple as checking a box, there are some ways to get started.

Be clear. A leader needs to align with their team on expectations, i.e, requirements for someone to be successful in their role. Do they need to spend 75% of their time writing code and 25% reviewing their peers’ code? A leader needs to communicate expectations clearly and often. They also need to always explain the “why” behind them. By understanding the rationale and how it contributes to the company’s mission, someone is more likely to form a personal connection to their work and feel responsible for meeting or exceeding expectations.

Stay on top of it. I would never suggest that a leader micromanages, but there needs to be a mechanism in place to monitor expectations and allow them to give quick feedback when the team veers off course. This can be anything from setting formal goals with regular check-ins, saving the last 5 minutes in every 1:1 for specific feedback, really whatever works best for the team and the individual relationships. The goal is for a leader to guide and inspire their direct reports to meet their full potential without overpowering them. This ensures the organization can fulfill its mission and people can grow and develop fully.

Action. If feedback isn’t working and people still aren’t meeting expectations, a leader needs to take action. This is the part that can be uncomfortable and easy to put off for another day. But if a person doesn’t respond to feedback, there need to be consequences to ensure we’re maintaining a respectful community where everyone pulls their part of the weight. As a People (HR) professional, of course I recommend that this is when you go see your People department to find a fair and legal way to take next steps.

To be clear, I’m not advocating for an environment that doesn’t feel safe and comfortable, which can often be a side effect when a company has strong accountability. Psychological safety is equally as important as accountability, and something I’ve run trainings on at Dashlane, but there’s a difference between a relaxed or “soft” culture, and one that’s challenging but supportive. A leader can be warm and empathetic while ensuring work gets done by making themselves available, asking questions to develop solution-oriented thinking, being extremely clear about their expectations, digging into challenges instead of immediately placing blame, and many, many more ways that we won’t get into here. The takeaway here is not to think of psychological safety and accountability as mutually exclusive.

Let’s recap what an organization needs to establish accountability

• Thoughtful decisions made at the top, including clear strategy, execution and delegation
• An importance placed on people management and an investment of time
• Clear expectations and transparent rationale connected to the company vision
• Consequences when people are not meeting expectations

For some leaders, the fear of having to impose consequences and being seen as “the bad guy” is reason enough to not hold people accountable to begin with. This mindset isn’t doing anyone any favors. The organization will not meet or surpass their goals if expected work is not being delivered. Additionally, the employee who may not be a good fit for their current role may find success in another role, potentially at another organization. Leaders are accountable to their community and avoiding consequences isn’t just about sparing the employee that isn’t meeting expectations but about maintaining the integrity of the whole workplace. Ultimately, we need to break away from the prehistoric view that accountability is a direct link to termination.

Holding people accountable has many benefits for both a company trying to achieve their mission, as well as for people who want to continue their personal and professional growth and development. It may take time, and it may not be easy, but holding people accountable is making a revival as a critical piece of any successful organization. Once you improve accountability in your team, division or company, I know you will see it has a positive impact.

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