Accountability Behaviour

“Leaders lead”, as the old saying goes. This is a simplistic view of what leaders actually do; it does not take into account the fact that not everything a leader does is worth following. So let’s revise this saying to be more specific: “Leaders lead by modeling effective behaviour.” In today’s complex organizations everyone must be an influential leader. Influential leaders are role models of accountability. Their appropriate behaviour comes from a conscious choice to live by their conviction, to change harmful mental models, and to manage their emotions. Their appropriate behaviour is a result of their well-developed skill of Positive Presence.

For example, In health care this choice extends to the way they view their enormous responsibility for other people – from the internal senior management team to governing board to employees to physicians and other clinical providers to the patient population to the community at large. Accountability is a practical instrument that influential leaders use to keep themselves and those around them honest, focused, productive, and positive. Influential leaders know that an organization devoid of accountability is nothing but a collection of people who shift blame, feel victimized, procrastinate, and disguise their incompetence.

Another way leaders role-model accountability is to always, in any challenging situation or conflict, ask “how did I contribute to this problem?” This simple question must be followed by an actual evaluation of the leader’s role, because just posing the question is as good as screaming, “I didn’t do it!” This show of genuine concern indicates to others that the leader sees herself as accountable not only for the problem but also for the solution. Without the use of accountability and feedback you will be leading in the dark.

While accountability is effective in establishing behaviour based expectations for performance, the key is to remain focused on improved and effective behaviour change. Repeating ineffective behaviour that is revealed in feedback and accountability ultimately creates a great deal of damage to any relationship. Acknowledging a mechanism that identifies a behaviour that needs to changed is only of value when there is a commitment to actually changing the behaviour. The key is, to move out of the past and focus on the change that’s desired.

Accountability is a backward looking process. The focus must be on what the change is going to be and how to put it into practice moving forward. Accountability is like an MRI – it identifies what’s broken – you will still need to fix the problem. That comes with personal responsibility for the accountability process of daily purposeful and intentional alignment between what you say you believe and how you actually behave. Creating a culture of accountability and change by introducing the Skill of Positive Presence is a simple and affordable practice to put into place, moving the process forward.