Accountability Reframed — A Leadership Practice, Not a Punishment

Hey everyone, welcome back to Everyday Leader podcast. Conrad here with Shannon to continue conversations about leadership and how it is applied every day. Shannon, a question that is here for me, and showing up in a lot of different places in my life and with clients, is: when I say the word accountability, what is the first thing that comes up for you?

The first thing coming up for me today is something I have recently started saying to clients and friends. If you cannot fire someone in a professional setting, if you are not prepared as a leader with the skills to legally and skillfully fire someone, you should really rethink hiring someone. That is the extreme of accountability. Whether it is a personal or professional relationship, if you do not have the skills to say, “This is not working and we need to find a different way of being in relationship,” that is a good place to start building your leadership toolkit around accountability.

What I appreciate about that example is how it hones in on relationship and our relationship as leaders with accountability. There are layers to this. In a professional setting, can I fire somebody who is not working or performing at a level that matches the organization or its impact? There is also an individual layer. Am I accountable to myself, to the words I say, and to my impact? Then there is accountability in relationship with others and accountability to the broader world. You and I like to cultivate and garden, so an example close to our hearts is being responsible for our environmental impact. That is an accountability layer at a bigger scale.

We often think accountability is about our relationship with another person, and that is part of it. But it is also about our relationship with accountability itself and our beliefs about what happens when we or someone else meets or does not meet expectations. What is our relationship with taking a stand for what we need, what the relationship needs, and what our world needs?

You and I are working with an organization where the relationship with accountability has collapsed into a belief that “I cannot be accountable and also love or be friendly with this person.” That can also be alive within an individual: “I cannot hold someone accountable or hold myself accountable because that means I cannot be friendly to myself.” That is not true.

Accountability is one of the hardest, gnarliest topics for leaders. It is very normal for this to be as hard as it is. One belief that often comes up is that if someone is not meeting expectations and I have to hold them accountable, something is bad. They are bad, or I am bad. Without nuance, we create a story where one person is right and the other is wrong, and then the whole person becomes the problem.

When you use the word “hold,” I think about holding accountability more broadly. I am holding accountability for the values of the organization, for the culture, for a standard. If I as a leader can hold that for myself, others, and the system, that is much different from othering or judging a person who is not at that level or adhering to that value. I can hold accountability and invite others into that same orientation.

Hearing you describe that, I picture moving from accountability being personal to accountability being about what we are in service of. You have a part. I have a part. We all have a part in what we are in service of, and this particular piece is not working. It is not you as a person. Maybe it is a behavior or a gap in skill. Whatever we are in service of is missing something it needs.

That feels lighter and, at the same time, creates a fierceness to hold together.

That does not mean it is not hard. You still have to look at the person responsible for that part and say, “This is what we are going to do to fix this,” or “This is what we need to ask you for. This is the request.”

Sometimes it is even harder to look in the mirror and hold myself to account: “Hey, Conrad, this is what needs to shift or change in you as a leader.” It can be hard with others and with ourselves. The key is not to be hard on yourself. Accountability creates clarity, and clarity creates kindness. Accountability is important within organizations because you do not want squishiness. You want clear kindness.

Clear is kind. I think Brené Brown said that. So where do we go from here, Conrad? How do we land this in a tangible, right-now kind of way?

One way is with an inquiry: what is your current relationship with accountability? Then look at three layers: accountability with yourself, accountability with others in your community or organization, and accountability to the world. That could have an environmental lens, a social justice lens, or involve another cause you care about. What is your relationship with accountability in each of those areas? That is the first place to understand the current state.

Sounds great. Thanks for listening, everyone, and be well.