The one thing you can do to keep your team accountable

in Executive Coaching, Leadership, Mindset

Do you complain that your team aren’t accountable and you always need to push them or to follow-up in order to check their progress on the tasks they took ownership on?

While there will undoubtedly be times when your team could put in a more committed effort, a “lack of accountability” is rarely intentional. Most of the times there’s an underlying issue causing it and maybe you’re part of it.

So, before you turn into a “blaming your team member of not getting it” mode and asking him or her why he or she isn’t accountable for the tasks or projects he or she took ownership of, start by asking if there’s anything you could do differently to help.

Turn the focus on you and make an honest assessment of yourself as a leader and how you contribute in his or her accountability.

• Have you been clear about your expectations?
• Was the process and the action plan easy to understand other are missing parts to it?
• Have you been open to answer to possible questions and give clarifications?
• Have you given them the autonomy to share opinions and ideas and feel really involved in the project or task? Or you’ve thrown to them orders that they just need to execute?
• Does your body language when you communicate with your team indicates you’re approachable and they can talk to you about challenges they might face with a project? or maybe you present a sarcastic and criticizing attitude preventing them to approach you and get stuck wondering how to proceed?

Take it even one step further and ask your team members the above question, in order to get their feedback too.

Start from yourself first.

Become aware of what you do and make a conscious decision to change that part of the issue that you’re responsible of that contributes in your team not being accountable. And then move to an open discussion with your team members.