What can you do as a leader when a staff member’s accountability is faltering? Assess your own, and your people’s, mutual accountability skills and take the steps to strengthen them! Observation, giving affirmative and corrective feedback, receiving feedback, and interpersonal communication are some of the key ones. Make sure you have an organization-wide mutual accountability process in place and being used by everyone throughout your organization, from the top down. You can take some key steps toward helping your staff members get on course and express their highest character, competence and commitment. Mutual accountability will help them better think, say and do the right things to achieve the results necessary to make your organization’s worthwhile vision, governing values, mission and goals a reality. These steps are: 1. Inform the staff member clearly and directly when you observe that he or she is not being accountable. Dialogue with him to find out why. Let him know that you want to help him get back on course in terms of character, competence and commitment. 2. Ask the staff member how he plans to resolve the issue and be assertive about getting from him a real, action-step solution rather than just promises. 3. Lay out logical consequences so that you and the staff member know exactly what will happen when what you have agreed to does or does not happen. 4. Help the staff member become accountable by establishing hourly or daily check-in times to help him monitor and establish the expected behaviors. Early in the process help him positively reinforce his successes and then make the check-in times less and less frequent as his accountability improves. 5. Find out where the staff member’s integrity is soft and why. This is usually the source of waning accountability. 6. Find a work environment or tasks for the staff member that supports his natural motivations. He may just be bored or have outgrown the challenges in his position. 7. Train your staff member in the skills for being mutually accountable. Demonstrate the “how” of being accountable and don’t assume he already knows. The Personal Accountability and Commitment Team process outlined in an article you can find in the Library section of my Web Site, will help you with this. The PACT process is a great mutual accountability training tool. 8. Help your staff member identify and remove whatever is in the way of him being accountable. Missing tools, lack of clear expectations, lack of clear directions and lack of a supportive, mutual accountability structure can be the problem. 9. Help your staff member grow in the intellectual and emotional understanding that mutual accountability is a joy, not a should. Share the benefits of mutual accountability and how it can help everyone gain and maintain stellar, long-term careers. 10. Help the staff member be an accountability partner and coach to someone else, like you are being a coach and accountability partner to him. Mutual accountability is a win-win proposition! Establish it and nurture it! If you need help in mastering and implementing any of the skills and tactics mentioned above, I'm here for you! Please visit the Distance Call-A-Coach section of my web site for more information, and contact me if you have any questions.
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Dr. Millard MacAdam is a personal, professional and business enhancement coach, consultant, professional speaker and author. His firm is ProActive Leadership Consulting, Training & Coaching in Newport Beach, California. Order a FREE subscription to his monthly ProActive Leadership Advisory Tips E-Mail newsletter and discover sound and proven principles, practices, and tools that you can use to strengthen yourself and your business.