The Power of Accountability

Introduction

Within today’s world of leadership, daily operations undermining your strategic goals and plans can be an easy habit to fall into. The constant string of emails, phone calls and general daily upkeep can sometimes push against the goals you’ve set your company to achieve. As such, holding yourself accountable can become the key to escaping from that cycle. Whether it’s staying on top of your deadlines or helping others meet theirs’, creating a culture of accountability can help drive progress within your business.

Why Self-Accountability is Essential?

Holding yourself accountable can mean taking personal ownership of your time, commitments and outcomes. It’s essentially switching from a “I’ll get to it when I can” to a “Let’s get this done” mindset. Without self-accountability, it can become all too easy to justify any missed deadlines. It can be easy to come up with excuses and convince yourself that missing out on goals isn’t a big deal. This can become a dangerous habit that can halt your own growth and the outcomes you’ve set for your company. As such it’s important to develop a mindset that prioritises your goals first and foremost rather than pushing them to the back of your mind.

How to Maintain Accountability

There are various ways in which you yourself can remain accountable for your actions and continuously work towards the goals you’ve set for your company. Here are a few practices that you can start applying right away:

• Set Clear and Specific Goals:
  Through using the SMART principles (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-Bound), you can start defining what success looks like to your business in particular. Working through these established goals can then help set you up for success
• Break Goals into Actionable Steps:
  Big outcomes can become easier to achieve when broken down into smaller and manageable tasks. Start by splitting up your goals into sections and working at them one at a time to reduce the impression of a daunting task.
• Time-Block Your Week
  Start out by assigning specific time slots in your calendar to focus on all of your tasks. Through doing this, you can assign specific times throughout the week to work on both of your daily and your goal tasks. This helps ensure that your goals are being worked towards.
• Review Progress Weekly
  A 30-minute check up at the end of the week can help you analyse your strengths and weaknesses. You can then apply such analysis to the week ahead to set yourself on track. This time can also be used to discuss goals with other colleagues too.

Holding Others Accountable

If you’re a leader, your ability to hold others accountable can be just as important as keeping yourself on track. Holding others accountable means creating an environment which promotes taking commitments seriously and where deadlines are respected. This can be done in a variety of ways. For starters, setting clear expectations for your colleagues can help ensure that everyone understands what is expected and why it matters. Through doing so, your colleagues will follow up on what is expected helping you to achieve your goals quicker.

Additionally, providing constructive feedback can also be a powerful tool to boosting your colleague’s accountability. When deadlines are missed or work is not up to standards, it’s important to address these concerns early and in a constructive tone. Through doing so, you can set your colleagues up for improvements towards working on your goals.

This method can also be used in reverse where employees take it upon themselves to hold their leader accountable. This may involve employees raising various concerns when they believe their leaders aren’t acting accordingly. More information on this method can be found here at BetterWorks.

Create a Culture of Accountability

Finally, the most successful teams and leaders stem from a culture that promotes accountability and goal achieving. These kinds of cultures involve everyone understanding the goals, the timelines and how all of that happens. This can be created through celebrating victories and any achieved goals. Recognising your achievements can help reinforce positive behaviour and therefore strengthen the accountability culture within your own business. As such, make sure to celebrate your wins and promote this kind of attitude within your colleagues. Through doing so, you can create an environment where everyone is excited to achieve the next goal.

Alongside this, there are various traits that a leader can try to adopt to help better improve this sense of culture surrounding accountability. Such characteristics can include enhanced empathy as well as humility. This article from Forbes goes into greater depth about these characteristics.

Final Thoughts

It’s not the case that most leaders don’t care about their goals, it’s the fact that they have little framework for accountability and often lose out on opportunities to reach for their goals within the pile of everyday tasks. Through taking ownership and keeping yourself accountable (and by helping others do the same) you can set your own business up for success and become a striving leader in your field.