If you have a people reporting to you, want a team, or are just accountable for getting things done, some skills will help you make this easier. Leader accountability is more than just something you need at work and can apply to your home life too. No matter who is accountable, there are some skills you can refer to personal and work situations that will help ensure more accountability.
What is Accountability?
Accountability is who is not only responsible for something getting completed but will reap the consequences of the action. The person accountable for something isn’t always a leader, sometimes it’s a parent, teacher, coach, or coworker. Teams can be anything from sports, to families, to coworkers.
6 Skills for Leader Accountability
- Honesty
- Take responsibility
- Seek input
- Make Decisions
- Build Trust
- Personally Invested
Honesty
One thing I know for sure is that most groups that work well do so because they are honest with each other. Sometimes that may mean upsetting another member of the team or having to approach things in a new way. Ensuring you have more leader accountability means you need to be honest with your leaders. When things aren’t working, tell them.
If you are the leader, ensure everyone understands why you are doing the things you are doing. If you need to implement a new rule at home that you have to put away your toys, make sure your children understand they can be dangerous if left out. Buy in even if they don’t like the rule typically means they will support the decision. Sometimes this varies by the person of course, but knowing why you are doing something goes a long way towards compliance.
Take Responsibility
Great leaders will not only be accountable but will take responsibility for getting things accomplished. You need to hold your leader responsible if things aren’t going well.
That may mean delegating to someone, but they are not afraid to take charge in most situations. Additionally, when things go wrong, – admit it. Admitting to the poor or incorrect decision not only has you taking responsibility, but it also makes you a more honest person.
Seek Input
Seeking input is a hard skill to learn if you’ve conditioned yourself always to make the decisions. Contribution from others can be hard, so start by giving them choices. If your small children need to eat a vegetable and they know that you can ask them do you want peas or carrots? That way, instead of asking “What kind of vegetable do you want?” and then telling you none, they have to reply with an acceptable answer.
Apply this same strategy at work. Often I will ask my team members do you want to do Option A or Option B? That way, we all know we are going to get the goal accomplished, and they are more likely to work harder to help because they got to choose how to do it.
Make Decisions
Another great way to ensure more leader accountability is to lean on people who are great at making quick decisions. If this isn’t you, find out who that is and delegate to them when needed. Being a leader doesn’t mean you are the only one who can make decisions.
Honestly, I believe the best leaders let the group make a majority of decisions. Making decisions that will benefit the entire group can be hard. Therefore put your trust in people who can make decisions based on what will help the group based on facts and not emotions.
Build Trust
Building trust is probably the most important thing you can do to gain leader accountability. Your leaders can’t delegate appropriately or know who can do the best job if there isn’t trust on both sides. The leader needs to know when someone isn’t capable of doing something they normally could due to external factors. After all, we all deal with life catastrophes from time to time.
Personally Invested
Personally invested leaders are better because they understand the decisions made. To have more accountability with your leader, make sure they know important things that are happening in your life. That doesn’t mean you need to tell them all the nitty gritty details, but they should know enough to know how it may be impacting your work.
Being personally invested in your significant other or children is essential too. Knowing if something meaningful is happening to your teenager can help you deal with tantrums or behavior issues. Build relationships with those around you to ensure you understand what may be impacting them. Additionally, they will know what is guiding you to make the decisions you are making.
Leadership Accountability Conclusion
In conclusion, I hope you have learned what can ensure more leader accountability & that you will follow me over on Facebook. Pick one of the skills we talked about and create a personal development plan. Once you have strengthened that skill you will need to set yourself some goals to ensure you are accountable and stick to your overall plan.
Do you want to start tracking your goals? I have got you covered! Get organized and know what you are working so hard for. Click the link to get your FREE Trello Template!
