A is for Accountability

Last week I had a great interview with John Spence,  Author of Awesomely Simple, and during our chat John gave me 5 simple steps on how to increase Accountability which thought I’d share with you.

1. We need to have 100% absolute clarity on who is accountable and what the expectations are.
   These expectations need to be measurable and provable. e.g. They will achieve $100k in Sales by the end of quarter. We need to be crystal clear on whether the result has been achieve or not, we cannot have any ambiguity.
   One of John’s favourite sayings is Ambiguity breeds mediocrity.
2. We need 100% agreement from the person who will be accountable that they understand the expectations and that they accept the accountability.
   Without their acceptance we do not have accountability!
3. Track and Post Progress.
   This means, measure the performance against the clear and agreed targets, and then post that information, make it highly visible.
4. Coach, Mentor and Train People.
   When we look to implement accountability and we make the results highly visible, many people find this makes them feel vulnerable, so we need show them that this visibility is needed because it will allow us to help them when we see that we are not making the required progress. We need to let them know its ok to come to us and ask for help and support when its needed, rather than when it too late.
5. Reward Success and Deal Decisively with Failure.
   We need to publicly recognise successes, make success a celebration as this will reinforce the benefits of accountability.
   For those items which are not going well we need to act quickly and decisively to turn them around, we need to find out what needs to be done, what skills, tools or authority are missing and look to provide it.

If you follow these 5 simple step then this help you implement culture of accountability, which will help you become a FAST Leader, and significantly increase the results you and your department achieve.

If you want to know more about becoming a better leader, a FAST Leader, then email me at gordon@leadership-principles.com.

Gordon

Inc Magazine Top 100 Great Leadership Speaker
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