Leadership Ripples with Leah Fink

55 - Abusing Accountability

• Leah Fink • Season 2 • Episode 5

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How can you tell if you're holding your team accountable in a healthy way? In this episode, we explore the multifaceted nature of accountability in leadership, highlighting common pitfalls such as the hierarchical imbalance of accountability and the emotional intelligence required for constructive interactions. Learn how to track your impact and build meaningful accountability systems.

Are you aware of the impact you are having on your team's ability to be accountable?

If you want to ensure you are using accountability for growth, instead of as a punitive measure, you should give this a listen!

You can still support mental health in Canada until March 21: https://www.thepushupchallenge.ca/fundraisers/leahfink/the-push-up-challenge

To have your questions answered on the show, submit your story here: https://allthrive.ca/share-your-story

Leadership Ripples with Leah Fink is live every other week at 12:00pm MST.  Please join us to get answers to your leadership questions! https://www.linkedin.com/in/leah-fink-all-thrive/

Speaker 1:

Every action you take as a leader has a ripple effect, starting with your team, going out to the organization and even out into people's personal lives. Here we offer you the chance to learn from real-life stories of leadership so you can gain a deeper understanding and level up your own skills From communication to culture, to power and equity, to feedback, to resolving conflict and more. Join us and make sure you're creating the ripples you want. Welcome to Leadership Ripples with Leah Fink.

Speaker 2:

Hello and welcome to Leadership Ripples with Leah Fink. Today we are going to be talking about accountability, especially in the workplace, how we often see it used and how it should more ideally be used to make sure that we're not abusing the way that we use accountability. And where this topic came from is in February I took 18 days and did a mental health push-up challenge by the Canadian Mental Health Association. So over those 18 days I did 2,000 push-ups and raised a lot of funds for them. If you are interested, by the way, that is still open until March 21st if you want to support the cause. But one of the things I also did during that challenge was I put a couple challenges to leaders during that time of different things that they could do to support mental health in the workplace and I had someone write in and ask a question and I asked if I could share it on the show because it was such a good write in and ask a question and I asked if I could share it on the show because it was such a good comment around this whole concept of accountability. So JG asked Leah, how do you think about the difference between accountability and integrity? I find that accountability can sometimes be overused by leaders as a cudgel instead of a tool to create a healthy culture, as you suggest. So, first of all, thank you so much for asking, jg, and I appreciate that you allowed me to use this on the show, because this is such a critical thing for people to consider, because accountability is a hugely important thing at work and we want to make sure we're using it really well. Now, of course, that being said, it is a complex issue in the workplace, so we're going to go through some of the different concepts and reasons that it can be so challenging and why we often do misuse it or don't use it ideally, and talk a little bit about what we can do to create some of those healthier patterns, healthier uses of accountability.

Speaker 2:

The first issue that we have with accountability is how it's structured in the workplace, and that's due to a couple different factors, but what often happens is the amount that people are held accountable actually increases as you go down the organizational hierarchy and decreases the higher you go up, which is a little bit the opposite of what it ideally should be in my mind, and this happens for a couple reasons. The structure of leadership includes this concept that you are mentoring and leading and providing your reports with feedback so they can be improving. There's this inherent part of the role that you need to hold the people on your team accountable for the work they're doing and guide them to do it better. So there's already this inherent part of accountability within a leadership role, and that accountability does not work the same way in the opposite direction. It's often up to the leader's discretion how much they talk about their own accountability or ask for feedback and honestly, in a lot of cases that means this might never happen. And as we talk about on this show our brains. When we're in a position of less power, like your direct reports would be to you as a leader, they act from a little bit more of a fear space from your amygdala. They're a little activated. So it doesn't feel safe to ask about that accountability, to bring up that feedback. Naturally, it's risky and vulnerable to do that. So of course, a lot of people aren't going to do it unless a very safe environment has been created and even with that, often that they are directly asked. In addition to that, even if you have created this environment, your staff team is probably going to know less about what you're supposed to be accountable to in your role than you know. And then your manager knows about your role. You know a lot more about their responsibilities, of course, so it's a lot easier to hold them accountable. Going that way, they might not even know where to start if you want to ask them about your personal accountability of tasks that you're doing, at least Now, of course, if you have a manager, they will be holding you accountable and up and up and up and eventually get to the top of the organization and there will be no one with a higher position. So everything about this hierarchical structure how we frame it, the inherent pieces of leadership roles means that it's way easier to increase accountability the further down we go the hierarchical ladder, and this doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing, but it does mean there's a lot of things we want to be aware of that are happening in that dynamic to ensure that all of these pieces are healthy.

Speaker 2:

Now let's step to another idea, and that's this idea of one of your tasks as a leader is in guiding your staff, telling them what they need to do so that you can hold them accountable, and one of the biggest challenges that I see with leaders holding their teams accountable is. There's often not quite as much clarity as they think they have given around the responsibilities, around what that person will be accountable, around what tasks they need to complete, and on top of that, there could even be a difference in perception or how we understand the things that we're asked to do. Now, as a leader, you might also have additional understanding about the task that you've asked someone to complete. You might know the bigger picture behind it and some of the reasons it would be better to do this way, and, of course, you have your own perception on how it's best to do these things.

Speaker 2:

Your employees don't necessarily have that information.

Speaker 2:

They only have what you give them, and you may have forgotten something. You may have given them a whole bunch of information at once. It was hard to process, but they're going to try to do the best they can with the information that they have. So let's think about it from their perspective. They've been asked to do something that they might not understand fully. They know that they need to do it. They might even be a little bit worried or stressed about completing it, and that nervousness could extend to a hesitancy to ask clarifying questions if they have a little bit of unsurety about what they're supposed to be doing and of course they could be worried that there's consequences if they don't do it well.

Speaker 2:

So they put in their effort, they do their best, maybe they even put in overtime or extra effort to make sure this is done well, and then they're held accountable and in a lot of situations that could mean that they were told they underperformed, that they didn't do a good job or, as JG mentioned, maybe this was even used as like a cudgel against them to beat them down. And I, unfortunately, have heard a lot of examples from staff where they didn't have the clearest outline from their leader or no one on their team knew who was supposed to be accountable to a task, but everyone got blamed or a project changed in the middle and that wasn't communicated and then they were held accountable to a poor result. There are a lot of examples I could use of this and in this case, in these cases, a lot of the staff where they're caring, they're putting in genuine effort, those efforts, they're told that those efforts are falling short and they're being treated poorly. Think of how demoralizing that is for someone. And this doesn't have to be obvious or extreme, it doesn't have to mean that they're being yelled at or that there's insults thrown, but can, of course, wear down on people because they were trying, they did put in effort and ultimately you're getting upset at them for something that was at least partially your responsibility. You controlled some circumstances and information that were out of their control, and it's critical, as leaders, that we take more time to reflect on how we are contributing to situations where our staff were not as successful as we hoped. So when you look at both of these big picture concepts of how we frame accountability in organizations, you can see how it could easily be overused for those that we lead, and we place responsibility for more than is due on those people's shoulders for some of our less than optimal actions.

Speaker 2:

And in addition to these structures, we of course, have our own emotional intelligence and self-awareness. When we hold people accountable, are we doing it from a calm and regulated place? Are we recognizing our own impact on the situation and asking good questions, focusing on growth, or are we stressed and worried about how their performance will affect us and our role? That will be blamed for something going wrong? Maybe we're unaware of our own impact on this? Then we're starting to get to that point where we're probably using accountability like a cudgel, to that point where we're probably using accountability like a cudgel. So how do we change this? How do we get to this point of integrity, as JG mentioned, or if there's other words that resonate with you for how to do this better, how to make accountability a really positive force in your organization?

Speaker 2:

The first thing we want to do is acknowledge how much of an impact we have on our staff's performance. The clarity we provide, the feedback that we ask for, the emotional intelligence and how we present this. These all play a huge role in how well your staff know what responsibilities they have, how to do that the best, why this matters and how well, ultimately, they're going to be able to execute what you have asked them to do. And, as a leader, there'd be three steps that I think are really helpful to emphasize here. So the first one if you are holding someone on your team accountable to a poor result, first be curious about where the gap was between their understanding, their resources and the result. So what could the staff have needed to know that would have helped them do better to better complete the task? Or were there resources other than knowledge or in addition to knowledge that they needed, that could have helped them have a better result. Because that's something you can do as a leader is help resource them with knowledge and other things that will help them complete the task better.

Speaker 2:

Number two ensure that you are consistently asking your staff for feedback when things have not gone to plan, and even that you're opening space and asking specifically for clarifying questions when you are handing out responsibilities, that they have this chance to interact with this thing that they're being tasked with in a healthy way, so they feel really sure on how they're going to move forward in a healthy way. So they feel really sure on how they're going to move forward, and that gives them the space, too, to contribute to this idea of how they are part of accountability in the organization as a whole. And third, I invite you to look at accountability in your organization in general, and especially if you have the power to change some of these structures to shift your whole team into some healthier ways of accountability. Please look at that and if you have questions, if you want to talk that out, I would love to be part of that conversation. Please feel free to reach out and we can chat about it. And one last thing I want to add on top of all of this is we just talked today about accountability as it goes from leader to report, and we didn't have time to get into this idea of peer accountability. It can be a hugely powerful tool. It can be so helpful, and many of these dynamics we just discussed can make a much healthier team, and so if you are interested in that as a topic, shoot me a message because I'd be happy to do an episode on that as well, and so we can really get a well-rounded sense of how we're holding each other accountable in our organizations.

Speaker 2:

As a reminder to our listeners, if you have a story or a question you want to share with the show, I would love to have it. You can find the link for that in the description below, and we would love to hear from you. If you are a regular listener to the show or you like this episode. I, if you are a regular listener to this show or you like this episode, I would greatly appreciate it if you could leave a rating or review.

Speaker 2:

It really helps the show get out to more people and I would greatly appreciate it. Finally, I also want to let people know that this show is going to be switching from a weekly show to airing every two weeks. So just note that in your calendars and I will be talking to you again then. Finally, I want to thank you so much for listening with me learning, taking the time to consider what impact you are having in these cases, instead of just handing down accountability, piling it on the shoulders of your reports. It really makes a difference to them and to how we see accountability in our whole work society. So thank you so much and, as we close, remember to ask yourself what kind of ripples are you going to create this week?

Speaker 1:

We hope you enjoyed the episode. Make sure to subscribe, comment and connect with Leah at meetleahca.