Stop Carrying Your Team’s Problems and Build Accountability That Sticks

Ever feel like managing a team means carrying everyone’s mistakes, conflicts, and missed deadlines on your shoulders? You’re not alone. Many first-time managers fall into people-pleasing, micromanaging, or doing the work themselves instead of coaching their team. That weight leads to burnout, toxic culture, and imposter syndrome in leadership.

But managing isn’t about fixing, it’s about building. In this episode, Desiree Petrich unpacks how to build a team that feels like a community: one built on trust, productive conflict, real commitment, and shared accountability. You’ll learn how to apply Patrick Lencioni’s 5 Dysfunctions of a Team, why the Platinum Rule matters for team dynamics, and how to overcome the fears that keep managers from holding employees accountable.

By the time you finish listening, you’ll learn:

• Why new managers avoid accountability conversations—and the exact scripts to use instead
• How to apply trust, conflict, and commitment to build accountability that sticks
• Ways to use the Platinum Rule to adapt your leadership style to different team members

Additional Links:
• Self-Awareness Assessments to use in Team Development

• Listen to the 5 Dysfunctions of a Team Recap episode 

• Listen to the 5 Love Languages Episode 

Connect With Desiree on Linkedin
Buy the book - Taking Intentional Action: How to Choose the Life You Lead

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Transcript

Desiree Petrich (00:03.054)
Stepping into leadership can feel heavy. It can feel a bit burdensome, especially if you think that you have to fix all of the problems that are happening in your team, both tactical and interpersonal. But managing your team isn't about fixing anything. It's about building something. In this episode, we're going to break down what it really means to build a team that feels like a community where people share their values. They balance each other's strengths and weaknesses. They naturally want to take ownership for things.

They don't expect the leader to carry all of the weight on their shoulders. There are great team dynamics. This is the opportunity for you as a leader to overcome that imposter syndrome and to truly know that you are making a difference by building a team that feels more like a community. So welcome back to You're the Boss, Now What? I'm your host Desiree Petriq and our goal here is to help you lead yourself and your team with confidence. So lean in and let's get started.

Desiree Petrich (01:08.056)
Today's episode was inspired by a listener question. I had a listener who reached out to me on LinkedIn and they asked the question, Hi Desiree, I want to help my team grow, share my skills and help my team build strong work habits. But I don't want to feel like I'm carrying the weight of everyone's conflicts or constantly worried about being seen as a bad manager. I said bad like I had an accent, a bad manager. My husband will make fun of me for that later.

So what was my original thought process when I read this? First off, this is so relatable. This is why as new managers, we need to have a place where we can go to ask hard questions. You are not alone in asking questions like this. We all feel that responsibility, that weight on our shoulders to not let people find out that we may or may not know exactly what we're doing or we feel like we have to be.

perfect all the time, but as a new manager, that imposter syndrome is going to be there. It will probably be there for a little while and that's okay. We're going to slowly take steps to overcome it. But if you've ever listened to this podcast, you have heard me say that leadership is a privilege, but it's also a really big responsibility and you're the boss now. You get to decide what to do with it. I've never truly broken that down and explained to you why that is the outro.

to this podcast. So I want to take just a second and help you to understand that when I say that leadership is a privilege, it speaks directly to this listener question. It's about you getting to share your skills that you have learned over time that you have truly begun to own and to feel really confident about. It is about motivating people. If you have a desire to help people to grow, if you have a desire to help people to develop and to become all that they can be.

That is something that is a privilege for a leader. That is something we get to be excited about in our new space as a new manager, as a new leader. But there is also the responsibility part. And I think when I originally wrote the outro for this, I said, but leadership can also be a burden. And I don't necessarily like that word because it feels very negative and burden almost feels like something we didn't choose.

Desiree Petrich (03:20.022)
Most of the time we do choose leadership. We do get an opportunity to take that promotion or to take on those individuals who are now considered to be under us. We do get an opportunity to say, do or I don't want to lead that meeting or chair that board of directors.

Desiree Petrich (03:46.328)
So instead of using the word burden, I've chosen the word responsibility. But responsibility still can feel heavy sometimes. We feel responsible to resolve conflict on our team, between team members, even though sometimes it feels frustrating because we're all adults and it doesn't feel like that should be on you. There is a little bit of a burden of having to deal with missed deadlines of people who have claimed responsibility for a job and a position that aren't following through on their part of the process.

There is a little bit of this heaviness. I've used the word imposter syndrome a few times. There's this heaviness of feeling like I can't let them see that I don't necessarily know exactly how to fix this. We fear getting judged as a manager, new or seasoned, of not doing what we said we were gonna do, of being bad at this new job title that we have. The problem is, is that

This all does fall on our shoulders. If we're not doing it in the right way, we're not helping our team build up a strong foundation for accountability for the results that we want. It does fall on our shoulders and we do start to burn out. It feels like a burden, one that we didn't choose because we didn't know exactly what we were getting ourselves into. But one of my favorite frameworks to teach is Patrick Lanchoni's five dysfunctions of a team. Because essentially what we just talked about is

If we're not building a strong team from the ground up, it does become burdensome. It becomes dysfunctional and it feels really heavy and people aren't pulling their weight. That's why the five dysfunctions of a team has two ways to look at it. I'm going to link the episode where I go through the entire five dysfunctions of a team framework. It's, think, the most listened to podcast episode on this podcast because it is so prevalent to what people are facing. But I do want to give you just a little overview here. First thing is

Trust is the main piece of this foundation. If we don't have trust on our team, there won't be any honesty. We won't be able to admit to our mistakes or our weaknesses. We won't ask for help. We won't be transparent with people or authentic. This is the number one thing that is holding teams back from truly building that community feel is that we don't feel like a community. We feel like a group of people who have been put in charge of certain pieces of a project.

Desiree Petrich (06:10.036)
that we need to fulfill and it doesn't feel like we can struggle with that or ask for help in that. We kind of just feel like we're supposed to be doing it. That is where an absence of trust comes in and if we have an absence of trust, if we don't trust each other to say the hard thing out loud or to ask the hard questions, then we end up fearing conflict. This is the piece I think everyone thinks that accountability is conflict.

But in this framework of the five dysfunctions of a team, they're actually separated out into two different conversations. Conflict is just a conversation. That's all it is. Conflict is a conversation about a thing. This often feels uncomfortable because the conflict piece of it is that two people tend to disagree on the outcome. But when it's about the thing, when it's about making sure the product is the best that it can be, the client is getting the best out of us that we can, when it's about making sure that we hit deadlines so that our company keeps a good reputation.

That is conflict about the thing and that is productive conflict. Being able to have that hard conversation about the thing, it might feel uncomfortable in the moment, but at the end of the day, it is productive. It is helping us to get to where we want to go. Conflict becomes negative when it becomes about the person. The person did something wrong and that's why we missed a deadline. The person did this or didn't do this and that's what created the issue. Conflict.

turns into politics when it becomes about a person or the persons on the team. So when you're thinking about conflict, when we get into accountability, we'll talk about how to do it in a way that doesn't make it about the person. It has to be about the thing in order for it to be productive because otherwise it just turns the tiny issues into big drama that then causes grudges and gossiping and the inability to apologize. And I could go on and on. But like I said, I will link that podcast episode for you.

If we fear conflict, if we're not willing to say the hard thing out loud, that's when we have a lack of commitment. People are not fully engaged. Our meetings are really boring because no one wants to say the hard thing. We have to keep having the same conversation over and over again because people aren't actually on board with a project. They smile and nod, but they know that at the end of the day, they're going to leave that meeting and not give it their all because they don't feel like they actually agreed with what was said.

Desiree Petrich (08:29.848)
They don't buy into decisions and this leads to a lack of commitment. Here's where accountability comes in. If our team isn't truly committed to what we are doing, to what we have set out as a goal, if they haven't said out loud, I am on board, I am committed, I have this piece and it is in my responsibility, period, they are not willing to be held accountable. And in some way, shape or form, we don't actually have permission.

to them accountable. If we haven't gotten them to commit, we have the authority because technically we are the quote unquote boss manager leader. But if they haven't committed to it, we can hold them accountable, but they won't care in a sense. They aren't going to take that personal responsibility on themselves because they didn't commit in the first place. If there's no buy-in, if no one feels responsible because they didn't buy in, everything falls back on you.

the manager, the leader. This is where we end up with an inattention to results. This is where if we don't have that accountability, we will miss deadlines. People are going to be focusing on their own individual growth, their own individual need to overcome that imposter syndrome, to feel like they have a good standing in the job or the community and not actually worried about whether or not we're hitting the results as a team. Because as long as they're in good standing, it doesn't matter.

That is the difference between a dysfunctional team and a functional or cohesive team, or in this case, the listener had asked about a community. How do I build a community? That, in my opinion, is kind of the same thing as a cohesive team, a group of people with a shared desire to want to do good and to meet results. That all requires that we trust one another, we're able to be honest and say the hard thing and admit our mistakes and ask for help and apologize when needed.

we're able to be slightly transparent with the things happening in our life. If we're late every day for a week and we don't tell anyone why, it starts to become a judgment along something. We are essentially begging for someone to have to hold us accountable to being punctual. Whereas if we were trusting that we weren't going to be judged or reprimanded or made fun of and we could just share why we've been late, that would kind of create no need for conflict.

Desiree Petrich (10:48.088)
productive or not because we were willing to be transparent and have that conversation up front. So this is where it all starts. Trust, the ability to have productive conflict and desire to hold each other.

Desiree Petrich (11:17.006)
truly committing to what it is that we need as a team so that we have the permission to hold each other accountable so that it doesn't all fall onto the leader. So if you want a team that feels like a community, we have to do these things the right way. We have to first build trust so that we can have that productive conflict.

Desiree Petrich (11:54.134)
Now that all feels fine and dandy. sounds easier said than done. And in a way it kind of is because if you don't understand what it would look like on a normal day today, if you don't understand how this would show up in a normal eight to five day, it's hard to spot. So I came up with a couple of examples that I have personally worked with these individuals about why accountability is so hard, the reasons why they fear it.

why it's frustrating, why it's hard for them, and then how we kind of talk through them. I don't want to say getting over it, but essentially creating an opportunity for them to work on why it's hard, because it may or may not ever be comfortable. It probably won't be comfortable, but the more that you can build that trust with the team and have some tools in place to overcome that feeling of being uncomfortable, that is where the work is going to happen. That is where some of these

cohesive pieces, these community pieces are really going to start to pay off. So the number one thing that

Desiree Petrich (13:12.77)
The number one thing that I hear from managers about why they don't hold their people accountable is this. I don't want to make the person feel bad. This happens all the time, especially because a lot of times managers get into a cycle of wanting to people please. They want to people please the people above them, their clients, their consumers. They want to please their...

Desiree Petrich (13:49.314)
They want to please their team so that they can feel like they're a really good leader. But what happens when you don't want to make someone feel bad is you don't give them the feedback. Maybe they missed adding someone to an email list. Maybe they made a few errors in an email that needed to go out. Maybe you fill in the blank. I guarantee you have some sort of example of how someone kind of missed the mark. And instead of asking them to fix it or sharing with them what went wrong, you said,

I don't want to make them feel bad. It really wasn't a big deal. Maybe it's faster for me to just do it myself. And then you take all of the responsibility onto your shoulders and you fix the problem. Here's the issue with that. I was working with a team recently and this gentleman who happened to be a leader said, my team member missed this thing. I didn't want to make them feel bad. So I just did it myself. And I turned to them and I asked the question, did you share with them what you fixed?

Did you tell them what they did incorrectly? And he said, no, I didn't want to make them feel bad. I said, I get that. But how are they going to do it better next time? If they don't know they missed it the first time, how could they improve? How can they continue to get better? One of your desires as a leader, I'm assuming, is to help people to grow, to help people to do a better job, to help them maybe someday be a manager if that's what they want.

How are they going to learn and grow if you don't give them the opportunity to fix their mistakes? If you take all the responsibility, it allows for them to...

Desiree Petrich (15:37.206)
It's okay if you want to fix the mistakes, especially if it truly is easier for you to fix in that moment, a spelling error, something along those lines, adding someone to an email list, whatever. But you can't hide from them what was fixed because you don't want them to feel bad. Remember what I said, it's about the thing. It's about the thing, not the person. That person is not a worser person because they missed a few spelling errors. But...

I think it might be contrary to what we believe. People want to be responsible for something. How can you take pride in anything? How can you feel passionate about anything if at the end of the day, you're kind of just a cognitive machine and you don't matter? We want our employees, we want our team members to know that they matter, to know that they have an actual stake in what is happening. So we need to hold them accountable. We need to tell them what was done wrong so that they can feel empowered to do it better.

next time. If we hide it from them and they find out, that's going to feel like a micromanaging, like you are just doing things for them because you don't think that they can do it themselves. Or it's going to come across like you don't trust them. And then they're going to start to lose interest. They're going to start to lose that desire to do a good job because you're going to just fix it anyway. So that is how I'm going to debunk that for you of you don't want to make them feel bad.

It's not about them. It's not about them as a person. They might feel a little frustrated with themselves, but that's how we learn. The only way that we can learn lessons is by recognizing that we did them wrong the first time. It's about the thing, not the person. So that's the first one. The second one that I see a lot is that people don't feel like they have the authority to hold someone accountable. Even if you're the quote unquote

boss, manager, leader. Sometimes it feels like you just don't have the authority. I was working with someone, an executive coaching client of mine once, and he was the second in the company, who was the second head honcho. He had what you would see from the outside looking in all of the authority, but he was technically on the same level as a lot of his team members. He technically didn't have authority over those individuals. And so when they would decide something in a meeting,

Desiree Petrich (17:55.946)
he would feel like he couldn't say anything, even though he kind of felt like this isn't right, this isn't going to end up the way that we want it to, this is going to end badly. He would say to me, I don't have the authority to tell them they're wrong. I said, well, even if you did have the authority to tell them they're wrong, that feels a little aggressive. What if you just shared your concerns with them? And he would say, well, I have, I've said to them, aren't you concerned?

that this is going to end up this way. And he asked a yes or no answer. So they answered him and they said, no, we're not concerned. So I asked him a couple of questions. said, question number one, do you trust them? Do you trust them to be vulnerable with them? Do you trust that they would be vulnerable with you? And he said, no. And I showed him the five dysfunctions of a team. And I just said, just remember that if you don't have that trust,

it's always going to feel impossible to hold them accountable. Even if you did have all the authority, even if you could veto what they were saying and do whatever it is you wanted to do, it still wouldn't work. It just wouldn't work if you don't have that trust with them. It would feel like a dictatorship. If we have trust with our team, then we're able to say something like,

Desiree Petrich (19:23.54)
If we have that trust with our team, if we're willing to be vulnerable, this is what I'm suggesting for you if you don't feel like you have that authority or maybe you don't feel like you have trust with your team yet, is to say I statements. I have concerns that this thing isn't gonna work because of this. What are your thoughts on that? Create space for people to have that open dialogue. Be willing to go first.

be willing to play a little bit of that devil's advocate. It might make the meeting last a little longer. It might make people roll their eyes at you a little bit. But at the end of the day, it's about the thing. And if you're willing to have a little bit of trust in your team, maybe before you're ready, maybe before they would feel the same way about having trust with you, if you're willing to share a little bit of that vulnerability, they're gonna open up about things that they're maybe thinking. There's probably someone else at that table in that conference room.

that's thinking the exact same thing that you are, but they don't feel ready. They don't feel like they have enough trust. They're sitting in that same imposter syndrome. They can feel the overwhelming team dynamics of feeling like people are going to push back. That's okay. You get to take on that responsibility as the leader, that little bit of a burden, if you will, of going first and sharing some of that vulnerability, opening up the dialogue for some of that productive conflict because it's about the thing.

so that you can then hold people accountable when you're having a conversation. Holding people accountable is just making sure that they know at the end of the day what the expectation is. And if we don't say it out loud, if we don't get them to understand what the expectation is, we can never have the permission to hold them accountable. So that's the second thing. If you don't feel that you have the authority to hold someone accountable, you just need to slowly build that muscle of having that conflict. Being able to have that conflict is what's going to make you

be able to hold someone accountable. The next thing that I wanted to cover is when we are scared to give feedback because we might feel like it will blow up in our face. There are definitely those employees. We have those team dynamics where it feels like at any given moment, things are going to implode. I definitely understand that. I promise. But here's the thing. was teaching, so I do a workshop called Unleash Your Team's Ultimate Competitive Advantage. And this is the conversation that we're having within that. The competitive advantage is

Desiree Petrich (21:43.692)
your team dynamics. It's your ability to feel like a community and not like a dysfunctional team, or it's your ability to feel like a team that trusts each other as opposed to just a group of good people who all show up to work. So when I was doing this workshop with a team,

Desiree Petrich (22:07.512)
So I was doing this workshop with a group of leaders and one of the leaders said, I can tell that my team knows I have favorites. And I said, well, that's really interesting. Tell me more. And she said, I have five team members and four of them are morning people just like me and they come to work and they're happy-go-lucky and they want to have a conversation and they want to talk and I say hi to them and I smile and it's great. I said, okay, that sounds great. What about the other person?

And she said, they are not a morning person. They come in, they don't smile, they avoid eye contact, and they just want to go to work. They just want to get their things done. And I said, why is that frustrating? Why is that a problem? And she said, because I feel like I'm playing favorites. I can tell that I don't have as much of a desire to have a conversation with that person. And my response to her was A, it's really good self-awareness, and I'm glad that you're at least aware that this is happening.

But the other thing that I told her was that more so than it being a morning versus an evening or an afternoon person is that it's probably a disc style issue. It's probably a communication and a behavioral style issue or not even an issue, just a matter. So I talk about the platinum rule a lot, treat people the way that they want to be treated. These people who seem like morning people who come in, they want to talk about your weekend. They probably have a very people oriented kind of communication style. They want to know

how you are, they want to know how you're feeling, they want to know how your weekend was, they are willing to make eye contact with you. And it's okay if their tasks get pushed off a little bit because it's about the people. There are people who aren't like that. They're very task oriented. They're Ds and they're Cs and they want to get to work and they don't necessarily want to chit chat. And it's not about building a community or being people focused. It's about getting the thing done and getting it done really well. And that's okay.

And they're probably so thankful that you don't stop and try and chit chat with them and that you just let them go and do their thing. So I said, if you're feeling bad about it, if you feel any negative type of way, go and have this conversation, go and say to them, have a little bit of this trust building vulnerability moment of I've kind of gotten the vibe like I don't give you as much attention as I give everyone else. It's not intentional. I just maybe feel that you're maybe frustrated with me and I would love to talk about this.

Desiree Petrich (24:27.506)
Is there anything that I can do to make you feel like you're you're

Desiree Petrich (24:44.054)
Is there anything that I can do to support you more? Do you feel good where we are? Is there anything I can do to help you in your day to day? And I almost guarantee, I mean, I don't know the situation 100%, but knowing what I know about disc styles, this person is probably going to say, no, I'm great. I just want to get my job done and I want to do it well. And I'll let you know if I need something. I don't know for certain. I'm going to go back and ask that person one day.

But sometimes it's not a matter of things blowing up in your face. It feels like that because the thoughts inside your head, the things that you're ruminating on, that pressure that's building, that is what's making you feel like things are going to implode. The distance between thinking you need to have a conversation and actually having the conversation with someone is where the most tension and frustration and anxiety comes from. Just be willing to build some trust with some vulnerability and go and have that conversation.

with that person. It's only going to blow up in your face if you allow it enough time to build up that pressure. Get the conversation over with. Use the platinum rule. Treat others the way that they want to be treated, but make sure that you're having that conversation. Do a disc workshop. Do a working genius workshop. I did an episode on the five dysfunctions of a team that you can go back and listen to about having that conversation with people. Get to know them. That is one of the biggest pieces of trust is getting to know people on a personal level.

getting to understand their working styles, et cetera. There's one more piece I want to touch on. I know this episode is going a little bit long, but it's such a good topic that I just, can't cut it any shorter. So one of the things that the listener had mentioned in her question was I don't want to be seen as a bad manager. I had this exact feeling of imposter syndrome, the exact feeling. When I started as a manager at 24, I thought I needed to be this head honcho with my hands on my hips.

and feeling confident at all times and not letting people see a crack in my facade. And it turned into me being a really assertive person who despite my desire to create a community ended up avoiding the actual work that needed to get done and feeling like I needed to be the perfect manager. It did the opposite. I ended up being a bad manager because of my desire to not become one. So

Desiree Petrich (27:08.512)
Essentially what I'm saying in that is sometimes we try so hard that it actually gives us the opposite effect. So instead of feeling like you don't want to be a bad manager, it just it keeps you in that people pleasing mode. It keeps you. Feeling like you need to hold people accountable and not allowing your team to hold one another accountable, it feels like a personal risk to you to feel like you need to be in that people pleasing mode, to feel like you don't want someone to call you a bad manager.

It feels like a personal risk to you as a person and your value. And I'm here to tell you that it has nothing to do with you as a person or the value that you hold. It is a leadership responsibility. It is a leadership responsibility of yours to hold your team accountable, to build this team that trusts each other. Where if Johnny is late on Tuesday and then they're late on Wednesday and on a Thursday, someone might actually go up to them and say,

Hey, Johnny, I've noticed that you've been late. It's really affecting our team to not be able to start our team meeting at eight o'clock. Is there anything that I can do to help or is there something that you can share with me that would help me to understand? So maybe we can change some things around so that it's not affecting the team. A team member might be willing to do that if you have helped to build a community that's vulnerable and willing to ask for help and willing to hold one another accountable so that you don't have to do it when the pressure builds so high that it feels like it's about to implode.

I know it sounds kind of hard, but our goal as a leader is not to be thought of as the perfect leader. There will be someone who doesn't like you or who maybe struggles to trust you. There will be turnover and you're going to have to keep building this trust over and over. Your goal is to be respected as a leader, to be effective as a leader. Your goal is to build that trust and to engage in productive conflict and to help the team commit to the goals and to hold

one another accountable. That is your job as a leader. So here's my suggestion to you. Don't worry about being seen as a bad manager. That's just going to keep you in that people pleasing cycle. Worry more about having conversations with your team about their values. Help them to keep everyone on the same page. Hold the standards high. Create some of that good kind of pressure where you know that at any given moment,

Desiree Petrich (29:32.056)
The team feels empowered and they feel responsible and they feel like they have a stake in the success or the failure of the team. That's what's going to keep people's standards high. That's what's going to make them show up and feel responsible for doing a good job and not making you feel like you're babysitting a bunch of adults or having to moderate a discussion or a conversation or an argument, let's be honest, with people who can't get along. If you can be that manager, that leader,

that boss that has these conversations and build some of that trust. You're not gonna get to that point where you feel like a bad manager, because you're gonna know that you're doing everything that you can. So my final thoughts on this is if you want to do a team building activity with your team, where someone can come in and help you to open up some of that vulnerability.

I'm your gal. It's one of my favorite things to do. You can send me a message on LinkedIn at Desirée Petric. Send me an email. I will pop that in the show notes. I would love to come and help your team discuss the ultimate competitive advantage, which is just team dynamics. It's your ability to jive as a team and to trust each other and hold one another accountable and all the things in between.

So send me a message, I would love to work with your team. If you want to go and do the love languages or the four tendencies or disc or working genius and you feel like you can facilitate that yourself, go to desirapetric.com slash self awareness, that's self dash awareness. And that is going to bring you to all of the different links for the assessments that I love. And just remember that leadership is a privilege. It is a privilege.

but it is also a huge responsibility that sometimes feels a little bit like a burden. But you're the boss now, you're the manager, you're the leader, and you get to decide what to do with this amazing privilege. So what are you going to do with it?