Monday, May 4, 2015

An Accountability Mind

An accountability mind is learning agile, wise, courageous, resilient and high-mature.

Accountability is “the obligation of an individual or organization to account for its activities, accept responsibility for them, and to disclose the results in a transparent manner.” (business dictionary.com). Self-accountability and collective accountability are that we each are creating knowingly or unknowingly the world, environment, culture that we find ourselves in, and we take responsibility and we grow with it.




True accountability focuses on learning. It is not uncommon to confuse accountability with blame. They are actually opposites. Shared accountability or collective accountability involves shared ownership, because most breakdowns stem from silo behavior where people aren't coordinating, communicating, solving problems or making decisions in a way that considers consequences to others. True accountability focuses on learning to do things differently, rather than punishment. The problem with punishment is that punishment teaches you what NOT to do, but it doesn't teach you what to DO DIFFERENTLY. Ultimately, as human beings, we will make mistakes and there will be breakdowns. Forgiveness is key as long as learning is the next step.


The leadership accountability is about the wisdom and courage: Accountability is to be wise and brave enough as a leader to remove and change in time before the problem becomes overwhelming. Accountability is a two-way street and is only as effective as the people who value and believe in it. We are all leaders participating in many systems connected to everyone. How we hold ourselves accountable and those around us sets the tone and pace for everyone not just for today, but for the next generations to come.


The true measure of accountability is about resilience: It is determined not by whether someone or a team makes a mistake or not, but on how quickly they can recover so that customers, teammates, and others aren't negatively affected by the breakdown. This is a practiced skill for any professional performing group. Well, they allow for technical breakdowns, not just people breakdowns.

Leadership and accountability must go hand in hand. Teams of any kind will follow only if the leader is accountable. Accepting responsibility is when we prove our values and build our trust. An accountability mind is learning agile, wise, courageous, resilient and hi-mature.




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