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| Accountability (ac·count'a·bil'i·ty) n : responsibility to someone or for some activity. |
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Recently, as I have been working with executives and organizations, there is one distinction that keeps coming up over and over and that is the whole arena of accountability. As we have seen in the corporate landscape, as well as in the headlines, companies have to account for their actions. Much of this has come as a result of the large corporate financial scandals involving companies like Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing and Arthur Andersen. It has affected top business executives like Dennis Kozlowski at Tyco to even celebrity business moguls like Martha Stewart. The distinction 'accountability' is simply having the ability to account to someone or for some activity. However, in business, this distinction frequently becomes muted. When I hear managers and leaders using the phrase 'so and so is accountable for that..." what they really mean is who's to blame when it doesn't turn out! Upon further inquiry into accountability, what I often see is that managers and leaders may promise to do something or initiate a new policy or procedure, only to not follow through with it themselves. This is what is commonly referred to as Not Walking the Talk. And usually employees don't feel empowered or have the ability to call others to account. It's as if there's a silent credo called "don't call it on me and I won't call it on you." This then starts the downward spiral of trust and integrity within many organizations and interpersonal relationships. The lack of accountability also perpetuates the habit of people blaming the circumstances and situations on why things don't turn out. Why? Because it's much easier to point the finger to the circumstances or others, rather than to ourselves. People have told me that they typically associate 'accountability' with words like effort, struggle, burden, hardship, etc. Therefore, people are not freed up to take things on to be accountable. That is why people would rather complain about something instead of getting into action and doing something about it. Accountability really is the power to be proactive, to take things on and make things happen. It is the ability to hold others to account, not from blame, but from support in maintaining their integrity. Accountability should be a core competency not just within every organization, but at the individual level as well. And while it may be true that being accountable is "where the buck stops," accountability can be a powerful distinction in life. It gives you the ability to account for the way your life goes, rather than blaming it on the circumstances that come at you.
Leo Tonkin |
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