I recently had a consulting client ask me how he could get his team to be more personally accountable. And I said, “Let’s talk about your personal accountability.” He looked at me as if I had grown three heads!
I remember a time when I was whining to my Dad about a particular mishap not being my fault. Dad said, Look, kid, when you’re the leader – everything is your fault. That’s part of the job. Leadership without that kind of accountability is not leadership at all. It is simply power. Significant leaders know that accountability always starts at the top. You cannot expect your team to be personally accountable if you yourself are not personally accountable. Power without that kind of accountability is self-serving at best – dangerous and potentially destructive.
Now, this is a subject that could cover days. For now, I just want to offer you four quick questions. The Colonel called them fast and dirty, fast and dirty questions on personal accountability. The first one is, what exactly is the problem? Second question, how is what I am doing or not doing contributing to the problem? The third question is, what specifically am I going to do personally to help solve the problem? And the fourth question, how am I going to hold myself accountable for actually doing that?
Significant leaders know that all accountability starts with them. It has to come from the top.
Read Lauren’s Whitepaper on The Nine Essentials of Significant Leadership.
