Shawnee Love   •  
April 10, 2013

Not too long ago, I began a series of blogs on the characteristics that make a good manager.  Respect for oneself and others ranks high on my list.  Another critical characteristic is Accountability.

Good managers own what happens and doesn’t happen in their department.  That doesn’t mean they take all the credit in fact the best managers share or transfer the credit to their people, but take responsibility for what goes wrong as it happened ‘on their watch’.

Unfortunately, accountability isn’t easy to learn and if the conversations I have with owner operators are any indication, the lack of accountability in the workforce is practically an epidemic.

If you want to read a great book on accountability, check out The Oz Principle.  One of my favourite concepts in his book is the idea of operating under or over the line.  Under the line, you are not accountable and are living in blame, excuses and denial.  These are the people who say things like, “I know I promised, but I just ran out of time”, or “Operations dropped the ball and it delayed us all”, or the frustrating “That wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t told how to do it.”

Contrast that with accountable behaviours, i.e., above the line, and you have people who not only observe problems but seek opportunities to make improvements, take responsibility or ownership for those issues, figure out how to resolve the problem, and then implement, follow through and follow up to ensure the problem is resolved.  The Oz Principle calls this:

• See it
• Own it
• Solve it
• Do it

The secret of accountability is that there is no secret but it requires commitment and effort.  It can definitely be learned and must be practiced.

As a manager if you role model accountability and recognize and reward it when you see it in your employees, your people will learn accountability from you.  The best part of accountability is if your team practices accountability, you will find your team delivers on its promises.  Since a manager’s job is to get the team to deliver, accountability is one of the most important characteristics to cultivate.