True Accountability
Over the past few weeks, our leadership topics have covered priorities, knowing the source of your strength, and dealing with disappointing news. As we begin, I will ask your forgiveness for its’ length. Today’s topic is one that can make some people uncomfortable, but one that has to be mastered to be an effective leader.
The word “accountability” is tossed around without much thought given regarding the steps involved in the mastering this skill. We say, often without thinking about the downstream consequences, “I take full accountability” or, my favorite, “I will hold that employee accountable.”
Merriam-Webster defines accountability as “the quality or state of being accountable, especially an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions.”
I’m sure you are thinking… what does this mean to us as leaders? Let’s think back to:
The last time one of your employees breached the organization’s core values.
What kind of conversation did you have with them?
When an employee spoke rudely to a patient or a colleague. What did you say or do? Were your actions similar to a manager in my past who struggled with accountability? Her response to the previous questions was always “oh, I talked to them.”
Has the employee exhibited this behavior before?
Does the employee know the consequences of repeating the same behavior again?
And here’s a statement that makes the hair stand up on the neck of every HR person — what did your documentation look like following your conversation?
Here are a few tips shared with me over my many years of leadership. A statement that I continue to use originated from a now retired HR Vice President. He often started coaching conversations with “you may remember when we talked last month….” It was an ultra-professional way of referring back to the fact that “this is not the first time we talked.”
I also loved the words of an amazing nursing director now over multiple units. She still says, “I expect people to come to work, come to work on time, be nice to patients, and be nice to each other. It’s not that hard!” And yet, we often settle for bad behavior because we do not want the headache of filling yet another vacant position. However, I can assure you — if you polled your staff, they would rather work short-staffed then to work with the employee who comes to work late (or doesn’t come at all), doesn’t carry their load, or is rude to patients and their colleagues. The staff want YOU, their leader, to hold everyone equally accountable.
Finally, what should the coaching conversation look like?
What were the inappropriate actions?
Did they happen once or is this a pattern?
State your disappointment.
State your expectations.
Set a time to follow-up.
Ask the employee to read-back what they heard.
Holding employee’s accountable means setting expectations and holding everyone to those expectations. Being accountable means, you follow through on your word and you document the conversation. Our HR partners are not looking for a book length document; but they DO want to see you follow the steps above. An even better last step is to have the employee acknowledge they understand. This can be done by sending the key points in an email and have the employee respond that they understand. Or document the conversation in a simple word document and have the employee sign and date it. Personally, I like the email version. I often ask the employee to “add anything I may have missed.” This keeps both of us on the same page.
As always, please do not hesitate to contact me if there is anything I can do to help you in your leadership journey.
