An organization’s culture is shaped by its managers and leaders, who require a wide range of skills to be effective. One of the most important managerial and leadership skills is distributing responsibility among the teams in your organization and holding them accountable for it, as it improves the overall output. Therefore, it is crucial to improve accountability in the workplace.
A person who assumes responsibility for their actions and decisions rather than pointing fingers or passing the blame is considered accountable.
According to a report by Harvard Business Review, many managers face the problem of accountability. The most common reasons for this are managers avoiding confrontation and workers refusing to take responsibility for their actions.
You will accomplish a great deal more if every stakeholder completes their tasks and increases accountability at the workplace, no matter how big or small your company is. Moreover, thanks to team accountability, employees can easily follow current processes and systems and fine-tune them.
Therefore, the question ‘how to improve accountability in the workplace?’ often arises.
The following steps will help in creating accountability in the workplace and ensure that all the team members contribute equally. Further, help in promoting accountability in the workplace among employees.
Steps To Ensure Accountability In The Workplace
1. Recognizing the Mistakes and Stating Who Is Accountable for What
The first step to creating accountability in the workplace is to achieve your goals yourself and not expect your team to pull your weight. This is also one of the golden rules of leadership.
Consequently, one of the most straightforward ways of ensuring accountability in the workplace is to lead by example and hold yourself accountable for your mistakes.
Whenever you make a judgment that proves to be wrong, tell your colleagues so they know what they need to do differently in the future. Further, if you failed to meet a goal, discuss how you could have done better.
The other step of ensuring accountability in the workplace is defining each team member’s roles and responsibilities so they know what they are accountable for.
2. Showing Empathy
An employee may struggle with duties for various reasons, including a lack of confidence, experience, or personal obligations.
While you may have expected more from your employees, consider putting yourself in their shoes; perhaps you may have encountered a similar situation at an earlier stage in your career.
Having more experience, you can discuss their problems and offer advice to improve accountability in the workplace.
Recommended Read: Six Effective Ways to Manage Poor Performance in Workplace
3. Providing The Important Resources
You shouldn’t assume that your workers avoid accountability when they avoid responsibility.
In certain situations, people genuinely are not to blame for things not turning out the way they had hoped. Therefore, it is essential to have an accountable team that is well-supported. This implies meeting all other external requirements.
For promoting accountability in the workplace, answer the following questions:
- How prepared is your organization to handle a given task?
- Does your team have the right tools and software for the task?
- How much time will your team be able to complete the project? Can this time be reduced?
- Does your team have the necessary knowledge and resources to adhere to the deadline?
It is crucial to provide your team with the necessary resources for ensuring accountability in the workplace.
4. The Feedback
An important step in creating accountability in the workplace is regularly providing timely, accurate, and constructive feedback to the employees.
Providing frequent feedback ensures systematic growth in the employees’ performance and the overall output.
Additionally, providing regular feedback will enable you to determine a person’s strengths and weaknesses and identify the most effective method for giving feedback. Never sugarcoat your comments or be extra nice.
5. Monitor The Team’s Responses
The final step for promoting accountability in the workplace is to monitor the responses. After telling your employees or members how to increase accountability at work, you should closely monitor their behavior. New members tend to take slightly longer to adjust and may make more mistakes.
Consider how your employees might react before you share your ideas or demonstrate a position. Is the information they are receiving clear to them? What’s the most appropriate time to discuss the task’s various aspects? Answering these questions will help further improve your team’s overall output and the individual performance of the employees as well.
Final Thoughts
To answer the question “how to create a culture of accountability in the workplace” and “how to improve accountability,” it is evident to understand why accountability is important for organizations and managers.
The primary reason is that accountability in the workplace enhances trust among people. Additionally, it enhances employees’ performances and makes them more responsible even for the smallest of the tasks.
Lack of accountability in the workplace may create frustration among team members, and employees may fail to meet the managers’ expectations.
