The trait all managers love

Robin recently suggested to me that we write an article on accountability. It’s something that many people leaders struggle with despite it being one of the most important attributes within a team. It’s a quality we both care a tremendous amount about and which we believe drives success on teams and in business. It’s one we hire for and see in high performers. Yet, we consistently get asked questions about how to create better accountability within a team, how to hold others accountable to commitments, and how to inspire self-accountability. But before we answer that, let’s talk about what accountability really is and why it’s so important no matter what role you are in.  

According to the dictionary, accountability literally means “subject to being held to account.” It means someone is on the hook. If you’re accountable, willing to be on the hook, it means you’re putting yourself out there to deliver something. This means people across the team will count on you to deliver… sales, a campaign, new talent, or shipping a product. Delivery is tangible value as long as it is done at quality. For peers this means they can count on you. That means that they can go work on other pieces of the puzzle and know that you’re going to deliver what’s required. If you’re on a team together that means you’re going to deliver more and you’re going to help them perform better and deliver value for the organization. If you’re a leader it means you can turn your attention to other areas. You can do the job of a leader and set vision, goals, and direct attention knowing that high impact priorities will get driven to completion. We especially love this since it allows us to focus on other areas that require more hand-on leadership attention (see leading through the T article). The best individuals demonstrate accountability by flat out delivering, which almost always requires overcoming obstacles and staying focused on the things that matter most. Beyond that, the best also give regular updates on progress and are proactive in asking for help or showing roadblocks. 

Without accountability, jobs and key work slip through the crack. Deadlines keep passing, work falls, there are excuses. Nobody likes these things and it’s usually unintentional, but they happen because people get distracted by other priorities, jobs they like better, or they’re over-reliant on others to get things done on their behalf. In leaders this happens when they are too laissez-faire and perhaps too hands off. In one previous company, I had a coworker who had to deliver results related to optimizing one of our main customer journeys. Instead that person constantly just focused on reporting about orthogonal results. They were more focused on managing their backlog of tests and shiny object priorities than making sure our customers could get to value. There is no doubt this was a hard project, but the team that was designated by our leader as the accountable party, kept saying it had to be a cross-functional effort. When others tried to put themselves on the hook this person would stand up saying they were accountable, but they were never held to account - as a result the project never succeeded. An example like this gets in the way of the delivery of key business results. I’m sure you can think of examples like this from people you have worked with as well.  

On the other hand, we both have great examples of this going well. When it goes well you free up people to work on more, getting more done in the company. It builds trust, which not only causes delivery, but gets people excited about their work, and feel good. One of our favorite phrases is GSD and it’s something we both look for in hiring and developing talent. At PandaDoc, we have several great GSD team members who are extremely accountable. These are people we consistently turn to drive us on key projects and who our leadership team knows we can count on for important projects. We also have both relied heavily on people who live for accountability. In Keith’s former company, he had one coworker who he regularly turned to knowing that this person loved being on the hook. This individual allowed Keith to be more effective by identifying focus areas, assigning them to that accountable individual and then dividing and conquering. In a role with large scope, this was extremely valuable as it allowed him to get more done in half the time, knowing this person was going to stay focused on the task and do whatever it took to deliver. In this case he helped develop a new go-to-market strategy while Keith took over the aforementioned customer journey work and in another case he worked on a product portfolio strategy while Keith drove nearer term financial results. In Robin’s role she has team members that she can relentlessly delegate to. This is especially important when building a team from scratch and growing at the pace that PandaDoc has.  In one particular instance, she was able to delegate the operational ins and outs of the people function allowing her to focus on building a business partner function that now helps drive accountability of their respective areas and allows the leadership of the company to get more done.  

Being accountable over time creates a track record for individuals and leaders will continue to give them more, count on them, and reward them accordingly. Accountability also often gets mixed up with responsibility, but we see them as different. Responsibility means you have a role or are involved, it means ownership, but doesn’t mean you drive in the same way that we see accountability. This drive and the willingness to get things done is what separates accountability.

So accountability is clearly very important and we doubt many of you questioned that when reading this article (though hopefully we made you think about it in new ways). Now let’s shift focus to how to develop accountability in yourself or your team. First, you just have to start doing it. Put yourself on the hook, which often means you have to reframe how you have thought about tasks. This may mean relying less on others, taking the lead, or volunteering for things. It certainly means removing ambiguity about ownership - the best projects have a single accountable individual even if others help with the project or task. Most importantly we think it means being honest with yourself by setting timelines, milestones, OKRs and not making excuses when you miss. Use misses and gaps to fire yourself up to do better. 

Developing accountability within a team is a little more nuanced. First showing it yourself and modeling it will help. If you’re consistently missing deliverables or passing blame, you send a message to your team that it’s ok not to be accountable. Second, talk about it as a core principle - we’re big believers in outlining these guiding principles and then praising them publicly when they’re demonstrated. Keith loves to call out his team in All Hands or slack channels and offer meaningful and specific praise for accountability to show why it’s important. That positive feedback loop can be huge for reinforcing traits like accountability. Another great tactic is to find ways to build trust and relationships within your team. Having team members wanting to be accountable is so much better than forcing accountability. This can come from the forging of bonds among team members, sharing common purpose, and a desire to not disappoint your team or peers. Lastly, hire people who demonstrate signs of accountability in their current or previous roles. Ask questions about accountability in interviews; one of our favorites is “tell me about a time you worked on a challenging project with multiple team members” or “tell me about your role in a project that failed.” Answers to questions like these will illuminate how accountable the individual may be.

Regardless of your motivations, accountability is a key trait and it can be developed. In addition to being great for the company, your teammates and leaders we believe it also drives a sense of success and accomplishment in individuals who use it well. Feel free to share stories of how you think accountability makes a difference.