Good leadership trumps workplace complacency and establishes a culture of accountability.

Picture this scenario, if you will. You’re a business leader whose efforts have landed you with an office full of excellent staff members. After months of training, meetings, and getting to know the people you work with, things have reached a point where everyone knows what’s expected of them and things run smoothly.

That is, until you start to notice some things slip. At first, there were a couple errors here and there — no big deal. Then came the lack of drive from your employees to go above and beyond. And now, the unthinkable: missed deadlines. The ship is listing and you’re worried about the future.

Truth of the matter is, you could have avoided all of this if you established a culture of accountability from the start. If you’re going to be a strong business leader, it’s important that you know how to expect the most from your team, how to convey your expectations, and how to fairly hold people accountable when things go awry.

Thankfully, with enough foresight and consideration, you can create a working atmosphere that gets the best out of your staff while fostering an air of accountability with everyone involved.

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How to Create a Culture of Accountability That Pushes People to Excel

Accountability is a way to keep every employee on the same page when it comes to their responsibilities, and their performance. When it comes to creating an environment where accountability and accuracy is paramount, there are things you can do as a business leader to get things going down the right path. The following are just some ways you can get started.

Make accountability a priority. There’s one easy way to get this started, and it’s to make accountability a core value of the business. By emphasizing to employees that you expect a certain level of accountability among the team, it shows that you’re serious about that fact.

Lead by example. Even though we’re talking about accountability among your employees, and thus, your company, it’s important that you start everything from within. That means making or exceeding expectations and making sure you get things done on time.

Establish clear and attainable goals. Whether you determine an employee’s goals within a certain project or you work with that employee to set their quarterly or yearly goals, it’s important that they know what’s expected. Giving your team members ownership of their tasks and expected outcomes gives them a point of reference to work towards.

Give and receive feedback. One way you can properly expect people to be good at their job and continue to build on past successes, rather than become stagnant, is to offer feedback. Let people know what they’re doing right and where they can improve. Even better, why not ask for feedback from your employees? This would show them that you’re willing to have an open dialogue and could make you a better leader in the process. It’s a win-win.

Say what you mean and mean what you say. When you offer a piece of feedback or establish a new team edict, stick to it. So often, leaders will say one thing and then fail to follow through. Or a boss will bring up something they want done and never mention it again. Doing that just shows your team you’re inattentive and something that sounds important could end up being nothing at all. Don’t let that happen — follow through and your employees won’t be so complacent.

Let the team take ownership of tasks. The individuals that work under you were hired for a reason. They’re capable adults who know the job they’re tasked with doing and you should utilize them as much as you can. You can boost accountability by opening up your processes and delegating tasks when needed. Let people get involved in some of the more important tasks of a project to show you trust they’ll succeed and get the job done. Letting them in like that lets your team feel needed and tells them that you trust them to be a key to the company’s success.

Focus on growth. Failure will happen from time to time. When an employee doesn’t meet your expectations, don’t chastise them publicly. Instead, work with them to help boost their effectiveness. Have them read a book or seek assistance from a colleague. By not immediately jumping down their throats at the first sign of failure, you give everyone the space needed to take responsibility for any issues that crop up without fear of retaliation.

Celebrate successes and accountability. There are so many ways to praise employees when they excel at their job and showcase a sense of accountability. From promoting highly accountable individuals to better roles to simply offering a public “thank you” in front of the rest of the team can be a huge morale booster. Not only will it be a feel good moment, but it will show others that hard work and accountability pays off under your management.

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How Customer Accountability Can Help Bolster You and Your Team

At the end of the day, your business thrives on two things: your team’s execution on a daily basis, and a strong client base that keeps coming back and refers people to your services. The former makes it so things run smoothly everyday while the latter ensures that the customer’s experience working with you is a pleasant one. Yet it’s that latter one that’s an incredibly important part of creating a culture of accountability, since the customers mean so much to any business.

According to Salesforce, nearly 80% of customers end their business relationship with a company after experiencing bad service. However, if a company works to resolve the issue and be accountable for the problem at hand, about 70% of customers will usually come back. That right there is all you need to really know about how important customer accountability really is.

Everyone has a bad day at work and sometimes things go wrong. As a business, that’s understandable internally but to the customer, a bad experience is a waste of their time and money — two things no one wants to experience. By being accountable to your customer, you’re forcing yourself and your team to recognize your flaws or mistakes and address them head on. It’s not about taking the problem and kicking it down the road for the next department to handle. If you take responsibility for the problem, that will do wonders for your customer relationship.

You can implement this kind of accountability by setting goals and expectations of yourself and your staff. By knowing what a good customer experience should be and what you should be working toward, you can effectively write the script that will ensure success. Define your company’s vision and become a process thinker. Do that and you’ll have built the backbone of customer accountability within the business.

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Why That Accountability Matters for Your Career

As you move up in your career, you’re going to gain new skills and learn new things that will make yourself more marketable to future employers. And while those things are all great, being able to show how you can easily hold yourself accountable will be an extremely sought after trait.

Too often, people at work become complacent with how things are run and cut corners or avoid problems or mistakes all together. While that may be expedient in the short term, those things can add up and cause problems for the company. Showing that you’re willing to take responsibility for your actions and work to fix any issues that have cropped up shows you have a level of professional maturity that shows you take pride in your work and who you are as a professional.

Not only will your accountability make you more desirable as an employee, but it will also help you climb the ranks within the company. People want to surround themselves with people who take their jobs and responsibilities seriously. If you can display that you hold yourself accountable for everything you do, that could lead to more respect within the company and eventually lead to promotions and more opportunities for growth.

On its own, professional accountability is a great thing to build to ensure you’re seen as an excellent worker. But couple it with results and a drive to succeed, and leading from your values, and then accountability can propel you forward in your career.

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Bottom Line

At the end of the day, we’re all responsible for our own actions and how we compose ourselves professionally. If you’re someone that lets things slide, things may stagnate for you at best or result in some major headaches at worst. That’s why it’s best, as a business leader, to instill accountability not only with your team and employees, but within yourself as well. Complacency breeds stagnation and in the business world, stagnation often means you’re getting overtaken by your competitors. Don’t let that happen.

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