Overview
Accountability is a crucial and game-changing concept. It can make or break a business, a group, or even a family. Holding others accountable is just as important as being accountable. Although I’ve generally been pretty responsible for as long as I can remember, I’d never given much thought to the thought of accountability until I went through a corporate training on it.
That training drastically changed my perspective on the core values, teamwork, and feedback – three crucial components of accountability. Aligning strategy and effort to your core values is how teams get things done. In this article, we’ll discuss 8 habits of highly accountable people. The idea is to get your mind thinking about how you can build habits that help you work with your team to achieve your goals together like you never have before!
The 8 Habits
Three tips:
- Own up to your mistakes
- Clean up your messes
- Don’t make excuses or blame others
Three tips:
- Under-promise, over-deliver
- Learn to say no
- Follow through on commitments
Three tips:
- The whole is greater than the sum of the parts
- Teamwork makes the dream work
- No one can whistle a symphony
Three tips:
- Have a growth mindset
- Stay focused on the goal
- Have stakes
Three tips:
- Prepare in advance
- Build cushions into your calendar
- Better late than never, but never late is better
Three tips:
- Build relationships with your colleagues
- Practice active listening
- Don’t be stuck in the past or too anxious about the future
Three tips:
- See change as an opportunity, not a roadblock
- Try to understand other perspectives
- See out feedback early and often
Three tips:
- Remind yourself of the goal
- Do the tough things first
- Avoid things that distract you
Summary
Being accountable takes effort and intentionality. But when you have it, it’s amazing what you can accomplish. If it was easy to snap your fingers and have high accountability, everyone would do it. It takes effort, training, buy-in, and reinforcement. But once you have a strong culture of accountability, things actually become much easier. Turnover and politics go down, while morale and productivity go up.
It starts with aligning to your core values and eliminating the phrase “That’s not my job.” It grows though trust, teamwork, and continuous feedback. What follows is an amazing reputation and long-term value.
What are some other habits or traits of people you’ve found to be accountable? How have they helped you succeed?
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