Accountability
Some would say that it is a rare thing to find one who stays true to his or her word. With the fast-paced competitive environment that we live in, it appears that keeping your word may be becoming less important to those who lead. While this may be true, I recently experienced something very different.
We have the opportunity to work with a group of executives who lead a division of a large multi-million dollar corporation. With the pressures and constant change in their company, they could have made multiple excuses about not hitting deadlines that are necessary for execution of work. Instead, they communicated to us regularly, they gave us their word that they were working through the process. They were authentic, transparent, and honest. Each leader worked to create a partnership with us by keeping us in the loop with consistent meetings and communication.
These leaders are not perfect, and their organization has many things to work on to become a more healthy company. Isn't that true of most of us? These leaders chose to walk with integrity and honesty through a jungle of unpredictability and at times poor leadership from those above them in the organization. Their circumstances did not control their character.
Thank you, my friends, for your leadership and choosing to push this thing through to the finish line with integrity. Choose to be a leader who keeps his or her word and you will make a difference.
Larry Little
Eagle Center for Leadership
Accountability means following through on what you said you'd do. It's the willingness to take responsibility for your own actions and decisions, even when doing so costs you something.
Much of accountability is ordinary: meeting deadlines and keeping the commitments you make, even when no one's watching. Leaders who hold that line give their teams a standard to measure themselves against. Over time, that consistency separates the leaders people trust from the leaders people obey.
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
The real test often comes when things go wrong, and what counts then is admitting mistakes and holding yourself to the same expectations you have of everyone else. That's what tells people it's safe to speak up and makes asking questions and getting involved feel like part of the job rather than a risk.
This module looks at three ways accountability shows up in daily leadership. Ownership begins with treating a problem as yours to solve instead of something to hand off. Feedback asks you to stay open to input, especially when it's hard to hear, and to follow through on what you learn from it. Self-awareness focuses on recognizing your own blind spots and understanding how your actions affect the people around you. Let's get started!
