Six Tips for Holding Leaders Accountable
Leader accountability is quite important to business success! Without accountability measures, it is difficult for leaders to be aware of expectations, goals, and their progress with both meeting goals and supporting the organization’s mission, vision, and values.
Six ways to Promote Leader Accountability include:
Set clear expectations and goals: Without goals, leaders will not have the needed compass to guide them on their way to successful leadership. Even the smartest leaders, executives, and CEOs set goals and are held accountable and measured on performance towards goals and targets.
Use performance metrics: Without measuring performance, leaders will not know how they are doing with meeting goas and targets set. Leaders can also use performance metrics to measure the progress of their team and to hold team members accountable for meeting specific targets. Some methods support the use of specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals.
Provide resources and support: Leaders need resources to support their personal leadership development along with the development of their team. A leader's job is to remove barriers and support goal attainment. This may include attending and providing training, access to needed tools and technology, and opportunities for professional development.
Conduct regular check-ins: Those who have leaders as direct reports need to check-in with their direct reports, just as they expect leaders to check in with their individual contributors and team members. This may include providing feedback, offering support, and discussing challenges and progress towards goals. Regular bi-weekly meetings are important to have on the schedule so that you can keep current on what your leaders are facing.
Encourage open communication: By using a coaching approach with leaders, attending scheduled check-in meetings, active listening, and a coaching approach supports continuous open and honest communication. This builds trust and promotes psychological safety. This includes encouraging team members to speak up about any challenges they are facing, in addition to openness about the decision-making processes.
Incentive and promotions: Have ways to celebrate successes with leaders and employees. By using performance metrics, progress can be managed and should be celebrated. This may include: awards, positive feedback, promotions, bonuses, and incentives based on both qualitative and quantitative progress.
How do you promote leadership accountability at your organization? Comment to share?
Supporting research (a few foundational things):
- "Leadership Accountability: How to Ensure Your Team Members Are Meeting Their Goals" (https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/leadership-accountability.htm)
- "How to Foster Leadership Accountability in Your Team" (https://www.clearviewbusiness.com/how-to-foster-leadership-accountability-in-your-team/)
- "Leadership accountability: How to get it right" (https://www.td.org/insights/leadership-accountability-how-to-get-it-right)
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About the Author:
Sarah Scala is a senior talent management leader and executive coach with 20+ years of experience providing organization development, change management, and leadership development solutions for diverse global and local industries. She is a collaborative consultant, coach, and educator supporting performance transformation of executives, leaders, and teams. Sarah is a methodical, results-driven leader recognized for helping clients reach their highest potential, increase revenue, reduce turnover, elevate business profitability, build competencies, and improve performance.
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