Set the Expectation, Maintain Accountability, & Provide Support!

I’ll say it one last time as we close this look at capturing the profitability that’s killed when no one is held accountable: accountability isn’t all about cracking the ole whip! In fact, the most effective leaders I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with or even studying from a distance were never the ones who made the decision to administer any kind of disciplinary action to someone on their team who wasn’t performing as expected. The best leaders I’ve ever known did everything in their power to avoid those steps but, when their hands were forced, they most certainly did take the necessary action.

I know what you’re thinking, “Hold on, Wes, you just said they didn’t make the decision to discipline folks. And in the very next sentence you said they did discipline folks. Which is it?”

Effective leaders DO NOT make the decision to issue disciplinary action but they absolutely do hold their team members accountable for choosing to use behavior that warrants that disciplinary action. That said, I’ve seen some of the best leaders I’ve ever worked with really struggle as they prepared to deliver a tough conversation that would have a negative impact on someone’s career -  but they still did it; compassionately, candidly, and consistently with how they held every other team member accountable to the same expectations. But that was just a part of what made them effective leaders!

As I mentioned before, holding someone accountable doesn’t have to turn into a fight… Truth be told, it should be anything but that. If we’ve maintained clear expectations and accountability along the way, a conversation around accountability will be calm and EXPECTED. The majority of situations reach a boiling point only get there because the person with leadership responsibility has chosen repeatedly not to address what they should have been addressing all along! The best leaders who maintain high levels of accountability and have teams that routinely exceed expectations are not only the ones who address issues immediately, they’re also the ones who work directly with the individual to determine any kind of additional support they can provide to avoid ever having to address that issue (or anything similar) ever again.

Those leaders do indeed create a culture of high accountability within their teams, but they also earn a tremendous amount of engagement and loyalty from their team members because their actions show how much they’re willing to invest in those team members’ success. I won’t bother asking if you understand how much doing that impacts this particular profitability killer… I’m sure you get it. I’m also sure you can see how building this kind of accountability into your culture can help address many of the other profitability killers we’ve looked at leading up to this point. 

With all this to work from, there are two more things that I’ve seen kill profitability for far too many organizations: how people are trained and how people are promoted. We’ll address both of those soon - but not in that order…