What Happened to Holding People Accountable?
Many managers struggle with holding people accountable, so much so that often instead of holding people accountable they just correct the situation for the individual or even cover up for that person to avoid having the conversation. This creates a multitude of issues for the employee, manager and the organization.
How can an employee know what the expectations are if they are not held accountable? Most individuals want to do a good job, if you as a manager do not provide feedback and just fix everything for them you are taking away growth and possible promotion opportunities. In addition, if they go to another organization they may not be successful due to a lack of training and coaching on your part. To avoid conflict or to be seen as “nice,” more damage than good can be the result.
As a manager, you want exceptional staff, we all do. To get to this point, behaviors may need to be corrected, and coaching, counseling and training may need to be done. These things are never fun and it seems like we never have the time. If you invest the time now, you will save time in the future. Yes, I know how cliché this sounds, I also know it works. As easy as it would be for me to just fix something I know I will be fixing this same thing time and time again unless I educate, and hold people accountable to do right things right. In my experience people appreciate being educated on the correct way to do things. The last thing they want is for their manager to be frustrated with them, without knowing why. Worse yet, if the manager voices their frustrations to someone else and this gets back to the employee it has just damaged your reputation as a manager.
As an organization, holding people accountable can help you get the right people in the right seat on the bus. If you have an employee who is constantly missing deadlines, or has constant customer complaints these issues need to be addressed and not swept under the rug. It is a great way to identify possible training opportunities and bad organizational fit. If these things are not corrected your Rock Stars will leave and you will be left with a team of individuals who are not performing at optimal levels. Businesses will suffer in more ways than one. This type of news travels fast among high performers and these individuals will avoid your organization, making recruiting more difficult than it already is.
My suggestion to you is to embrace personality accountability, own this situation and begin holding your team members accountable. Invest the time to coach and train (or re-train) your staff. The time you spend today is nurturing the seeds of tomorrow’s successes.