Why Must Women Leaders Instill Accountability

There was a running joke at my startup. 

Witness two individuals locked in a room with a whiteboard and me, and you'd better alert their loved ones—they wouldn't be returning home anytime soon. It was the unmistakable sign that these two souls had confronted their simmering issues and we were now in the middle of where their problems with each other had first started. 

If you brought a problem to me, I would flip and ask you right back how you were going to solve it. If you complained about someone, I would invite them to that very meeting and not let either of you leave until the issue was fully resolved. 

I wasn’t this sort of leader from the start. I learnt along the way that transparency and accountability start at the top. It is the leader that allows or prevents a culture of politics, gossip or pessimism.  If we, as leaders, are the genesis of the problem, who else but us can solve it?

Most leaders don't set out to cultivate such a culture. They embark on their leadership journey driven by the desire to dismantle such barriers. Yet, inadvertently, their seemingly trivial actions contribute to a culture steeped in mistrust, undermining their very intentions.

Do you avoid that difficult conversation between two direct reports because it is uncomfortable? Because it will end up needing your time? Because at the end you may have to make a decision? 

Do you avoid holding people accountable to solve their own problems because you have bought into their self-limiting narratives? Are you convinced that their struggles are legitimate and that it is solely your job to provide solutions? Instead of empowering them to unearth their truths, have you succumbed to spoon-feeding?

Holding your team accountable is actually quite straightforward. It begins with a fundamental question: Who is the owner of this deliverable, and by when will it get done? While most leaders can assign ownership, they often overlook the vital significance of designating a specific individual. And if they successfully pass this initial barometer, many fail at the next step.

Step two is admittedly harder to do, but once you start you can’t go back to any other way of being. This part involves creating a rhythm of check-ins. Check-ins where you probe and ask questions and hold people accountable to their own promises. To do this well, you need to have a fantastic inventory and task management system that is outside your own brain. And once you have such a system, you need to keep it (obsessively) current. I love the framework Getting Things Done by David Allen to achieve this. 

Step three is helping people move beyond wherever they are stuck. At this stage all we need to do as leaders is get out of the way. Literally. If you hire right, you only need to give those rockstars the space to figure it out on their own. And space doesn’t just involve time and resources. As leaders, we need to create a safety net - the knowledge that we have their backs and will catch them before they fall. 

Next time someone comes to you with a problem, try this: 

Ask them, what are you going to do to solve it?

Next time someone comes to you with a complaint, try this: 

Call the other individual in the room and moderate their conversation till they walk out as allies. 

Views expressed by the author are their own.

Suggested Reading: Why Bringing Our Whole Selves To Work Is the Way to Go