Why Your Employees Aren't Accountable (and What to Fix First)

Every owner and manager I coach eventually asks me some version of the same question: how do I get my people to be accountable? And almost every time, the real problem is sitting one step earlier. Before you can hold anyone accountable, they have to know exactly what you expect. And before they will tell you the truth about how it is going, they have to trust you.

This episode puts three things in order: clarity first, accountability second, trust underneath all of it. I talk about them at work and at home, because the same problems show up in a company, a marriage and a family.

What does clarity mean in a business?

Clarity is being easily understood: a full, orderly mental grasp of something, free from ambiguity. In plain terms, everyone knows what is expected, what the goal is, what the outcome or behavior should look like, and why.

You can hear the lack of it in a few familiar sentences. They should know. We always do this. Everybody knows. They should have known that. Every one of those statements is a sign that the expectation was probably never written down, which means it is not real. It becomes a story passed along through the culture. And assumptions kill us. People wander off down a road, kids wander off, spouses wander off, each assuming something different about what was decided.

A few questions to ask yourself:

• Does everyone on my team know what they are supposed to do every day, and what it looks like when it is done right?
• Do they know why? As a parent I am guilty of just do it because I said so, but at work the why is king. People who understand why a decision was made make better decisions themselves.
• Does everyone have a number? Do they know what they are responsible for in the chair they are paid to sit in?
• When they leave at the end of the day, do they know whether they won?

That last one matters more than most leaders realize. If people do not know how they performed, they write their own story on the drive home, and it is usually not a good one. The hardest voice to manage is your own, so help your people by showing them what a win looks like and how they are doing against it. If the results are off, talk about what is causing it, without blame or fear of being fired. Seek first to understand, then work on it together.

Consistency, simplicity, and repetition is what it's all about. (Jack Welch)

And if you ask someone what they are doing and the answer is, I am waiting, find out why. Usually it is because they are not sure what they are supposed to do. Waiting is a clarity failure, and it is on the leader to fix it.

How do you know your team actually understands you?

You do not find out by assuming. You ask, and you watch. Watch behavior, results, attitudes and reactions. Ask directly: are you perfectly clear on what is expected, when it is due and what the result should look like? If the answer is no, find out why and fix it.

I worked with an owner who changed a process for his 13-person staff. He explained it in a meeting, everyone nodded, and the meeting ended. A week later, about half the staff had jumped in and the other half still had not started, because they honestly did not understand what to do. After a couple of weeks he was frustrated enough to say, maybe some of these people do not want to work here. Then he added, it was perfectly clear when it came out of my mouth. I asked him one question: was there understanding? There was not. Saying something is not the same as being understood, and a process that is not written down is not real.

What is accountability, and why can't you force it?

Accountability is the willingness to accept responsibility, to account for your own actions. Here is the part that surprises owners: if I am not willing to be accountable, there is not much you can do to make me. I have to make a choice about what you hired me to do, and a parent or leader has to hold themselves accountable first.

What you can do is set up the conditions that make accountability possible. A person can fairly be held to a result when you can say yes to each of these:

1. They understand exactly what is being asked.
2. They understand what the result is supposed to look like.
3. They have the tools they need.
4. They have been trained.
5. They are getting regular numbers showing how they are doing, reviewed with them each week.

Once those are true, accountability is simply acceptance of responsibility, with a willingness to be transparent so others can see the numbers and evaluate the work. And it spans every position, from the front-line worker to the owner. The leader's part is to provide clarity from the top all the way down. Ask yourself what steps would empower each person on your team to own their job and their results, and what excuses keep showing up (I could have done it except for this, they did not do that, it was confusing). Those excuses are communication problems you can measure, document and work on.

Why does trust break teams that have everything else right?

You can have clarity. You can measure results. You can have an environment where people can speak up. You can play every leadership and management game right. If there is no trust, it is broken. So ask honestly: have you built a platform of trust with your spouse, your kids, your coworkers, your boss? If not, why?

Trust runs both ways. The person delivering a message can say it with the wrong tone, body language or attitude. And the person receiving it can react badly. Common trust killers include:

• Passive-aggressive comments. Things like, I guess we will just never do warranty again. I made a remark like that once in a meeting, and the owner slammed his hand on the table and told me to just say what needs to be said with the right attitude. I have never forgotten it. If you are passive-aggressive, you already have a trust problem.
• Making it all about you. When everything is about my department and what I want, trust erodes. Are you trying to move the whole family or company forward, or just making sure everyone knows where you drew the line?
• Big reactions. If my boss screams or throws something when I bring up a problem, I will be very careful what I share next time. Then you are surrounded by yes people and nobody tells you the truth.
• Taking things personally. If a coworker says, just a heads up, I noticed this in your department, and your first response is, what are you trying to say, you are making honest information expensive to share.

What is emotional intelligence, and why does it matter at work?

Emotional intelligence is the ability to manage your own emotions and understand the emotions of the people around you. It used to be all about IQ, and the research Daniel Goleman popularized in his book Emotional Intelligence shows that how you handle yourself and others is one of the top measures of a great employee. I once had the chance to hear him teach it to a leadership team.

In practice, it means knowing your own baggage, and setting it aside so you can have a hard conversation as an adult and still go have lunch afterward. It also means noticing when you slip into middle school behavior, like storming out of a meeting or saying, whatever, we will do whatever you say. Nobody trusts the person who does that, and the rest of the room turns off.

Stephen Covey's habit of seek first to understand, then to be understood applies too. I do not know what you went through last night or what got you here. Some leaders say all that is too soft and people should just work. Those cultures struggle.

I remember checking on a plumber who was roughing in a house for me. How is it going? Fine. Are you sure? I am fine, Bobby. I said I was concerned, and after a pause he told me he had been at the hospital all night with his daughter. We had a human moment on a jobsite, because I cared enough to ask twice.

Your homework

1. Ask 50% more questions than you give directions, until you understand what is really going on.
2. Confirm your own motive. Say things from the right heart and with the right words.
3. When someone brings you a suggestion, assume their heart is in the right place, even if you already knew. Take the high road and say thank you.
4. If it is not going well at work or at home, have the conversation about how you can communicate and work better together.