Accountability in the workplace means that all team members are accountable for their acts, attitudes, performance, results, and decisions. An accountable workplace increases commitment to work and boosts employee morale, resulting in higher performance. 

Employee/Manager accountability refers to several different characteristics. 

• Are your employees or is your manager socially accountable?  

• Are they willing to admit their mistakes? 

• Are they accountable for their effectiveness and productivity? 

• Are they accountable to their team and clients? 

• Do they prioritize their activities properly and educate stakeholders about changes?

• Are they responsible for the actions of their teams?

A lack of accountability at work results in missed deadlines, unfinished work, and intra-team disengagement. When no one takes responsibility to make decisions and get things done, you’re likely to see:

• Low trust levels

• Low team morale

• Poor performance

• Micromanagement

• Low job satisfaction

• High employee turnover

• Low employee engagement

• Unclear project, product/services and task priorities

A workplace without accountability suffers from an accountability gap – a situation where our people (employees/managers) don’t do what they should be doing. As a result, you see unmet expectations, bad behavior, and broken commitments. 

High-performing offices/teams create a culture of accountability by communicating openly, sharing progress reports, being proactive, and showing commitment to work. They conduct weekly meetings to learn what team members are working on, see if they need something from the team, and ask if the team needs anything from them.

• Set clear goals for yourself and your team. These measurable goals show clear expectations and what you need to work on.

• Check the gap between goals and expectations. Use check-ins, one-on-ones, and performance reviews to help team members realize if they’re doing what they should.

• Be responsible for your actions. Own what went well and share what didn't work out. This accountability allows you to fix mistakes, realign individual goals, follow through, and achieve great things at work.  This requires a bit of vulnerability and humility!

1. Discuss poor or failing performance before it gets out of hand

2. Redefine goals to meet new, more achievable benchmarks

3. Structure deliverables in a fair and equitable manner

4. Require learning and development opportunities

5. Give regular updates to your team/office

6. Provide regular feedback to your direct reports

7. Accept constructive criticism from your employees

8. Be kind to your employees

9. Consider the difficult conversations

10. Don't instill fear in your workplace

11. Provide adequate resources

Source: G2

• Own your role as a manager

• Role model personal accountability

• Invite feedback and receive feedback from your team/employees

• Help people face the reality of the outcomes they are producing

• Be accountable for making management decisions

• Celebrate personal accountability

• Use postmortems to learn vs. blame

• Make it safe to surface issues early and often (i.e. psychological safe work environments)

Source: Forbes