"No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible."

A great quote by George Burns. In one short sentence he captured that which leaders struggle with every day - accountability.

All too often when a situation arises where something has gone wrong, no one is ever willing to step forward and be accountable
for it. Instead, they take the victim role. I'm sure you've heard it a million times before. It usually sounds something like:

"It was _______'s job to do that"

"We could do that if we had this."

"I'm not the one who served that client, why should I care what went wrong?"

"It's not my fault."

"It's not my job."

"Nobody told me."

As a leader, these phrases are incredibly frustrating to hear. After all, it's their job to be accountable, right? How can you possibly do what you need to do when the team isn't behind you and isn't doing their job? Not your fault at all, you're doing your best.

Not quite how it works. Let's start with this. Go to a mirror. Look in it and repeat after me.

"Accountability begins with me."

It's a tough thing to grasp, I know. It's so easy to fall into the victim role, sometimes we don't even notice we are doing it. Before you can make your team accountable though, you must model accountability.

Once you have resigned to the fact that you are accountable for you, it's time to move on to the team. Here are some quick tips for making "accountability" your team's New Year's Resolution this year.

1. Stop waiting for the right manager, the time to do it, and the right people. You have the choice to continue to put it off, or start having your team work towards accountability right away.

2. Make your organizational goals clear, and show your team how they impact those goals. Connect the dots to show them the bigger picture of what they are doing, and how they personally make a difference.

3. If team members feel they cannot do a job, get them the training they need.

4. Stop the victim thinking when you can.

5. When you have a meeting, create action registers. Write down who is doing what task, and when it needs to be completed by.

6. After a meeting, send each person the tasks they agreed to do, along with the dates that were agreed to. Work with them to come up with a list of ways you will know the task is on target for completion if it's significant. (i.e. in order for point C to be the end, point A must happen by this date, and point B must happen by this date) This allows you an easy reference to keep everyone on track.

7. Spend your time following up and checking in, not micro-managing. If you gave the team a task to do, let them do it.

8. Explain to the team that if they are having trouble achieving the task on time, they are welcome to come to you to discuss. They should approach you with ideas of how they will make it work, not excuses for why it won't.

Remember, it doesn't matter where the challenge comes from. What matters is - what are you planning to do to fix it? Make the commitment to do whatever it takes to reach the organizational goals. Not only by holding your team accountable, but by holding the person in the mirror accountable first.

For more ideas on leadership, please contact Gary Gzik at ggzik@bizxcel.com.