How Accountable Is Your Team?

Hi ~Contact.FirstName~,

How accountable is your team? Do they act like owners or renters?

Many people likely treat stuff that you rent just as well as stuff that they own, however, there are many situations where the opposite is true. Think about rental cars, for example, people are more likely to treat a rental car worse than they would treat their own car.

Ultimately, people who rent sometimes act differently than people who own in terms of accountability.

Use these three tips to instil a sense of ownership and accountability in your team:

1. Clear Targets

You cannot hold your team accountable and make them an owner if they do not know their targets. Make it clear what kind of production volume, quality levels, and other factors including safety and behaviour that you expect from them. This way, you can re-visit these targets later to make sure that they are on track to achieve them and hold your team accountable.

2. Information Sharing

It is difficult to give someone a sense of accountability when they are kept in the dark on a lot of the information that you have as a leader. Of course, you cannot always share everything with your team, but make sure to share enough with them so that they have a sense of the big picture.

Help them understand that what they do makes a difference, this will make your team want to be accountable and act like an owner.

3. Decision-Making

Make sure that you are allowing your team to contribute solutions and make appropriate decisions for their level of experience and the amount of authority that you have granted them.

Over time, you will want to grow the capabilities of your team to make more and more decisions of higher and higher importance so that you know things are getting done without you having to make every decision and solve every problem.

Holding people accountable is a cornerstone skill, and we teach it in our Frontline Leadership Program. No matter how we can help you grow the capabilities of your skills as a leader or the skills of the leaders that work in your company, we look forward to being your partners in performance.

Watch the full video here.

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