BREAKING BAD: Accountability in Leadership
Do you remember the intentions you set at the beginning of 2024?
We all know the cycle of setting idealistic New Year’s resolutions, only to forget what they are by mid-February.
If you’ve fallen off track or even forgotten the intentions you set, there’s no need to dwell in guilt or beat yourself up. Losing traction on our goals is natural. That’s why if we want to create meaningful progress or change in any area of our lives, accountability is essential:
Accountability allows us to reconnect to the best version of ourselves.
It's not about punishment or consequences, it's simply a way of building systems that help us remember the intentions we set when we were operating from a place of awareness.
One of my clients was struggling to stay organized as the scope of her work grew in a new role. She was overwhelmed and felt like she was drinking from a firehose. She was struggling to get a good handle on what she needed to change or update about her organizational skills to meet her new responsibilities.
In our coaching sessions, she was engaged and motivated—ready to take action and make the changes she needed to expand into her new role. However, after every session, she would quickly get wrapped up in her day-to-day tasks and lose sight of her intention for her leadership.
One of the functions of coaching is to bring people back into connection with their best selves: helping clients to remember their objectives and look honestly at where they are in relation to them; and to get into action if they aren’t happy with what they see.
Any new behavior, anything we want to change in ourselves, requires us to remember again and again. There’s always a gap between our current behavior set and a new way of being.
Steven Pressfield teaches us that “forgetting” that we ever saw the gap in the first place is really just another form of resistance. That’s why we ALL need reminders and accountability.
This begins with sharing your goals—your MEANINGFUL goals—with another person. Sharing what's important to you is an act of coming out from hiding, of bringing your intentions into the light. When you do this, something naturally starts to unfold within you. And yet, it's the repeated reconnection that helps us stay on track to completion.
You may be wondering what happened with my client who struggled to stay on top of the KPI’s (key performance i) she’d set for her new role. You guessed it! Over time she began to make incremental changes in focus and behavior, resulting in a solid habit of clarity and follow through. These shifts not only helped her excel in her new role, but also boosted her confidence by making her feel more in control and aligned with her goals.
At TMTT Leadership, we define Accountability as: sharing our most important goals and intentions with a trusted person and setting up a system to help you stay accountable to them.
Accountability fosters personal responsibility and commitment, which are essential for inspiring and guiding others. By holding ourselves accountable, we not only achieve our own goals but also model the integrity and dedication that are crucial for effective leadership.
Are YOU ready to practice accountability?
THE Leadership Lab:
The Four A’s OF leadership impact
In our world, leadership is a practice, not a title. Welcome to The Leadership Lab, a “5-minute-a-day” practice that supports you in learning, growing and strengthening your leadership skills.
Our practice today will help you establish better accountability, so you can get back on track with your goals and intentions.
Action: Reflect on the 2 or 3 most important goals you have for this year (personal or professional) and choose a person with whom you will share these. When you share them, decide on the when and how of achieving them and when you will report back.
Awareness: Through this practice, I am becoming aware of ______________ (it’s easier to be accountable to someone else than myself). I’m also becoming aware of ______________ (I’m sticking to my plan more easily when I know someone else is watching).
Acknowledgment: I acknowledge and appreciate myself for ______________ (effort as well as accomplishment). In this example you might appreciate yourself for effort, the times you DID take the action you intended to, or choosing to openly share with someone.
Accountability: I am sharing my insights with ______________ (a trusted confidant). I am also exploring further action with them, to deepen in steps 1–3. Rinse and repeat.
I invite you to share with me: do you have an accountability partner? How often do you check back in with them?
