Tweet

Accountability and Trust

Guest post by: Robert Whipple

Article Overview: Managers need to hold employees accountable for meeting commitments. This sounds simple, but in the messy world it can be a conundrum. Reason: People have a tendency to justify their actions based on their personal rationalization. To the manager it may seem a lame excuse, but to the employee, there was no way the commitment could have been made. The technology for holding people accountable begins with the notion that it is expected behavior. Still, the manager needs to do this in a way that follows the Golden Rule. There is a fine art to holding people accountable and still maintaining trust with not only the employees in question but also their peers. What techniques do you use to manage accountability without trashing trust? My opinions on this subject are contained in the attached article.

Accountability and Trust

Holding people accountable is a fundamental premise of good management. Establishing solid goals and providing feedback along the way helps employees recognize the importance of performing up to expectations. Unfortunately, some employees do not meet their goals for a variety of reasons. When this happens, managers need to hold people accountable, but there are often problems in executing this closure step. If goals were not met due to employee laziness, lack of initiative, poor attitudes, or any other negative personal trait, then the accountability step is appropriate and should be done along with the appropriate documentation. When employees fail to meet expectations due to things that are truly out of their control, then holding them accountable seems punitive beyond reason.

I believe there is a direct link between holding people accountable in an appropriate way and the level of trust in an organization. Extreme cases are easy to understand. For example, if an employee working in the World Trade Center failed to hand in an expected report on September 12, 2001, trying to hold that individual accountable for the failure would be ludicrous. For one thing, it would not matter at all to the dead employee. On the other extreme, if an employee has made no effort whatsoever to even start an activity that was promised, holding that person accountable for the lapse is logical and necessary.

Unfortunately, many situations are in a gray area in between extremes. An employee usually will have some sort of excuse that justifies not being able to perform up to expectations. That is, he or she has rationalized the lapse based on some mental process that exonerates the employee from toeing the line. When a manager attempts to hold the individual accountable for the missed goal, it seems unfairly harsh to the individual employee and trust plummets.

The conundrum is that employees who witness their peers not performing up to expectations, yet not being held fully accountable, leads to a lowering of trust in the organization as well. For the manager, it is a kind of "darned if you do, darned if you don't" situation. It becomes important for the manager to explain that we hold people accountable for their actions, and we do not condone a string of excuses or reasons why the goals were missed. Yet we still need to all allow some latitude for truly uncontrolled situations where it was impossible for the employee to perform up to expectations.

There is a direct relationship between how a supervisor handles the issue of accountability and the level of trust achieved at any point in time. Skilled managers recognize this sensitive area and navigate the choppy waters with great care. Using the golden rule is a great way to apply the right amount of personal sensitivity to a situation, but still get the message across that people are expected to meet commitments. Properly reinforced, this attitude will maintain trust within the organization even though some difficult or unhappy discussions need to happen with certain individuals.

How the accountability is communicated to the employee has everything to do with how it is perceived and received. If managers are consistent with follow through on commitments, then employees expect to be called out if goals are not met. Having a firm but kind conversation with the employee, in private, about a performance lapse is far superior to catching the employee off guard and rubbing his or her nose in the problem. If the manager berates the employee publicly and with a mean spirit, significant damage to the relationship will result. If managers can reinforce the effort while still insisting on the deliverables, then employees will respect that and modify their behavior.

Related Articles
  Accountability Partnerships Series Conclusion
  Values
  A culture of accountability is the key to business and organisational success
  A Tryst with Trust
  Inspire, Lead, and Succeed with ACCOUNTABILITY - A Hidden Myth?
  Virtual Accountability Partners
  Setting up An Accountability Partnership
  Help! My Team is Broken... You are not alone
  Empowering Asian Mindsets through Coaching
  WHERE IS THE YOU (“U”) IN ACCOUNTABILITY IN TODAY’S WORLD?
  Live and In Person: Setting Up an "IRL" Accountability Partner
  Accountability Partners Versus Groups
  5 Preventable Pitfalls to Solid Client Relationships and How to Resolve Them
  Next Steps In Your Accountability Partnership
  Realizing and Breaking your "Glass Ceiling" - Part 4
  Can a garden produce top fruit if it is never weeded?
  Leadership Tips to Create Greater Accountability in Your Organization
  Accountability Mentoring Partnerships
  Building Supportive Relationships with Accountability Partners
  Trouble-shooting Your Accountability Partnership

Article Tags: accountability, follow up, rationalization, Trust



Related Forum Posts
Re: Essential Leadership skills - Vigilance Trust An ability to DELEGATE
Re: Bad credit guaranteed home loan? - Lending money to people with bad credit was one of the biggest things that put our economy under and many lenders out of business. I'd say if you have this opportunity take it now before it goes away. Trust me, if there are any of these programs left (and don't expect a low interest rate if your credit is bad) they won't be around for ever. At ANY interest rate.
Re: How do you earn trust with an online business? - Add VALUE to your target market. How? Well depends. If your business can start by Educating the target market about how your product or Service can add value to their lives. This can be done via Video (hot right now), basic text, audio etc. I've had a lot of success with Video and am using it primarily as a lead generation tool. If done right your Content can add Value and add to your bottom line at the same time while building Trust.
Re: Do Your Prospects / Customers Trust You? - This is so true. In the software business, if you don't earn their trust in the first few days they start implementing it, they tend to just give up on using it at all.....even if they may have lost a lot of money. With software, silly glitches can have a huge bearing on your newer clients. Especially if they are brand new to software in general. The more established users understand that when you are constantly building and developing the software, there are going to be glitches along the way. Trust is a must!
Women's buying patterns - I'd like to know more about women's buying psychology - what makes them tick? - are they looking for an "experience"? If so, are there important parts of the experience that must exist? - how do you break past Trust barrier? - If you are selling a service what kind of support are women looking for? - do women buy a sampling first to "check out the waters" before they commit to a larger purchase? or do they jump in with both feet?


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

4 Steps To Hypnotize Your Business Prospects

How to Write Your Articles for Better SEO

LEARNING TO HAVE FUN – EVERYDAY!

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.