I consider this to be the holy grail of team work…

A team that is inherently accountable to itself.

Can you imagine what this might look like?

A team that doesn’t get derailed by shiny new objects and prioritizes new projects correctly.

A team that stays motivated even then things are hard, and there is more work to be done.

A team that takes active ownership, and doesn’t rely on your approval at every turn.

If you’re thinking to yourself, “Okay Claire, dream on…”

I’m here to say: Well, it is possible 🙂

From our past decade of working with thousands of teams, I’ll share what this accountability entails, and most important, what you as a leader can do to foster it in your team.

First, what is true accountability in a team?

When I describe “accountability,” I don’t mean people reacting to deadlines impressed upon them, or someone else yelling “Go faster!”

True accountability in a team happens when people themselves choose to do the work in a certain way, at a certain pace, in a certain order.

Rather than relying on more pressure and a contrived sense of urgency, true accountability looks to other sources of guidance:

More direction, more context, more curiosity, more prioritization.

To achieve this true accountability, there are 4 key practices you’ll want to focus on as a leader…

(1) Clear expectations > Quick directives.

“I’ll just ping them real quick.”

This is our default reaction when we learn new information, and want our team to adjust accordingly.

You drop a line in Slack. You mention something in a meeting.

The short-term result is that the person course-corrects in the moment. This is good.

But the long-term consequence is a more pernicious one: Now you’ve trained your team to be responsive to only your whim and word, instead of the true north of what should be guiding the team.

The only way to help our team adhere to a true north is to make it a clear expectation of them to do so.

When we set clear expectations, as a leader, upfront, a few things happen:

1. Now it’s the team’s responsibility to gather and process important information, not just yours.

2. Your team understands why that information is important and how to best prioritize it.

3. Based on that priority, they understand that they are expected to act on it accordingly.

They are responsive to the expectation, not your whim and word.

Setting clear expectations is notoriously hard to do. In fact Gallup has shared how only about half of all workers strongly indicate that they know what is expected of them at work.

Ask your team these 4 critical questions to help establish clear expectations:

• Is it clear how we will know if we have been successful?

• Is it clear what “great work” looks like?

• Is it clear what “high quality” looks like?

• Is it clear what “on time” means?

Start with those questions to help your team understand what to center around, rather than quick directives you might jot off left and right.

(2) Curiosity > Fear

“We’re all counting on you for this…”

“If you don’t get this right, that’ll be a huge let down…”

You may be hoping that these statements indicate what’s on the line. That the stakes are high…

But the reality is these statements perpetuate fear. They are conditional statements that insinuate that something bad will happen if something doesn’t get done.

Conditional statements cause the person on the receiving end to feel unsafe and insecure. And research shows that the more unsafe a person feels, the less likely they are to perform well.

And so, rather than leaning Machiavellian and inciting fear – a more productive emotion to initiate is curiosity.

Curiosity for what it is that might be holding your team back. Curiosity for the role you might play in being able to help them accomplish their goals.

When you lean into curiosity, rather than fear, you can enable your team to feel a greater sense of safety to perform at the highest level and be accountable to themselves.

Ask yourself these 7 questions to lead with curiosity (rather than fear):

• Am I making clear how we will know if we’ve been successful?

• Am I giving guidance on what to prioritize first and why?

• Am I sharing enough context for my team to navigate uncertainty?

• Am I outlining the accurate level of urgency rather than a perceived level of urgency?

• How am I helping them see for themselves what progress needs to be made?

• What am I taking off my team’s plate so they can appropriately focus on what matters?

• How clear is it how their work contributes to the bigger picture?

(3) Context > Deadlines

Yes, deadlines matter. But we’ve all seen what happens when a team barrels toward a deadline without any regard for quality. Or when a deadline becomes such the fixation that the team overlooks a critical part of the project that should have been included in the scope to meet the deadline in the first place.

For a team to truly meet a deadline accurately, it’s more than just saying, “This needs to be done in 2 weeks” — it’s about sharing the “why.”

The more context, the more “why” we give as leaders, the more we increase the likelihood that our team will meet that deadline fully.

Ask yourself these 4 questions to make sure you’re creating enough context in your team:

• Have I shared why this deadline exists with my team?

• Have I thought about what I have added to their plate?

• Have I asked, “What can I take off your plate?”

• Have we talked through “start, stop, continue?”

When you create context around the deadline, the deadline has meaning. No longer is it an arbitrary target.

The more meaning there is, the more motivation for your team.

(4) Self-Sufficiency > Dependency

Ultimately, if you’re looking to have your team be more accountable, you want to set up systems and reinforce behaviors that encourage self-sufficiency – rather than dependency on you as a leader.

Discouraging dependency as a leader means:

• Avoid being the expert: If someone has a question, make sure you’re sharing the rest of your team the answer and how you got to that answer. Otherwise you become a bottleneck for your team.

• Avoid solving the problem yourself: If someone is stuck or running behind, resist the temptation to jump in and fix it yourself. Otherwise your team will continue to rely on you and won’t learn to solve the problem themselves.

By avoiding these things, it doesn’t mean avoiding people’s questions or hanging them out to dry. Rather…

Encouraging self-sufficiency in your team means:

• Invest the time in teaching: Spend the time to help your team upskill and understand a problem more intimately. Guide them through how you’re thinking about a complex problem, and ask questions to help them come into it on their own.

• Give “context clues”: When someone is seeking guidance, and asking for example, “How urgent is this?” Instead of just answering, “Not urgent” you can say, “This is not mission critical and be pushed to next month because…” You’re clueing them into the context to help them get a sense of how to orient going forward.

This takes time. More time than just doing the thing yourself.

If you’re hesitant to take that time, I get it…

However, remember this: Time spent upfront is the only way to avoid time spent later when you’re overwhelmed by being the sole point-of-failure on the team.

You break the cycle of dependency when you encourage self-sufficiency. And that is the only way true accountability in a team happens.

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Bridging myth and reality

Does following these 4 practices absolve you of every team-oriented challenge?

Of course not.

Yet, these practices enable your team to think and act for themselves, more and more. To know what is important and prioritize well. To find solutions themselves, rather than hinging on your approval or guidance.

And most importantly: They’ll want to do those things. Because you’ve given clear expectations, curiosity, context, and self-sufficiency. The work now means more to them…

And when the work means more, your team is willing to respond accordingly.

True accountability in your team doesn’t have to be an elusive myth. You can take real steps as a leader and make progress toward it. Each of these 4 recommended actions will make a distinct difference.

Look forward to hearing how it goes for you, and how you choose to implement these practices.

-Claire

P.S. For further learning on cultivating an accountable, self-sufficient team, we have an in-depth module on Managing High Growth Teams that you can access here in Canopy. I highly recommend checking it out if you’re wanting to dive deeper ✨