7 Ways to Build Accountable Organizations

By Henry Browning

Don’t you love that employee who goes above and beyond? She takes responsibility, shows initiative and really owns her projects, processes and problems.

Somewhere along the line, she learned that good things happen when you are accountable. But it’s largely up to you, her boss, to be sure she doesn’t have a change of heart.

But, you say, accountability is intrinsic! You can’t force people to be accountable! True, but we learn from the people around us. When the work environment is designed for accountability, it will flourish. When it’s not, you’ll get stellar work from a few people – until they stop making the effort or leave for another job.

An accountable workplace won’t appear overnight, but the right elements must be in place. Where do you need to invest your time and attention to build an environment of accountability?

1. Clear roles, team leadership and individual ownership. People struggle to be accountable when roles and processes are ambiguous. Removing as much confusion as possible about who is doing what and how they will proceed is an important step. If a team is truly accountable, members will identify gaps, learn new roles and processes, and ultimately build a more capable team.

2. A sense of ownership for team results. How does team accountability work? Focus on team processes. How is the team working toward goals and outcome? Are team members effective? Do they feel 100 percent accountable to improving the process? Each member should have the obligation to seek information, give and receive feedback and point out the need for corrective action at any time.

3. Freedom, support and control to navigate competing priorities.Most problems have multiple right answers, so give people the freedom and control they need to make decisions. The first solutions your teams and direct reports come up with will probably be pretty good. Improve upon them instead of inserting your own. Support is the key – be sure people have the resources, knowledge and assistance they need. With this approach, team members increase their skills, confidence and ownership.

4. It’s not about punishment. If your goal in fostering accountability is to know who to punish when revenue targets are not met or budgets are missed, you will only succeed in creating fear. No one will be willing to step up, speak out or try something new. Innovation and risk taking will be lost. Once the rumor mill of an organization circulates a story of someone stepping out and being punished, hundreds, even thousands, of other employees will be skittish about taking initiative to find solutions.

5. It’s about improvement. Accountability is the foundation for creating a learning organization. If you want sustainable high-quality processes, you need to be able to see what’s working and what isn’t – and analyze the cause. To that end, each person needs to honestly say what they knew, what they thought and what they did (or didn’t do). One important thing you can do to support a learning atmosphere is to take a systems approach as well as holding individuals accountable. Seek to understand what aspects of the situation have influenced the process, system, culture or circumstances.

6. The expectation of evaluation. In accountable organizations, no one expects to “stay under the radar.” In fact, people seek feedback because they know it is intended to improve the process and add to their knowledge. These organizations use multiple forms of feedback and evaluation to assess the health and success of a manager, process or department. Organizations lacking multiple feedback mechanisms only discover shortcomings when it is too late.

7. Integrity counts. People are called out if they don’t do what they say they will do. When anyone falls short, they admit it and work to improve. Someone consistently falling short? A sure sign of low commitment and a clue that something is missing in your culture of accountability.

Henry Browning is a senior faculty member at the Center for Creative Leadership, a top-ranked, global provider of leadership education and research, and author of Accountability: Taking Ownership of Your Responsibility.

 Browning,Henry . (2012,12, Dec). Retrieved 2014, from 7 Ways to Build Accountable Organizations

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ccl/2012/02/28/7-ways-to-build-accountable-organizations/

What is Self Management
How to improve Self Management
Abilities that can be affect Self Management
Resources/references

What is Self Management?
Self-management refers to an individual’s ability to manage themselves in relation to the outcomes expected of their role (in study or in work). Self-management is linked to planning and organising, but also describes the ability to know who we are and what we want.
A person with good self-management skills will have clear priorities and be able to critically review their strengths and weaknesses. As the world of work changes and employees are expected to take responsibility for their own performance, self-management skills are seen as increasingly important.

Self Management is about demonstrating:

• Initiative - being able to identify new work opportunities, challenges and responsibilities. 
• Planning - setting achievable and realistic goals, then implementing a systematic and organised strategy to achieve these.  Effective self management requires identifying priorities and organising your workload in order to maximise results. 
• Self motivation - pursuing tasks with energy, drive and enthusiasm. 
• Determination – working towards a goal despite difficulties, setbacks and distractions. 
• Performance - taking personal responsibility to exceed standards and expectations. 
• Self evaluation - reflecting on your own performance and acknowledging feedback in order to understand your strengths and weaknesses and taking responsibility for enhancing your professional development. 

How to improve/demonstrate your Self Management skills:

• Routine - Get into the routine of writing down work-related ideas as soon as you have them. 
• Plan - Use opportunities in education, work experience or extracurricular activities to get into the habit of planning.  Spend the first 15 minutes of each day preparing your daily strategy with a list of activities you intend to complete.  Use small pockets of time to revise and develop your daily plan. 
• Diarise - Keep a work diary/calendar and develop a routine of writing in appointments and deadlines as soon as they are established, then remember to check your diary regularly. 
• Reward - When you have successfully achieved an important goal, reward yourself.  This helps to maintain a high level of enthusiasm and gives you something to work towards. 
• Responsibility - Take responsibility for your own performance and don’t try to blame other people for your failures. 
• Reflection - Allocate some time each day to reflect on your performance and identify what you have achieved and how you could have done better.  Do not be over critical of any failures or weakness, but try to identify areas where you can improve your performance in the future. 
• Modelling - The same qualities which we expect from a good manager (e.g. leadership by example, optimism, sense of humour, work ethic, organised and enthusiasm) are the same qualities which are needed for self management.  Learn to embody these traits and you can learn to manage yourself effectively. 
• Tools - Use the range of free planning tools in packages such as MS Office to help you with planning your time and resources, e.g. diary, journal, alarms, contacts etc..

Self Management can be affected by difficulties in the following abilities:
(Impairments that may impact on the particular 'ability' are shown in brackets)

• Self Motivation (Mental Health Difficulties)
• Self Organization (ADHD; autism; dyslexia; dyspraxia; Mental health Difficulties)

Resources/references:
A'Echevarria, Anne de (2009) Introducing the skills and dispositions of self-management
Career One Stop: Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor
Planning and organising skills , University of Strathclyde

Chapman,Val et all (n,d,)Use My Ability employability & disability project - Resource Results. Retrieved 09 2014, from :http://www.usemyability.org.uk/resources/skills/self-management-initiative.html

Problem Solving & Self Management

Problem solving

This involves being able to offer a solution to a problem by analyzing a situation and working out how to arrive at a favorable outcome.  It often involves making optimum use of available resources and enlisting others to achieve an outcome.

You've developed problem solving skills by offering solutions to a specific problem, brainstorming different ways to do things, or discussing outcomes of events with friends or colleagues.

Problem solving skills are demonstrated  by:

• developing creative, practical or innovative solutions
• solving problems in teams
• applying a range of strategies to problem solving
• using mathematics to solve problems
• applying a range of problem solving strategies to come up with a solution
• testing assumptions or hypothesises
• resolving customer complaints satisfactorily

Self management

This skill refers to the ability to take responsibility for your own actions and life direction, and to set goals and successfully achieve them.  It involves setting achievable goals and using your time and resources effectively to achieve them.

If you've worked independently on a project, thought about your career goals and researched how to achieve them, or used a diary to plan your semester, you've demonstrated self management skills.

Self Management skills are demonstrated by:

•  planning ahead and having a personal vision and goals
• evaluating and monitoring one's own performance
• taking responsibility
• articulating one's ideas and vision

Influence of Leadership in Promoting Ethical Behavior @ Work

Individual, organizational and situational factors cause and/or allow unethical workplace behavior. To the extent leaders and managers understand and can address these causal factors, they can mitigate unethical workplace behavior. 

To most effectively and efficiently foster ethical behavior, organizations must be led by authentic leaders backed by an ethical organizational climate/culture. Leaders/supervisors must clearly, consistently and genuinely communicate and demonstrate ethical values/standards and reward/enforce ethical behavior.

They must lead/serve people selflessly to inspire their trust, loyalty and commitment to always do the right things the right way. Finally, given the strong influence of organizational and situational factors on one’s ethical behavior, organizations must seek, identify and address these causal factors to the extent possible. 

Following are 7 simple steps that leaders can follow to encourage ethical behaviour at work.

1) Create and sustain ethical climate/culture.

Just as unethical climates/cultures can create unethical behavior, research shows organizations can reduce misconduct and raise job satisfaction by fostering an ethical climate/culture (Andreoli & Lefkowitz, 2009). 

2) Ensure authentic leadership/supervisors.

Research shows authentic leadership/supervision is critical to creating/sustaining an ethical work climate/culture. Authentic leadership is “a pattern of leader behavior that draws upon and promotes both positive psychological capacities and a positive ethical climate, to foster greater self-awareness, an internalized moral perspective, balanced processing of information, and relational transparencyon the part of leaders working with followers, fostering positive self-development (Walumbwa, Avolio, Gardner, Wernsing & Peterson, 2007).

3) Tap the trenches.

To care for their employees, leaders and supervisors must know their issues. They must get out from behind their desks and walk the line. Such actions can foster greater trust, communications and commitment from employees. In that vein, organizations should also conduct in-depth interviews/surveys with lower-level employees to get their perceptions on organizational climate/culture, leader/supervisor behavior, employee fair treatment and aggressively follow-up on any ethical concerns raised by employees (Jones & Kavanagh, 1996). 

4) Reduce the pressures/stress.

As stress can make employees more likely to behave unethically, leaders/supervisors should identify and reduce work stressors (to the extent they can)and improve employee capacity to handle stress. Leaders/supervisors should set realistic goals and provide adequate time/resources to get the job done right.

5) Increase the certainty of unethical workplace behavior being caught.

Deterrence theory posits three factors (certainty of being caught, severity of punishment and swiftness of punishment) deter crime. Research shows certainty of being caught is the most important deterrent factor. As criminals think they will not be caught, severity and swiftness of punishment will not matter as much in their calculus to commit a crime (Lager, 2010).

6) Ensure effective reporting system for unethical behavior (whistle-blowing).

Employees are more apt to report unethical behavior if they are tasked to report it and organizational culture/climate supports such reporting. Researchers shows that the extent unethical behavior threatened the group’s interest (group penalized), group members were more likely to report a peer (Trevino, Weaver & Reynolds, 2006).

7) Identify/mitigate situational factors.

As certain situational factors may lead one to behave unethically, it is important one identify these factors unique to him/her and take actions to mitigate them.

References

Andreoli, N., & Lefkowitz, J. (2009). Individual and organizational antecedents of misconduct in organizations. Journal Of Business Ethics, 85(3), 309--332.

Jones, G., & Kavanagh, M. (1996). An experimental examination of the effects of individual and situational factors on unethical behavioral intentions in the workplace. Journal Of Business Ethics, 15(5), 511-523. doi:10.1007/bf00381927


Trevino, L., Weaver, G., & Reynolds, S. (2006). Behavioral ethics in organizations: A review.Journal Of Management, 32(6), 951--990.

Walumbwa, F., Avolio, B., Gardner, W., Wernsing, T., & Peterson, S. (2007). Authentic Leadership: Development and Validation of a Theory-Based Measure. Journal Of Management, 34(1), 89-126. doi:10.1177/0149206307308913