Leading with Clarity: Accountability and Results in Action

What if the key to success lies in something as simple as clarity and accountability? Imagine a workplace where every team member knows exactly what is expected of them, feels valued, and is motivated to achieve their best. In this blog post, Mike Maloney will explore how clear expectations, and accountability can transform your leadership approach and lead to outstanding results.

Leaders focus on results.

To lead an organization to produce desired results, leaders must:

• Craft a vision of success.
• Create a strategic plan to accomplish that vision.
• Allocate and adjust resources to accomplish the specific goals within the strategic plan.
• Inspire, motivate, and direct their team to accomplish the necessary work.

Accountability represents the most effective tool leaders possess to drive results. Accountability can take two forms – by celebrating success and by adjusting performance.

When employees meet or exceed your expectations when accomplishing a task, celebrating that effort, that success, is important. Recognition for great work encourages continued great work. Alternatively, when your employees do not meet your expectations, leaders must provide feedback, guidance, and perhaps transfer additional knowledge to help their employees to produce the necessary results.

Accountability follows clarity in expectation.

Consider the idea of wasted work. If you were asked to walk out into a field with a shovel and dig a 4’x4’x’4’ hole you may be up for the task. If you were then asked to fill in that hole and begin a new hole just a few feet away, you may start to question why you work for your organization. A couple iterations of this and you will likely choose the “Open to Work” banner on your LinkedIn profile. This would feel like wasted work.

While an obvious example, it is no different than producing a report that no one reads or maintaining a financial spreadsheet not connected to other reporting. In addition to being wasted work, the person producing that work may not know it’s unnecessary. After learning that what they worked very hard to create is in fact wasted, employees may feel unimportant, unvalued, or useless, potentially leading to a desire to find a new job where they are part of useful work and valued by the organization.

Which brings us back to clarity in expectation.

• If your contributors are not producing the desired work, start with a bit of self-reflection. Ask yourself:
• “Have I created clarity around what I expect?”
• “Does my team know what is expected of them?”
• “Do they know what success looks like?”
• “Have they been trained?”
• “Do they have the resources they need?”

Leaders can use one-on-one meetings to:

• Understand what your direct reports are working on. Look for potentially wasted work.
• If you find wasted work, end it without making your team feel useless.
• Communicate clearly about your priorities and deadlines. Ask for feedback on how well you are doing this.
• Communicate clearly about your expectations for completed work. Define what success looks like.
• Practice accountability. Celebrate successes when able and guide or adjust performance when necessary.
• Discuss results. Help your direct reports to understand how the work they do contributes to the overall success of the organization.
• Convey appreciation. Help your team to feel valued.

A good formula for successful leaders looks like this: Create Clarity to Practice Accountability that Drives Results.