Encourage Your Employees to Embrace Accountability!

First, ask yourself...
Would you like for more of your employees to take ownership in achieving their goals?


Everyone has goals they are working towards. Obviously, your employees are no different. But spending time trying to "hold them accountable" to achieving those goals can be time-consuming, frustrating, and give you the feeling that all you do is go around putting out fires. What we, as leaders, need to do is to help others make the choice to take ownership in achieving their goals...so you don't have to!

For this to happen, there are many critical steps that leaders should follow. One of the easiest is to involve your employees in the goal-setting process. If they are involved in determining the goals, and are given the chance to provide their input, they will be much more likely to do whatever is necessary to ensure success. Plus, involving them in the goal-setting process helps to ensure that the goal is emotionally meaningful to them (which will have an impact on their motivation to achieve it) and in the situations where the goal might NOT be meaningful, or possibly too unrealistic (which will deter them from putting in max effort) they will have the chance to tell you so it can be adjusted!

When you are successful in this practice, you will spend less time trying to hold others accountable because you have successfully created a culture of accountability!

Take More Responsibility!

First, ask yourself...
Is your reaction to a situation ever to immediately avoid responsibility, without even realizing it?
Given the choice, most people would choose to accept responsibility for their lives. After all, who doesn't like being in control of their own destiny? The problem is that we often fall into a reactive, or victim-like state of mind without even realizing it, simply due to the language that we use on a regular basis! Think about it...how many times in a given day do you use phrases like "I can't..." or "I need to..." or "I have to..."?

When we use reactive phrases like these, it automatically puts us into a subconscious "victim" state of mind where we are giving up control of what happens, and basically saying to ourselves "I have no power, it's not up to me anymore." When this is the case, it's no wonder we disown responsibility, and then tend to blame others or make excuses.

The next time you are about to say one of these phrases, try changing the words you use and see what happens to your attitude. In the future:

Replace I can't... with "I won't..."
Replace I have to... with "I choose to..."
Replace I need to... with "I want to..."