A disparity in accountability can present a challenge for the leaders because they can’t simply rely on highly engaged employees when others who are uncommitted are setting a workplace designed to frustrate the engaged team members. Leaders will never achieve a highly engaged workplace if they don’t achieve the culture of accountability.

This is why it is important for you as a leader to invest in accountability if you want to make improvements and help your team members to be the best version of themselves. The following steps will provide you with some advice on why accountability is the key ingredient for an engaged workplace and how to achieve it.

Offer Guidance

11% of managers believe 50% of their employees avoid taking responsibility. However, do those managers provide the right guidance to their employees?

You can’t expect results without investment.

If you wish to achieve accountability, you need to stand side by side to your employees and offer them affirmative guidance through every step.

Yes, it can be frustrating to repeat the same instructions countless times but if you want to create an engaged workplace you need to show your engagement in the first place. Showing that you are conscientious and accountable for the tasks you provide will set the right example.

Listen and Affirm Employee Concerns

Leaders sometimes tend to share the opinion that their perspective is the only one that counts which can lead them to the wrong path.

Listen to and affirm the concerns of your team members and stand accountable for previously taken actions. The same applies to concerns about other employees’ work.

Any misdirection should be followed by the mutual collaboration and development of an action plan going forward.

This will help your team members to understand the importance of accountability but at the same time, it will provide them with a realization that noticing the previously made mistakes and standing responsible for them will lead to a mutual solution.

That is how you’ll achieve a more engagement in the work environment.

Communicate Constantly with Your Employees about Their Performance

Some of the most common obstacles to accountability for individuals are learned helplessness.

Phrases such as “I’m not smart enough to get this right”, “This never would have happened if the team hadn’t abandoned me”, “This is just another example of senior leaders showing they don’t care about us” can become a regular excuse of employees who avoid being accountable.

Deal with this obstacle by constantly discussing their performance and providing them with solutions on how to improve it. Don’t leave them space to find justification, create an environment where you only want to hear about suggestions and solutions.

Make employee’s accountable for their behavior by communicating on how to improve their current actions. It is of high importance that every feedback you give includes a praise as well, thus giving them the motivation to keep the current work-flow.

Showing your team members that you pay attention to every individual’s work and that you care about their progress will evoke the feeling of accountability and increase the engagement. 

Set Goals

Employees typically perform better when they understand how their work specifically contributes to organizational success.

Leaders should bear responsibility for establishing the conditions that encourage employees to be accountable.

Without clear goals in mind, you can’t expect your employees to be accountable and show engagement when they don’t know why is their work important.

Emphasize how each step that every individual takes has the same value and the same importance for achieving the ultimate goal.

Reach even higher productivity by also setting small goals which will provide them guidance along the way.

Provide the Resources

The right resources are necessary for employees to achieve their goals.

By providing your employees with all the necessary tools for achieving the goal will leave them no place for excuses. They will have to be accountable for their actions.

With the realization that their leaders supplied them with the right resources will come the need to increase the engagement and stand up to the expectations.

For example, if you work with top writers, provide them with the list of trustful sources related to the subject as well as examples of top writers to whom they can look up to.

After your maximum effort, they will have no other choice but to rise to the occasion.

Be an Example

Last but certainly not the least important step is to hold yourself and senior leaders to high standards in order to create a culture of accountability.

Leaders must hold themselves to high standards in order to develop a relationship that promotes trust with employees and helps others do the same.

Demonstrate integrity, follow-through, competence, and openness to feedback, and you will be able to achieve a culture of accountability.

Conclusion

An organization (and its leaders) with unclear priorities, a negative mentality, or habitual conflict avoidance inevitably corrodes accountability. Changing up the workflow with some helpful actions can completely alter the mindset of your employees.

Try to make the most of the above-mentioned steps, adapt them to your workplace, and see how the accountability evokes in your employees followed by an increase in engagement.