One of the most challenging areas for any organization is building a culture where commitment and accountability are the norm, rather than the exception.

A culture where excuses are not made, fingers are not constantly pointed at others, and where people who make mistakes admit that they did; one where the people of the organization assume the ultimate responsibility for what went right — and for what went wrong.

Is it all based solely on the employee, or does leadership play a role in creating an environment that cultivates accountability and responsibility?

Leaders make three assumptions that are basically incorrect.

First, they believe that they are dealing with adults who will most certainly be accountable for their actions. This is simply not always true.

Secondly, leaders assume that the title of leadership has an explicit expectation attached: “I’m the boss, so of course you’ll do what I want you to do.” They believe that people will do what they want just because they are the leader. Equally untrue.

Finally, there is an assumption on the leader’s part that a lack of accountability is the employee’s fault, rather than their own. The bottom line is that the real problem lies with the leader — not the employee.

Creating a culture of accountability that is necessary for the well-being of the organization is a key task belonging to upper management.

Ironically, however, leaders often weaken individual accountability through their efforts to strengthen it. It isn’t easy to create a culture of commitment and accountability. It takes work.

Leaders have to model the behavior they want to see.

Today, the most common approach leaders have to handle lack of accountability is to yell in frustration at the person in question or to grit their teeth and ignore the situation. Rather than indulging in an emotional reaction, leaders need to focus on the solution.

In organizations today, we see an endless cycle of blame and justification.

In order to overcome this unproductive cycle, leaders need to stop letting people skate on being accountable and find a way to coach their people to choose accountability for themselves.

Leaders often neglect to hold the types of conversations necessary to ensure that they can expect their people to be accountable and to hold them to that.

Building a corporate culture where both management and employees have the choice to be personally accountable to the best interests of the organization is the key to building a company of success, productivity and profit.

Lack of accountability is a common problem experienced by organizations.

Do you recognize the 7 following examples of how people exhibit a reluctance to accept accountability and follow through with commitments?

#1: People attempting to hide their mistakes.

The individuals know that they’ve made a mistake and just cross their fingers, hoping that no one finds out.

#2: Employees blaming someone else for their mistake.

“I asked Sally to do it, it’s not my fault if she didn’t.” or “John gave me incorrect information, how was I supposed to know this?”

#3: Making excuses by consistently using phrases like: “I didn’t know I was supposed to” or “I didn’t understand that you needed it by then.”

#4: Straight-out lying when a mistake is brought to their attention (“I didn’t do it.” or “So and so told me…”).

#5: Passing the buck with statements like “It wasn’t my fault, I was waiting on (insert name) to get back to me with information.”

#6: Poor performance where people are not willing to acknowledge substandard work or take responsibility for their own role. (A perfect example would be the time you found that an employee had left a drawer full of papers they never handled.)

#7: Ignoring tasks. “I meant to get to it but I forgot” or disregarding a date they committed to altogether.

It’s unrealistic to believe that every single person in the organization is going to be accountable and accept responsibility for their role when something goes wrong.

People are different and some will never step up to the place. However the more you, as a leader, are clear about your expectations and communicate effectively when those expectations aren’t met, the greater your chances of having people learn to be accountable.

Creating a culture of accountability does not happen overnight. Like anything else where change is required it will take regular modeling of what you expect, clear communication, consistency in how you handle the situation when it’s clear they aren’t accepting accountability and a whole lot of patience

Part 2 of building a corporate culture of accountability is about what must we do before we can begin to hold people accountable.