One of the most common things I hear discussed when I facilitate workshops is accountability, most often how to drive it down into the organization or their own team. This inspired me to create a 4-part blog series on accountability in organizations. This first post will focus on recognizing some common leadership mistakes around accountability. The following three posts will focus on different levels of accountability, moving toward the most effective ways to drive accountability with your team. Accountability is a fundamental part of business success, right? Companies have ethics officers, whistleblower hotlines, annual performance reviews – there are even accountants, which shares the same root word as accountability. Without a true commitment to accountability, we’d likely see all sorts of corporate abuses the likes of Enron or Bernie Madoff, and without holding people to standards, we would see drastic decreases in business performance. With something this vital to your business success, it is important to understand that leaders can misapply accountability, blocking development for the people on their teams. I once consulted with a company that had a leader who was obsessed with control. If you had a conversation with someone outside of your department, he wanted to [...]

In our last blog post, we talked about leaders managing themselves through change. This is obviously important for any leader to be effective in today’s rapidly evolving economic environment. If you are an individual contributor, you wouldn't have to go any further than this. However, leaders have to do more than just get themselves into a good place with change, they may have a team they need to bring along with them. Because people have such varied responses to change, leaders have to be able to flex their approaches. Seana is a senior-level manager in Human Resources, and she has just found out that the company has decided to move in a different direction with their HR information systems and move away from the system they’ve been working with for the last decade. Although somewhat limited and antiquated, the HR team is very familiar and comfortable with the system. She understands why the change is being made, but she anticipates some resistance from the team as they work through the change. Seana was proactive and was able to get a lot of information about why the change is being made and has shared it with her team. This seemed [...]

Some people love change. Some people hate change. Some people are just along for the ride. No matter where you fall in the continuum, we know that change is difficult – because change necessarily involves loss. In the workplace, change can mean loss of job security, loss of relationships, loss of identity, loss of routine, loss of benefits, the list goes on and on. We stand to lose a lot when change comes around. We are all too familiar with the loss that change brings, which is why many of us show some sort of resistance to it. This resistance can look very different from person to person, however. Some resistance is intellectual – where you might disagree with a conclusion or a decision being made. Some resistance is emotional – where you might be reacting out of fear or anxiety for what the change might mean for you. Despite the threat of loss, we know that not everyone responds to change in the same way. There are generally three ‘characters’ who might show up when a change occurs. One is the Resistor. This person is having a very difficult time with the change and has strong emotions related [...]

Our bodies are wonderful organisms. We are specially designed to recognize threats in our environments and prepare ourselves to eliminate the threat either by running away from it or by attacking it. This is what is commonly known as the Fight or Flight response. This response is a finely tuned survival mechanism that increases the odds that we will live to fight (or flee) another day. If this mechanism is for our good, how does it backfire on us? Let’s look at a day in the life of James. He wakes up late, having slept through his alarm. In his rush to get to an important meeting on time, he gets pulled over and receives a speeding ticket. He shows up late to the meeting and his boss had to pinch hit for him on an important presentation. After the meeting, his boss asks him to see him at his office before he goes home that day. James tries to take a moment over lunch to decompress from his frustrating morning only to realize that he was supposed to have dialed in to a vital call with a client at 11am. You may have experienced some days like this. [...]

You may have heard the phrase, “If it wasn’t for the people, work would be great.”  Although many point to their peers and coworkers as providing a strong sense of camaraderie and meaning in the workplace, often the biggest complaints are aimed at peers and coworkers.  In fact, usually when someone resigns from a company, it is as a result of interpersonal issues in the workplace.  Why is it that some of these relationships can go so well and be so rewarding while others can be so frustrating and destructive? When considering how people interact with each other in the workplace, there are four main approaches people can take, most of which only serve to create relational problems.  The approaches are as follows: Passive – This approach is friendly and wants to be liked.  They also desperately want to avoid conflict.  As a result, they are generally seen as team players and flexible, but can also be doormats to people who are prone to taking advantage of other people’s good will.  There are times when this approach may be appropriate, but if you’re always this way, you’ll find that more and more people will cross your boundaries. Passive-Aggressive – [...]