Cameron HeroldFounder of the COO Alliance & Invest In Your Leaders Training

How great leaders hire accountable people

4 Aug 2026 · 1 min

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1:23

In this interview excerpt, Cameron Herold emphasizes that a strong culture, not formal accountability measures, drives employee performance. He explains that hiring already accountable individuals creates a culture of disciplined thought and action, eliminating the need for external enforcement. Herold also advocates for weekly one-on-one coaching meetings as a core leadership skill, linking them to his "Invest in Your Leaders" training and situational leadership principles. He underscores the importance of hiring A‑players rather than attempting to improve C‑players, suggesting that top performers vastly outproduce lower performers. The overall message is that culture, consistent coaching, and selective hiring are the keys to building high‑performing teams.

Accountability or culture?
Without question, culture. Fortune magazine asked me back in 2003, how do you hold your employees accountable? I said, I don't hold them accountable. I hire accountable people. When you have a culture of accountability, disciplined people, disciplined thought, disciplined action, and you give people the tools to do their job and you support them in their job, they're going to get their job done. You don't have to hold anybody accountable. They're actually getting it done.
Weekly one-on-ones or figure it out?
No question, weekly one-on-ones. Probably one of the core skills I ever learned in my earliest entrepreneurial career was actually the one-on-one coaching meeting. A leader's job is to get results through people. Your job is to coach them. It is to develop them. The core skills in my Invest in Your Leaders training, situational leadership, coaching, and one-on-one coaching are all linked together. So absolutely one-on-one coaching.
A players or fixing C players?
A players. So here's an example of why A players will outproduce C players. I was talking to a professional beach volleyball player and I said to him, hey, I played volleyball in college. In high school, played on my team in high school. If I got 5 of my friends, the 6 of us played against you, the 2 of you against the 6 of us. And he started laughing. He said, we would beat you every single game. And I realized if I was paying 2 players $200,000 a year, they would beat the 6 players at $100,000 a year. It's always worth it to go out and get the A-player talent. So A-players are free.