A speaker reflects on their view of accountability in leadership, using a college-football coach analogy: accountability is a necessary, beneficial responsibility of a leader to push people beyond what they'd achieve alone. The speaker credits this coach-like accountability and structure with sustaining their company's culture and employee retention.
I always had this mentality around accountability, that it was like a college football setting, and in order to be successful, we had to have a coach, somebody that was going to hold us accountable. And there's no athlete that's going to achieve the level of success that they're capable of without practice and without a coach. So I always looked at it as a responsibility that I had to the people that I brought on that, hey, I'm going to be your coach. And it's not as important to me that we're best buddies as it is important to me that I'm going to be your coach, and I'm going to get you to a place that you're not going to get to on your own. And when you get to the championship, you're going to respect and revere me for having been that person in your life. And I just, like, I always looked at accountability that way. Like, it's not a bad thing, it's a necessary thing. And if you do it well, they're going to respect you and revere you for it. And I feel that the culture that we were able to build at my company that we have to this day, the reason that the people that are there, are there, is because we provide that level of accountability and structure.
