Before blaming someone for poor accountability, clarify what they were actually accountable for. Misaligned definitions of winning, unclear decision ownership, and vague expectations often cause the behavior you're seeing. Define expectations first, then hold people to them.
We hear leaders say this all the time, "We need more accountability." And sometimes it's exactly right. Someone knew what was expected, they missed it, and it needs to be addressed. But sometimes we're calling it an accountability problem before we have gotten clear on what the person was actually supposed to be accountable to. One person thinks winning means moving quickly and don't let the work sit. Someone else thinks winning means slow down and make sure every detail is right before anything moves. One person makes the decision because they believe they own it, but someone else keeps bringing the decision back to their leader because they believe that's what responsible ownership looks like. And both may honestly believe they're doing what was expected. And that doesn't mean there's no accountability. It means the leader has to separate two different things. Was winning unclear? Or was winning clear and the person chose a behavior that didn't match it? And those require two different responses. See, if winning wasn't clear, define it. What result mattered? What standard had to stay true? Who owned the decision? What trade-off could they make when speed and quality start competing? But once that's clear, the behavior has to be held to it. See, if the person keeps escalating a decision they own, address it. If they keep missing the standard, recover it. Don't just explain it again and hope it changes. So before we say we need more accountability, the better question is, accountable to what? Once that answer's clear, accountability has somewhere real to land.
