Usually, when we run into a challenge, we focus most of our effort on changing what we do…and we make little or no effort to change the way we think. Yet the power of thinking far outstrips the effects of doing. It is only when we change the way we think that we change what we do in a sustainable way. This is a key principle of accountable leadership: Action always follows belief. If you
Here is perhaps the ultimate accountability challenge: Suppose you were called on to turn around a company in crisis. How would you do it? There never seems to be any shortage of firms experiencing challenges that connect to a deficit of accountability. The most recent, glaring example is probably Boeing, whose CEO just departed following a series of major problems related to internal safety concerns that were withheld from regulators and others. The plane in
An extraordinary instance of accountable business leadership made the news over the past week. It came from an employee, not from someone highly placed in the organization, and it was in service of the powerful accountability commitment I call “I stand by you when all hell breaks loose.” The accountable leadership moment came when Bonnie Kimball, a cafeteria worker at Mascoma Valley Regional High School in New Hampshire, learned that one of the students in
Accountability means keeping your commitments to people. Pretty simple, right? Well, it should be, especially for leaders. Leaders who are accountable make a point of fulfilling their own commitments to people first. They make their own commitments the starting point, the priority, in any relationship. Why? Because they know that supporting their relationships with team members is the only effective means of inspiring accountability up and down the organization.
Recently, a family from New Zealand booked a home for a vacation in Ireland using Airbnb, the popular online peer-to-peer property rental service. When the family showed up at the property, however, they got an unpleasant surprise. They discovered that the owner of the house had set up a live video feed by means of a concealed camera. Believe it or not, that wasn’t the biggest problem that showed up in this story. The biggest
Many people make the mistake of assuming that a commitment to truth simply means promising to tell the truth to other people. It is far more important to be able to tell yourself the truth. Telling yourself the truth must come first. If you can’t be honest to yourself, you can’t be honest to someone else. Telling yourself the truth isn’t something you do once and consider complete. It’s an ongoing process, something you commit
By now there’s a very good chance you’ve already heard something intense, partisan, and angry about the protests that happened near the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Martin Luther King Day. But on the off chance you’ve somehow missed the commotion, here’s a brief rundown. Social media platforms went crazy over viral videos showing encounters between a Native American elder and a group of boys from Covington Catholic High School, who were in Washington
Word broke recently of what may be one of the most shameful corporate cover-ups in the history of American business. Reuters reported that pharmaceutical and consumer products giant Johnson & Johnson had known, as early as 1971, about the presence of asbestos, a known carcinogen, in its iconic baby powder product. This disclosure quickly prompted comparisons with similar, devastating, revelations in various consumer-products liability cases, such as those filed against the major tobacco companies. According
For a leader, there is no such thing as “kind of” telling the truth. If you are a leader, you are either fulfilling your personal commitment to tell someone who is counting on you the truth, or you aren’t fulfilling that commitment. If you aren’t, then accountability within the relationship and the organization you lead is impossible, because you’ve already failed to be accountable to your team coming out of the gate. That’s the high
“I AM A MANAGER WHO HOLDS PEOPLE ACCOUNTABLE” Are you? Do you really want to be? There are two major problems with the sentence that forms the title of this article. Can you spot them both? Look at it in two halves. Here’s the first half: “I am a manager …” Are you really a manager? Are you sure? We manage resources. We manage things: computers, real estate, product inventory. Contrary to popular belief, we
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