When work is missed, leaders often reach for accountability first: We need to hold people more accountable. Sometimes that is true. But I have learned to ask a different question before deciding the team has an accountability problem: Was ownership ever genuinely clear?
Ambiguity can look like poor performance
A title is not the same as a job deliverable. “Operations Manager” or “Accounting Manager” may sound clear while two people hold completely different assumptions about what the role owns, what it can decide, and how success is measured.
If several people believe someone else is responsible—or if one person is responsible but lacks authority, information, or time—repeating the word accountability will not solve the problem.
Define the outcome before the task list
I start with the result the business needs. For example: all completed work is identified daily and ready for billing; monthly financials are accurate and issued by the tenth; every new client receives a consistent onboarding experience.
Then we can identify the recurring responsibilities, decision rights, measures, and working relationships required to produce that result.
- What outcome does this person own?
- What decisions can they make without additional approval?
- What information or cooperation must others provide?
- How will we know the work is going well?
- What happens when the process breaks?
Accountability should not feel like surprise
Healthy accountability is an agreement made in advance, not a correction delivered after frustration has built. The person understands the expectation, has accepted ownership, receives relevant information, and knows when progress will be reviewed.
Weekly huddles are valuable because they create a consistent place to surface obstacles early. The goal is not to catch someone failing. It is to prevent silent failure.
When it really is accountability
Once the outcome, authority, resources, and measures are clear, leaders do need to address repeated missed commitments. Clarity should not become an excuse to avoid difficult conversations.
But those conversations become much fairer and more productive when everyone is discussing the same commitment instead of arguing over assumptions.