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Sara Ritchie

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With the recent economic volatility seen globally and the political fiasco domestically, two words seem to come to mind - accountability and leadership. Now more than ever, people are looking for accountability and leadership. Helping create a culture of accountability within your company can go a long way toward enhancing your profit margin, as well as increase employees' commitment to your team and organization.

In order to achieve success with accountability though, you need to ensure that you are acting as a leader your people can look up to, as well as give them what they need to succeed.

If you haven't already, the first place to start is to define your organization's goals, as well as how they relate to your team. As I have written previously, once employees understand what their contribution means to the overall goals of the company, they can then align their objectives to those.

Ask your employees for their input when setting goals so that they understand they are part of the process. Often, in my experience, when employees fail to meet goals it is because they don't understand or buy in to the objectives set for them and why those objectives are important.

If you have an employee who consistently isn't meeting goals, asking them what you can do to help them succeed is crucial. With your help, have the employee write up an action plan and add it to their personal development plan along with anything that you agree to help them with. Revisit this document regularly, outlining action plans, responsibilities and timelines so that your staff understands that they are responsible for their success in achieving their goals but that you are there to help them along the path.

Involving your people in the process of creating their own measurement tools which assess what they need to do to achieve their objectives, as well as define if they are on track, will help build employee ownership and accountability. When individuals measure and define their own success they can become more engaged in the process and more engaged in meeting their goals.

Finally, whenever change is introduced, there are bound to be individuals who resist. There is also the potential for mistakes. Instead of looking at these as challenges, view them as opportunities. Ensure that as you create your culture of accountability, you are leaving the doors open for suggestions and improvement. Talk to your staff openly and regularly. And, when faced with opposition, ask employees how to improve the situation versus becoming defensive. By involving them in the process of changing your corporate culture to one of accountability, you empower them to feel confident and better able to embrace the change.

Being responsible and accountable for achieving your goals demonstrates personal integrity and professionalism. Helping your staff to accept responsibility and being accountable for meeting goals is done by providing consistent leadership, achieving employee buy-in, an ongoing measurement system and recognition that there's always room for improvement. By working together to build accountability, you can help your employees become more engaged with the success of the organization and meet their goals, which in turn, will help your organization meet its goals.

Sara Ritchie has worked for the past 10 years in the finance industry in Saint John, Montreal and Toronto. She can be reached at sararthewriter@gmail.com.