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What’s one of the secret ingredients to powering up your career? It’s the ability, willingness and desire to take accountability for everything you say or do. That accountability can be difficult to come by: A Partners In Leadership study found that 91% of respondents felt their organizations had real deficits when it came to effectively holding others accountable for delivering on their workplace expectations. That’s why personal accountability is so valuable.
Put simply, accountability means taking responsibility and ownership. Not only does it put you in control, but it also helps you build trust with others and be seen as a leader. For instance, let’s say you make a mistake. Rather than trying to hide or minimize it, you go to your boss or teammates and explain what happened, take responsibility, and share your plans for both fixing the issue and ensuring that it doesn’t happen again. In a healthy workplace culture, you’ll be seen as proactive, which could improve your reputation despite your original error. In a dysfunctional workplace, of course, this could backfire, but you’d never try to build a career at a company like that, would you?
Accountability isn’t just useful as a tool to impress your supervisors and teammates, either. It provides authentic, intrinsic value. By accepting ownership of what you say, think, and do, you improve your confidence. And when your self-esteem is higher, you’re more apt to feel comfortable asking for a raise or applying for a position that stretches your skills, which puts you in the fast lane for achieving your career goals.
Though it can be tempting to blame others or blame external forces whenever things go awry, it’s worth navigating the challenge and looking inward instead. It takes practice to form a challenging new habit, so I recommend employing some of these techniques for bolstering your personal accountability in the workplace:
1. Seek out an accountability partner.
Have you ever felt like you’re more motivated to achieve a goal when another person’s paying attention? This happens all the time. People take accountability more seriously when they’re watched rather than relying on their own willpower alone.
Knowing this, you might benefit by finding an accountability partner who can help you with motivation and feedback on the way to your goals. That’s what New York Times bestselling author and host of The Growth League podcast Diana Kander did. She explains that she paid a friend to act as her accountability boss. “Even though I knew my pretend boss had no power to fire me, I significantly upped my game,” she notes. “I didn’t want him to be disappointed in me. I’d practice speeches with him for weeks before delivery. He helped me fine-tune any confusing or ineffective aspects of each talk.” The result? Kander’s referrals increased, as did her business growth.
You don’t need to hire a buddy to be your accountability guide, but you can enlist a friend or co-worker to trade accountability duties with. Or, as Kander also advises, you can take your goals public and have your wider social network witness and support you in your growth.
2. Chase down feedback from different sources.
If you’re a high performer, you’re probably asking for feedback anyway. That’s a great sign and a wonderful way to improve your accountability. When you listen objectively to what others say, you have the chance to improve yourself. But you can’t keep going to the same well for insights. Over time, asking the same people for feedback may turn into Groundhog Day.
That’s why G2 Content Marketing Manager Mara Calvello recommends tapping untried feedback sources to get a 360-degree view of your work. Calvello advises that you “switch up who you’re receiving these comments from. For instance, while you may look to your co-workers or manager to provide an honest evaluation of your job performance, clients and customers can also help you understand what you’re doing right and what could use some tweaking.”
Requesting opinions from people who know you in various capacities helps you get clearer about your personal brand from the outside in and see the face you’re presenting to the world. To be clear, this exercise is about your strengths, not shame. Once you have a fuller view of external impressions, you’ll have a fuller view of your strengths and can better hold yourself accountable for growing those innate superpowers.
3. Avoid overcommitting yourself.
Part of creating and maintaining personal accountability is knowing when to say “no.” It can feel easier (and more responsible) in the short term to agree to handle every request you field. But overcommitting yourself can backfire rapidly and ultimately jettison your hopes of being seen as valuable by your peers and managers.
How? Professional editor and writer Connie Mathers hits the nail on the head when she talks about what makes being a yes-person so detrimental. “If you overcommit yourself, not only are you likely to forget something important, you also may start cutting corners in your work,” she writes. “You can’t agree to do everything that’s asked of you and expect it to be done well, so if you’re trying to build personal accountability—and you want that accountability to be rewarding—you need to be realistic about how you plan to distribute your time.”
Is it difficult for you to turn people down? Start slowly when learning to protect your time. Make a point of saying “no” to one request this week. See how it makes you feel and what happens later. Typically, you’ll discover that the only fallout is that you have more time to devote to your own growth and passion projects, holding yourself accountable every step of the way.
4. Stop yourself from grumbling.
It’s only human to enjoy complaining sometimes, but at the same time, most of us hold contempt for people who are all gripe and no action. So stop whining and funnel that energy into making changes.
For example, you and your teammates might be using antiquated software that makes it hard to log on from remote locations and that tends to break down. As a result, you all lose hours of productivity. Not surprisingly, you share your frustrations week after week in emails and texts. But you never take the next step.
Would an accountable person let this type of experience fester? Not at all. Accountability requires action. The proactive approach to this conundrum would be to take facts and figures to the company’s leadership to make your case and open a discussion about your team’s need for better software. Your request may be denied, but you will have stood out as someone who did more than grumble when faced with an obstacle.
Most of us could use help accounting for our accountability, even those of us who have been in the business world for decades. These four techniques will help you get started on the process of moving ahead faster and farther than you’ve ever expect of yourself.
William Arruda is a keynote speaker, co-founder of CareerBlast.TV and creator of the 360Reach personal brand feedback survey which allows you to get the real scoop about your professional reputation from those who know you.
