as easy as... embracing accountability
- Kate Johnson
- Mar 4
- 8 min read
Updated: Mar 10

Accountability is quite possibly the single most misunderstood, maligned, and misused aspect of work and leadership. Despite its bad reputation, I am a shameless proponent of accountability and view it as the foundation of successful leadership and stellar performance. I’ve researched, reflected on, and written about accountability off and on for the last 15 years. I have, as they say, some thoughts.
This newsletter has spent the last four months addressing topics like kindness, humor, courage, and empathy. You may well be wondering, does accountability even belong here?
It most certainly does!
Accountability is the keystone of performance. Without it, the connection between leader and employee—their shared ability to get work—done falls apart. However, this isn’t the common view. Over the years, it’s come to be synonymous with punishment. In no small part because many people have only encountered it as such. It comes in the guise of “holding people accountable.” If I were queen, we would ban this phrase. It has done more harm than good. It has only ever created results through leveraging fear and power. Those are not a formula for great leadership.
So, what is the better formula? Well, true accountability exists when trust and transparency are present and when leaders understand that accountability is an ongoing process that requires maintaining healthy relationships and clear communication.
I’m going to proceed as if we’ve all agreed that accountability is not a bad thing. And understanding that it is not a bad thing, we can also look to five principles that help us maintain this view and allow us to create accountability.
1. The best results happen when true accountability exists.
2. Accountability begins with expectations.
3. Expectations are the foundation for performance management.
4. Performance management depends on measurement.
5. Measurement is the currency of accountability.
At the highest level, accountability means having to answer for one’s actions. It means knowing in advance that you will have to explain yourself and that your actions will have consequences. This only works if you actually know in advance that you will have to answer for your actions and if you trust the processes used to keep track of your actions and tie consequences to them. Managers own the processes for communicating expectations and for tracking, providing feedback, and delivering consequences. This chain of events—expectations, feedback, and consequences—points to the fact that accountability exists within a process that has a before, a during, and an after.
When imagining this process, I like to picture a Venn diagram. In fact, I’ve drawn a Venn diagram for you. You will see that, at the central intersection, we find performance. Let me walk you through each segment.

Begin with a Blueprint
If we follow the principle that “accountability begins with expectations,” this is the only way to start. Providing a blueprint means using the time before work begins to lay out the full picture of your expectations (who does what by when and so on). It must also include clear communication about the consequences an employee can expect to receive. (I also have thoughts on consequences, but that will come later.)
At the intersection of this step and the next, you find Clarification. This is the employee’s opportunity to confirm their understanding of your expectations, ask questions, seek guidance, and generally ensure they are equipped to do the work. While its place in the process may make Clarification seem like a single event, you should be sure to keep this communication channel open at all times.
Ongoing Observation Occurs
Your role in maintaining accountability is not solely at the start and end. You have a part to play throughout the completion of any work task. This does not mean that you are present at all moments, hanging over the employee’s shoulder to watch them work. It does mean that you are monitoring their progress, determining if they are on track, and providing feedback. Observation can be in real-time (you watch the employee at work), or asynchronous (you use reports or other tracking tools). What matters here is your engagement with the employee throughout the course of the task or assignment. This is how you collect the data you need to measure their work and manage their performance.
Observation intersects with the next step to result in Validation. This component of accountability is based on your observation, feedback, and the employee’s response to both. This is where you determine if the employee’s results match your expectations.
Finish with Follow-through
Once a task is done or a project is complete, you are responsible for follow-through. This key aspect of accountability allows you to reconcile results and consequences.
Let me take a moment to make a case for consequences. Much like accountability, this is a concept that has become unnecessarily and exclusively linked to punishment. I’m fond of examining the root meanings of words to help me understand them more fully. This has been especially helpful in the case of consequences. If we break it down to its component parts, we get con (with) and sequence (event or moment). So, a consequence is simply what comes with an event or what follows an action. As such, a consequence is neither inherently bad nor good. What matters is the action or result because it ultimately defines what follows. A consequence can be “bad”—I fail to turn a report in by the deadline and I receive a verbal warning. A consequence can also be “good”—I complete the report three days early and receive a heartfelt “Atta girl!”
All of this to say, your role as the leader is to ensure that both rewards and correction are administered according to the employee’s results and in line with what you communicated when setting expectations (your Blueprint).
Work is often ongoing or at least there is always more to do. So, our accountability process continues where Follow-through and your Blueprint intersect. Renewal is the process of confirming that a particular responsibility continues, initiating a new assignment, or even performing any tasks associated with the employee moving on to a new job.
Throughout this process, you and your employee share responsibility for communication. Your roles may be different, but you each play a part in ensuring that results happen. In this model, performance is the natural product of accountability.
Now that we’ve walked through this framework for accountability, let’s explore how this applies in real-world leadership situations. Here are three opportunities where accountability can make or break success.
#1 Creating accountability when you hire a new employee
This is the best chance you have to establish accountability—from day 1. When you bring a new employee into your team, you can use their orientation to set clear expectations and give them a blueprint for the role. This can include work hours, behavior standards, communication practices—anything and everything that will help them perform their job according to what the work needs. During orientation and training, you have the opportunity to observe the new employee’s progress. Are they following procedures? Are they making more mistakes than normal for a new hire? Are they forming connections within the team? You can (and should!) use these observations to provide feedback and redirect or affirm what they’re doing, as appropriate. Follow-through can happen at the conclusion of the introductory period, when the new employee is either released to work independently or you use your internal policies and procedures to determine next steps.
#2 Creating accountability when you assign someone to a special project.
The circumstances here may be different, but the process for accountability remains the same. Imagine you have a high-performing employee that you want to grow for a promotion, so you assign them to a special project to give them exposure and the chance to learn more about the business. As a leader who values and practices accountability, you will explain the assignment and your rationale before they begin. You will let them know what you hope they will gain from it and how this fits into their professional development. If you are leading the project, you will have the chance to directly observe them and can deliver feedback at the right times. If a colleague is in the lead, you can conduct regular check-ins with the employee to determine how things are progressing and connect with your colleague for further input—both are forms of asynchronous or indirect observation. When the project is done, your follow-through can take the form of a debrief that includes discussing what the employee learned and where you collaborate on identifying future learning opportunities.
#3 Creating accountability when you address performance improvement needs.
Unfortunately, this is probably what most people think of when they think of accountability: someone hasn’t done their job and corrective action is called for. If this is the only time you’re talking about accountability, you’re too late. You’re doing it wrong. To be an instance of true accountability, this scenario must be embedded in a larger event—the blueprint, observation, and follow-through associated with the work that didn’t meet expectations.
Addressing performance concerns is simply a subset of the accountability that should already exist. In some respects, this activity is the consequence. Again, regardless of the circumstances, the process is the same. When an employee’s performance falls below expectations, you have the opportunity to hit “reset” and return to the beginning with them. How you present the blueprint and outline the potential consequences may differ, but setting the expectation is always the first step. It could sound like this:
“Jane, as you know, your recent performance was not to the expected standard. We’re going to take a little time to review performance expectations and make certain you have the chance to ask questions and discuss what support you may need going forward. I’m documenting this in an improvement plan and we will revisit this in 2 weeks. If you’re on track to meet your productivity goal by then we’ll set another review date. If you haven’t improved by then, I want to be clear up front that this would mean a note goes in your file. Before we go any further, what questions do you have right now?”
Obviously, the details will vary based on your industry and company, but what you can see in this example is how our leader makes connections to established expectations and takes steps to create dialogue. They share accountability with the employee.
There are a million and more ways to practice accountability in this fashion. You have the opportunity every day to start and refresh accountability with your team. Remember, as a leader, you initiate the process. Specifically, be clear about expectations upfront and create mutual agreement about consequences for meeting and missing any goals.
Again, accountability begins at the beginning—of any assignment, project, initiative, etc. If you wait until a missed deadline or an error occurs to discuss accountability, you are too late. In these cases, you are not “holding them accountable,” you are punishing a team member for a mistake. Please note that this is not a leadership quality; it is cruelty.
If we hope to repair our understanding of accountability—and its role in the workplace—we have to approach it as an ongoing process. Being an accountable leader means your team knows from the start what is expected, understands how success will be measured, receives frequent feedback to encourage or correct behavior, and is prepared for the natural consequences of completed work. In short, accountability lives in the daily conversations you have about what work is being done and how. Ask yourself:
Am I providing my employees with a blueprint?
Do I consistently observe their work and offer real-time feedback?
Am I reinforcing expectations with appropriate consequences?
Because if accountability is missing, performance will suffer. And great leadership—your leadership—depends on getting this right.
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