Following With Accountability

Hot take: If you complain about your leaders, micro-management, poor workplace culture, and/or overall work experience, but you are unwilling to take accountability for your role in creating these conditions, then you are part of the problem. Though I believe it is largely the responsibility of leaders to create and maintain positive management and leadership practices, and company culture, employees are not without responsibility for contributing to the organization and its culture in a positive manner. 

How many times have you heard a subordinate or a coworker complain about issues in the workplace but they consistently fail to meet basic standards of behavior their position demands, or consistently fail to meet realistic expectations? There is a certain irony about their complaints isn’t there? They wonder why they are micro-managed, why leadership doesn’t trust them, and why they feel they don’t get the respect they feel they deserve. Yet, they have done nothing to earn the trust and respect that would help alleviate the conditions they complain of. 

I have done my fair share of complaining and gossiping. In private conversations, in meetings, even openly in email threads. If I had a problem with things in my workspace or with management, I made it known. I have not had the greatest experience in any of the many organizations I have been part of. There were legitimate concerns. Obvious wrongs that were ignored out of convenience or incompetence. However, there were also times that I was very much part of the problem. 

So where do so many of us go wrong? Maybe we have legitimate problems in the work place that need to be addressed. Maybe we are experiencing truly poor leadership and/or company culture. Maybe we are not getting what we want out of our career or our income with this company because of the way they do things. Our first mistake is that we immediately project full blame. Our second is that many of us adopt the perception that our managers, leaders, and the company are an enemy. Our third mistake is our communication. 

Personal Accountability

I am a big fan of the book “Extreme Ownership” written by Jocko Wilink and Leif Babin. For those unfamiliar with the content, the book title does a pretty good job summarizing the theme. What the book advocates is an extreme level of personal accountability, both for leaders and the led alike. Why is this so important in the workplace?

Extreme accountability as a leader speaks to the weight of responsibility that rests on a leader’s shoulders. They are responsible for each and every subordinate, their behaviors, and their results. This does not mean that accountability or responsibility is removed entirely from the shoulders of subordinates. You as an employee are responsible for the role or job position you hold. You are accountable to the standards of behavior set by your leadership and the culture you both create. You are accountable for your willingness to engage in those behaviors, as well as working to develop the skills required to do so. You are also accountable for communicating the need for skill development to your leader. 

In short, you are responsible for controlling what is within your ability to control, and holding yourself accountable to doing so. You can control your willingness to do the right things. You can control when, what, and how you communicate to your leaders when there is a problem or a deficiency and request the support you need to meet expectations they have set for you. 

You may not be able to control the events that occur at work, but you can control your response to them. One of my leaders during my time in the Navy once told me that we must be fluid, because flexible is too rigid. This spoke to the ever changing nature of our day to day. There were a lot of factors that contributed to this, and it is true that leadership and poor communication somewhere along the chain of command were often the cause. It was also often due to pure necessity of the job, with no one in particular to blame. 

Our response to these events is what made or broke our execution of the mission. Our mission being the readiness of aircraft components for the squadrons we serviced. Nothing quite heroic for me to stand on, but still necessary to the fleet’s ability to perform its greater mission. Jocko and Leif, on the other hand, were Navy SEAL Officers who saw action. That service is owed some praise, and their stance on the matter remains the same. Controlling your reaction to the events in your day is key to the success of the team or organization in achieving its mission. 

The self-control associated with extreme ownership, holding yourself accountable to what you can control, is key in adapting to the situation. It is one of the basic building blocks of resilience that employers are looking for in their people. Resilience being your ability to overcome adversity. Employers look for this because the truth is that every business plan is speculative and is really a best guess of what may be to come. Now more than ever, the roaring march of creative destruction and the need for organizations to be agile and innovate are of the utmost importance to the sustained success of the organization. Remember, if the organization falls behind, fails to adapt, fails to innovate, or fails to respond well to the events it faces, you are out of a job. Job security starts with personal accountability. 

 You can control your contribution to the culture within your team and the organization overall. Culture is defined by the collective beliefs of the individuals within the organization and it is experienced through their behaviors. Leaders have the responsibility of setting the example. It is your responsibility to follow that example. When your leader is communicating behaviors that do not meet the standards they have set with the culture, it is your responsibility to communicate that misalignment in an honest and respectful manner with mutual understanding of their intent and your perception in mind. 

It is also your responsibility to check your peers when they are not aligned with the standards of behaviors set by leaders and agreed to by the team. If your peers are negatively impacting the culture of the organization, a gentle and respectful nudge in the right direction by someone on their level they respect is far more impactful than the scorn of a leader. If you want the culture within your team to be toxic, then don’t check toxic behavior. If you don’t want to experience that kind of culture, don’t tolerate it. The choice is yours to hold yourself accountable to your role in creating the culture you want to experience or don’t. 

Friend or Foe?

I have been guilty of seeing management as an enemy. I perceived their decisions and behaviors with a pessimistic outlook, considering what I thought was their worst possible intention as the only reasonable explanation for why they made such decisions and engaged in such behaviors. It is easy to do when things are bad. It is much more difficult to offer grace and even forgiveness. 

Your managers, your leaders, are people just like you and I. We make mistakes. None of us are perfect. But that imperfection is not an innate intent of malice. Though I have known some that make it difficult to argue to the contrary, most managers do not come to work with the express intent of making your life difficult or miserable. Those who do seem to enjoy it are few and far between, and often easier to spot than you may imagine. 

To discern friend from foe, you must discern the intent behind the decisions and behaviors you seem to perceive are misaligned with the company’s culture or are leading the team or organization down the wrong path. With a pessimistic outlook, you can ask yourself what the worst possible motive could be. With an optimistic outlook, you can ask yourself what the best possible motive is. What I recommend is a neutral outlook. Look at the facts, all the facts, and consider the outcomes the manager expected with their decision or behavior. Then talk to them about it. 

It is difficult to fix what you don’t know is broken. Leaders need feedback. If their decisions and behaviors are being perceived as intentional malice, they need to know. That way they can fix their decisions and behaviors, or educate you on the why behind them. Though they should take it upon themselves to ensure you understand their intent behind these moves, they are often forced to make quick but tough calls without the privilege of explaining themselves. If you are failing to understand their intent, you can start by expressing your perception so they may do better in the future.    

If you can find ways to forgive yourself when you make mistakes and fail to meet the perfect standard, then you can find a way to offer the same grace to others when they miss the mark as well. We are all going to miss the mark. Through this level of mutual understanding we can begin to forgive each other for mistakes that negatively affect one another. It’s the golden rule. Offer your leaders the same forgiveness and grace that you would expect from them when you fail to be perfect. 

Don’t just assume they are an enemy. Offer them the benefit of the doubt. Look for the truth of intent. Communicate.

Don’t Complain, Communicate

I have been guilty of complaining when I should have communicated. I find there is a fine line between complaining and other forms of communication such as venting or constructive criticism. I believe the differentiating factor is the victim mindset adopted when complaining. 

Venting is more of the expression of frustrations and concerns felt, often times when solutions are unclear. It can be a way to gain clarity. It can even be a bit of a cry for help toward anyone who will listen. I found the best practice was to vent to a trusted individual, but always end the conversation with a positive. A friend and I practiced this in a couple organizations we worked for together. We had a lot to vent to each other about in regard to the job, but we always ended our conversations with a positive form of gratitude, appreciation, or motivation. 

Constructive criticism is best expressed when criticising the work, not the worker or leader. Again, your leader is not your enemy. You are on the same team. It does not serve anyone to criticise the person when the problem is with their work. It is this very feedback that great leaders garner from their people. If you want your manager to be a better leader, you have to give them the feedback they need to get there. This doesn’t mean that you have to criticize their performance every day anymore than you would appreciate the same from them. 

Great leaders should have regular 1-on-1 meetings with their direct reports on a regular basis, with that regularity being subjective to the job and the leader. This is a great time to discuss your expectations of them and ask for support where you may need it. If this is not common practice, go to your leader and ask for a private conversation. 

One of the things talked about in “Extreme Ownership” that gave me a gut punch was the idea of leading up the chain. It points out our responsibility to communicate up the chain of command, or levels of the organization. I have always struggled with this and that struggle contributed to the strained relationships I had with many of the managers I have worked under. “Examine what you can do to better convey the critical information for decisions to be made and support allocated.” (Babin, 2017)

You also have to understand that your leader is working with limited resources. Some leaders are more limited than others. They are also often sandwiched between you and their boss, constantly being pulled in multiple directions. Sometimes they have to make tough decisions on how to allocate the resources that are available, including their personal resources like time and effort. With this in mind, I do not want to set the expectation that leading up the chain will solve all your problems with leaders. Leading up the chain is about supporting your leaders with the information they need to make the tough decisions that lie ahead of them. You then have to find a way to trust them to make the right calls and respect their decision.  

Mutual Pillars of a Strong Culture

The three pillars that support a strong culture are the same that support great leadership. Afterall, it is through leadership that culture is cultivated. Mutual trust, respect, and understanding are essential to leading a high performing workforce. They are also essential to cultivate a strong culture that people, including you as an employee, want to be part of and engage with. No one wants to be part of a toxic culture. It is one of the biggest contributors to poor satisfaction, engagement, and high turnover. Everyone in the team or organization has a role to play in cultivating a desirable culture and they are all stakeholders. 

For the “mutual” part to work effectively, you have to do your part as the employee to positively contribute to your relationship with your leadership. Clearly communicate to your leaders so they can understand your perspective. When you struggle to see theirs, ask. Trust that your leaders are doing their best and that their decisions and behaviors, when aligned with the agreed upon culture, are for the best interest of the collective, not always just your interest. Show them the same level of respect you expect to receive from them. If they fail to reciprocate, communicate. 

An Introduction to Personal Management

It is the individual’s responsibility to manage themselves as an adult with the free will to make their own decisions and control their behaviors. How you choose to spend your personal resources is up to you. How you choose to behave is up to you. That goes for employees and leaders alike. This is why personal management is so important.  

Personal Management is about managing the expense of your personal resources in a productive manner, meaning you get the most value possible out of each resource spent. Personal resources include your time, effort, focus, discipline, cognitive capacity, and many more. These resources are finite. Just as the business has to manage their finite resources, financial or otherwise, you need to manage your personal resources in a way that allows you to get the most out of them. 

Personal management starts with prioritization. It is about discerning what is most important, and focusing your personal resources on those priorities before allowing distractions to get a piece of the pie. Responsibility is a great place to start looking for priorities. It isn’t just about work priorities though. What offers you the most fulfillment from the time and energy you spend? This question is important to answer for finding balance as well. Once you discern what is most important, focus your resources there and cease expenses everywhere else. 

Setting realistic goals in alignment with your priorities is another key aspect of personal management. A sad reality for the human race is that we need to have something to look forward to to pull us forward. We also hinder our ability to succeed when without a plan. The plan doesn’t have to be perfect so long as you have prepared yourself with the agility necessary to adapt along the way. 

The key is to put thought into your next steps and how your current steps contribute to where you want to be. After you identify your priorities, start thinking of some goals to align with those priorities with a general plan to get you there. This gives your expense of personal resources clear direction, which is especially important for those who consistently feel stuck in place. It is a way to harness your motivation by making a clear connection between your daily tasks and the why, or the priority that is so important to you, that drives your decisions and behaviors. It is also how you can leave each day with a sense of accomplishment over the small wins instead of being overwhelmed by the reach of the goal. 

Balance is something every employee desires. They want a balance between living for themselves, and living for the benefit of bosses. In the context of employee responsibility, it is on you to balance your life. If you have a highly demanding job, I get it. You chose to work there though. And you also chose not to enforce boundaries when bosses force more on your plate than you are comfortable accepting. It is true that you could work a less demanding job and probably get paid less. It is also true that your employer could replace you if you tell them no. The fact is, there are no solutions, only trade offs. You have to choose which tradeoff you are comfortable tolerating, and stand by your decision. If that decision is to take the demanding job or accept more and more responsibility, you have to accept the tradeoff of lacking balance. 

If you are like me, and you have been hired into positions that the company continues to change, you do have the option to leave. You can let the company that wants to change the rules of the game during the game deal with the turnover problems. Or you can be like me and so many others and hold on for too long when leaders don’t want to compromise and respect reasonable boundaries. But if you choose to stay, you are choosing to accept the conditions of the changed agreement. Trust that I know that decision seems far from black and white as presented. At the end of the day though, we have to stand by our decision with the tradeoffs that come with them. 

If you are managing your personal resources appropriately, meaning you are productive with their use, then no one should have an excuse to micro-manage you. And it is through the practice of personal management that you can make the argument that their lack of trust is unfounded to any that do. Micro-managing sucks for everyone, including the manager. Managers tend to lean into micro-management when they don’t feel they can trust their employees to do the right things without surveillance of some kind. And though I would argue that it is often due to the lack of strong culture that often contributes to this lack of trust, employees have to take accountability for demonstrating that trust has been earned. 

In conclusion, I didn’t always choose accountability. I didn’t always choose to be trusting with, respectful toward, or even care to understand the perspectives of the managers I loathed. It wasn’t all on me, but I did not always do a great job controlling my controllables or in contributing to our relationship in a positive manner. I am taking accountability now, and I hope that you choose to do the same. It is this compromise, along with a few others, between leaders and those they lead that will repair the relationship between them. Repair the relationship, cultivate a strong culture, and watch the results speak for themselves. 

The average adult spends roughly 50% of the waking hours of their life at work. Don’t let yourself become a product of your environment, make your environment a product of you.

Reference:

Willink, J., & Babin, L. (2017). Extreme ownership: How U.S. navy seals lead and win. (pp. 237). St. Martin’s Press.