Make Adjustments When Needed and Remain Consistent While Establishing Accountability

Steps five and six can sound like opposites, or that they contradict one another. But they actually can and should be a compliment to each other. How you approach and implement these steps should bring a lot of stability to how you create accountability with those you work closely with. These middles steps are the core of maintaining, sustaining, and even strengthening, your culture. 

The initial steps of ensuring you have the right people in the right place and that clear expectations are set forge the foundation of accountability. That is reinforced with having mutually understood consequences, with the needed follow-up. We discussed that in the last article, and it began the transition to the stability and sustainability of an accountable environment. Making adjustments sounds like it could be easy to undo those efforts. Below we’ll look at how that is not the case when done thoughtfully and in a timely fashion.

Adjusting when necessary is about making good decisions along the way. Circumstances change constantly. Part of building a strong culture of accountability is also recognizing when the environment has changed in such a way that the original expectations need to be changed. A rigid leader who is more concerned about just doing what originally planned versus getting to the best outcome will break down in this step. Step five is all about trust in the leader. If the team feels confident that you are concentrating on the best outcomes in the current arena, they can spend their energy on getting to the set expectations. If they feel the leader is disconnected from the changing realities, they will spend more of their time challenging the processes or questioning why things are the way they are.

ADJUST when needed

Plans can and will change. You have to exercise wise judgment and know when to persevere and when to change course. If what you’re doing is clearly not working, you better move and move fast. Go back to the drawing board.

Occasionally, a plan doesn’t come together exactly as you would like. In other instances, circumstances change and the realities of the situation require a different thought process. The best leaders know that making a change to a plan is far better than holding on to an unsuccessful plan for too long. 

Review your foundation steps to ensure nothing has been missed in setting expectations, establishing and understanding of consequences, and following up has happened appropriately. If those are in place, begin to make the adjustments to the plan itself.

Showing a willingness to make the ‘on the fly’ adjustments is another way to establish credibility and build trust. Team Members and others around you are likely the first to sense when a plan is not coming together fully, as expected. They may wait to see if the leader notices, or if they share their concerns, will then wait to see what the reaction is to determine how deeply they engage in what they sense is a failing plan. Showing you are willing to adjust when needed opens up the dialogue to understand whether the plan needs to be scrapped in full or if minor adjustments are needed. Either way, there will come a time when a plan needs to be updated—be proactive in doing so.

BE consistent

Consistency is about predictability.

To build trust and accountability, you must show consistency in your actions, performance, and leadership. Be consistent in your approach to work, people, and your communications—accountability will follow.

If people have to guess what you’re going to do, everything is slower and done with more trepidation. Those are productivity barriers. When your responses and reactions are predictable and consistent, they know what to expect in specific situations and can make their adjustments. How you engage in feedback sessions, discussions about plans, and reviewing the results will determine how quickly your team or others around you react to the situation on their own.

Consistency in how you approach different situations will allow your team to come to you with questions or even solutions that match your expectations. Applying consistency to each of the steps will help the team grow in their understanding of them as well. This reinforces the culture that you desire. Perhaps the most critical application of consistency is when being applied to step three. If the consequences are handled differently with each event, the team will be unsure where they stand or what the reaction to outcomes will be. If a great success occurs, but there is no reaction to it, the team will not know that they have done the right thing. Conversely, if an objective was missed and no follow-up occurs (applying consistency to step four as well) the team may not understand whether you are aware, don’t care, or if something else is at play.

Having ongoing discussions and sharing why you are reacting the way you are in situations can also bridge different circumstances. People may not alway understand why you are approaching the situation the way you are. Unexplained, this can seem as though you are taking an inconsistent approach. Consistency and communication working together is imperative to ensure this step is fully understood by the team and alignment remains in place.

Finally, the last piece that has to be said about consistency: it has to be applied to everyone equally. Nothing erodes trust and a culture of accountability faster than if team members feel as though some get special treatment in certain circumstances. This one gets much trickier. You cannot always communicate the actions you are taking outside of the ‘public’ eye. Not all follow-up or consequence discussions are equal. Some will be specific to certain individuals. However, when these need to occur, over time people will come to see and realize the consistency that is occurring, even if they are not privy to every discussion.

Hopefully, after reviewing each of these two steps, you can see how they compliment each other more than work in opposition. Being willing to adjust when needed and remaining consistent are base competencies for strong, effective leadership. They are also central to sustaining the culture of accountability in any organization or business unit.

We have covered more than half the steps to an environment that is supported and driven by accountable team members. In the next two, we will round out the items that help maintain the connectedness and move towards the full embedment of the actions required to have a culture that is accountable for their actions and outcomes.

How will you demonstrate the importance and willingness to adjust when needed and remain consistent while leading your team?

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