Highly Accountable Teams: Three Surprising Reasons They are More Loyal

If you are a leader struggling to hold your team accountable, you aren’t alone. It’s not uncommon for leaders to experience frustration when leading a team to achieve their goals. One challenge I often hear includes a lack of support and resources for the leader. The most common concern I hear from clients is that while they want to hold their team accountable, they’re afraid they’ll become ( or have become) a micro- manager.

Why is it so challenging to hold teams accountable? How do we solve this problem? Here are some common challenges that I encounter with clients:

- Unclear expectations for individuals

- Disengaged team members

- Lack of alignment of team and individual goals with organizational goals

- Poor preparation and training of

managers and leaders

- Fear of delegating

- Lack of trust

The Secret Sauce for Successful Leaders

- Clearly defined organizational goals

- Clearly defined team and individual goals

- Understanding team members’ unique motivations

- Aligning team and individual goals with

organizational goals

- Spending the right amount of time on supervising, training, coaching and mentoring

- Applying best practices in coaching

What mode are you in? How do you know if you are spending your time in the right leadership quadrant? The four quadrants include: supervising, training, mentoring, and coaching.

By supervising, I mean assigning and monitoring the completion of tasks on time within quality standards. Supervising is typically a one- to- one conversation held at regular, agreed- upon intervals. By contrast, training is a one- to- many activity that teaches processes, standards, and cultural values and norms. Mentoring is reserved for those who demonstrate high commitment and potential for growth. Coaching is the most challenging mode for leaders to learn and implement. Why? Because many leaders don’t receive the necessary support, training, and tools to help them build or expand their leadership skills. Getting to know individual employees and understanding their unique goals, dreams, and motivations is essential. Hint: the top motivator for many employees is not more money. For some, it’s recognition. For others, it may be time off with their family. Still others may want time off for individual passions and pursuits, like running a marathon or volunteering for an important cause.

According to a recent article in Harvard Business Review, the key to holding your team accountable is with compassion, not fear.

Some managers are surprised to learn that fear isn’t a sustainable form of motivation. It may surprise others that money isn’t the universal language of motivation. While a leader shouldn’t overdo compassion or tolerate repeated failure, some are surprised to learn that failure is necessary for growth and learning.

What Savvy Leaders Know

That’s why savvy leaders allow for growth and learning in small steps, allowing for failures that won’t hurt clients, employees, or the business. For example, a commonly used approach in software development allows a developer to work on a challenge in a “sandbox” safely set up separately from the main software program.

Highly successful leaders cultivate loyalty by listening with compassion. They create a safe environment for employees to make mistakes, learn new skills, and achieve meaningful goals that help drive the business’s success.

Kathleenwinsor- Games is Vice President of Sales with Sandler Achievement Dynamics. She provides values- based training and coaching on sales and leadership. Contact her at Kathleen. Winsor- Games@ Sandler. com