Workplace responsibility or accountability — Part 1

This month’s topic is another readers’ choice: responsibility and accountability. Specifically, we’ll cover: clarifying the real distinction between responsibility and accountability; and, understanding strategies to build a workplace culture that encourages both. We’ll cover differences in today’s column and strategies, next week.

Quick quiz

Here is a quick two-question quiz:

1. A production supervisor is (responsible or accountable?) for recruiting, training, supervising and evaluating employees.

2. That same supervisor is (responsible or accountable?) for loss time due to accidents, percentage of defects and inventory turnover. Answers:

1. Responsible

2. Accountable

How did you do? Don’t worry if you got them wrong, we’ll clear it up in the next few paragraphs.

Defining terms

In these examples, responsibility is the obligation to complete tasks —recruit, train, etc. employees — while accountability is taking ownership of or answering to someone else for work done by others under your supervision.

Put another way, as a teacher, I am responsible for preparing lectures, giving tests and answering student questions. If 80% of my students receive a failing grade, you can bet I will need to be accountable to the dean and explain why so many students failed.

A KeyDifferences.com post provides additional clarification that the “basic difference between responsibility and accountability is that the former is assumed whereas the latter is imposed.” In other words, because an employee is assigned specific duties or tasks (responsibility), that employee must also accept that they must answer for any deviations or discrepancies that may result (accountability).

Blame game

Blame is a particularly troublesome phenomenon that gets in the way of being responsible and accountable. According to a Harvard Business Review article, we are “wired to blame and we blame more than we think”: we do. Blame is almost automatic and we blame others more frequently than we realize.

In its extreme, blame becomes scapegoating. Inc.com defines a scapegoat as “A person or animal which takes on the sins of others, or is unfairly blamed for problems. Back in Biblical times a goat was designated to be

cast into the desert taking with it the sins of the community.”

To me, scapegoating is a warped sense of accountability or blaming on steroids in which everything bad that happens in our company is your fault. We blame others to avoid our personal accountability. Harvard Business Review says blame “kills accountability in ourselves by making us passive victims, and it kills accountability in others by encouraging them to pass the buck.”

But, there are ways to avoid the “blame game” and scapegoating. The Harvard Business Review article discusses two: switch your mindset to “We’re all still learning,” and share your mistakes; and, focus on what you can change.

When we adopt a “still learning” mindset, it expands the notion of learning from one’s mistakes to allow others to do the same. Everyone deserves the opportunity to learn from their mistakes without being blamed. As far as focusing on what you can change, that requires more effort to see a bigger picture or systems approach. Instead of blame, we look at what happened

in the system or process that contributed to the mistake or misstep.

Another way that has helped me avoid the blame game comes from self-improvement author, Werner Erhard, who talks of being 100% responsible. To him, that is not taking blame, assuming guilt or being a victim. It is a way of being that acknowledges that in true transformation, I am the cause in the matter of my life. And, in case you were worried, it doesn’t preclude holding others responsible as well.

We can be responsible and accountable, without blaming ourselves or others. But, it really helps if our workplace fosters a culture of blameless responsibility and accountability. How that is achieved is next week’s lesson!

NEXT WEEK »: Responsibility or Accountability Part 2

Dr. Santo D. Marabella, The Practical Prof, is professor of management at Moravian College and hosts the podcast “Office Hours with The Practical Prof … and Friends.” His latest book, “The Lessons of Caring” is written to inspire and support caregivers (available in paperback and eBook). Website: ThePracticalProf. com; Twitter: @ PracticalProf; Facebook: ThePracticalProf.