Mutual Accountability
Here is a question that far too few leadership teams consider.
To what extent do you hold each other to account?
The look says it all. As does the flinch.
Each other?! What do you mean? That’s for the team leader to do. Surely?
And so the conversation begins.
So many senior leaders have a big issue about this. As far as they are concerned there is only one person who holds them to account and that is the end of it. Even that can be difficult and one to avoid if possible. The idea of their colleagues pulling them up on anything at any time is not attractive. The same can apply to receiving positive feedback from their colleagues, however well it is meant.
Yet if a team is going to fulfil its potential it is essential that a strong element of mutual accountability exists. Without it people stew on what is never said, gossip in corners and build their cliques with other colleagues around the organisation.
In simple terms, mutual accountability is when everyone in a leadership team is accountable to everyone else, and feels able to hold them to account where necessary.
This is the first blog on mutual accountability and the fifth in the leadership team series. The topic for the first two was collective responsibility - they are here and here. The third and fourth focused on interdependence.
Mutual accountability is by far the hardest of the three key features of a leadership team to put into practice.
Why is it so difficult? And what can this look like in reality?
Here are four aspects to consider.
Balanced feedback
This is not about calling each other out left, right and centre. It is not about jumping down throats, or instigating procedures on each other or seeking to find fault.
Primarily it is about feedback, and for that principle to be useful in a senior leadership team it must cut both ways. It is not good enough for praise to be the only type of feedback to be offered across the senior table.
This is about constructive feedback that adds value to the collective picture, and helps your colleague do an even better job next time. It is about taking the time to notice ‘what went well’ and what could be ‘even better if’. It is about starting from a good place because the team is the thing, and because you need them to do the same for you.
You also need them to have their ear to the ground about how your initiatives have landed around the organisation, and to find out what has been misunderstood or could have been anticipated more effectively.
If all of this sounds positive in principle, but potentially unbearable in practice, then consider these alternatives.
Platitudes are all that is offered around the top table, and mostly it does not even go that far.
Passive-aggressive behaviour, where the success of others is not celebrated unless in the form of backhanded compliments.
Everyone stays in their silo and does not take the time to notice the work of the team going on around them, whatever the impact might be on their own area or the organisation as a whole.
When an individual team member performs particularly badly, they do not consider the impact on the team. The same applies to concluding that strong performance was only about them.
If these four bullet points are close to your current reality, then I question why you wish to retain it.
2. Do it in the right way
Mutual accountability can be a delicate process.
Four key points.
a. Pick your moment. Even your colleague most keen to hear what others have to say may not be ready for feedback at all times. When you have ‘had some thoughts’ on a piece of work or a project, ask them if they want to talk about it now. If they do not, then find a time or (last resort) offer to send an email. Feedback is best done in synchronous dialogue, rather than an asynchronous form such as email or other messaging. It is better still when colleagues can see each other rather than on the phone.
b Keep it brief. To do so, you will need to think about what you will say and how you will say it. It is so important to be clear, and to have considered how your message could be misinterpreted. Your audience might be somewhat on edge, so testing out your message on someone else first can be a useful approach. Even if you have several ideas, start with one and see how it lands.
c. Make clear what you see the potential impact could be. Not only is this helpful, but it also shows you have thought it through. If you want to bring an idea, you also need to do the heavy lifting with the next steps.
d. Finally, when feeding back on what could be better to a peer (or superior within the team) you are often making suggestions and no more. It is up to them what they do with it. Together you might explore possibilities. That is very different to pulling someone up for not turning up when you most needed them to do so.
3. Ego and status get in the way
Here is the core of why a culture of mutual accountability is the exception, not the rule.
Many senior leaders are resistant to feedback from their peers.
Senior teams can be highly competitive places. Leaders often gain experience in teams where individual achievements were prized over team accountability, not least that of the leader. They can also be the last place in many organisations where mistakes or weaknesses are acknowledged.
Some see that they made it to the top table through playing the game, being in the right people’s good books, taking too much credit for achievements which were not really theirs and covering themselves when it all went wrong. Then the higher they rise, the less honesty they experience from others and vice versa.
The habits which help many get to the top can be deeply ingrained and make the idea of accountability to their colleagues off-putting at best and threatening at worst.
On top of that every senior team has some history, often from when individual members worked at lower levels of the same organisation. In the past they considered themselves ‘rivals’ when running departments or sections, or one particular alliance with an existing senior leader was the catalyst for their promotion. As context, history is helpful but it does not need to define a team’s culture in perpetuity.
Then there is the complication of the organisational chart within the team. A single senior leadership team will have at least two levels, the CEO (or equivalent) and everyone else, but it may extend to three or more. Potentially the CEO will line manage all the rest of the team, or it might be delegated within the team. Irrespective of line management, some will have a stronger relationship with the CEO than others.
This might make mutual accountability more complicated, but it remains a barrier which can be overcome. A team may have different levels of authority, but it can still be a team.
4. The rest of the organisation depends upon it
All those who work for the organisation, but are not part of the senior team, need their senior colleagues to hold each other accountable.
They need those difficult conversations to take place around the top table, because senior leaders are the only people who can have them. Middle leaders fighting each other for resources or attention never ends well, those battles should be resolved amongst the senior staff. Direct reports and their teams may not welcome all the decisions taken from above, but they still need the clarity which comes when they are made and not deferred or avoided altogether.
Those down the chain of command need the confidence which comes from a strong sense of genuine alignment amongst their leaders. They do not appreciate mixed messages from their leaders, or getting different answers to the same question depending on who you ask. If a senior person is letting down the team, and the organisation as a whole, they want it to be picked up.
Fascinated though others might be to learn about the occasions when senior colleagues ‘have it out’ around the table, they tend to be most impressed by a team which has the conversations it needs to have and holds the line afterwards regardless of their individual opinions.
Remember that
Senior leadership teams have a responsibility to model teamwork to everyone else in the organisation. If senior colleagues do not hold each other to account, it will not happen at any other level.
The leader needs to set the tone about the culture they wish to see. That means creating the opportunities round the table for mutual accountability to happen, including about their own performance. The best leaders go further and set an expectation of feedback.
How can I help you?
1. One to one coaching programmes for senior leaders who are swamped by their jobs so they can thrive in life. Click here to discover where you are on your journey from Frantic to Fulfilled? Just 5 minutes of your time and you will receive a full personalised report with guidance on your next steps.
2. Team coaching programmes - working IN a team is not the same as working AS a team and yet they are often treated as if they are the same. I help teams move from the former to the latter, and generate huge shifts in productivity and outcomes.
3. Talks, workshops and seminars - including topics relevant to the two areas above plus explaining Gen Z to Gen X and dealing with the intergenerational workplace. Speaker showreel here.
4. My book The Snowflake Myth will be published in 2025 - to receive a free chapter (when available 😬) please click here.
