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LEADERSHIP
Leaders must rethink accountability as a positive force for success in organisations and banish
the negative sentiments it has traditionally evoked, says leadership coach Henry Evans
The
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H
ENRY Evans has been advising leading executives “The higher you get on an organisational chart, the more
and organisations worldwide for many years through responsibility you have but often the less accountability you
his Dallas-based company Dynamic Results and is have,” says Evans. It is something he has experienced first hand in
internationally renowned for his expertise in the his work with CEOs, company presidents and other high-level
areas of emotionally intelligent leadership and high- executives. “What I find working with those people is that they
accountability culture. His recently published book, Winning have the longest list of things to do that no one else knows about,
with Accountability is management reading in organisations and they are also the least likely to be held accountable or chal-
from McDonald’s to FedEx and UPS. lenged by others when they do have commitments.”
Evans and his team have been trying to redefine accountability For this reason, Evans says he advises senior executives to proac-
as a positive force for the organisations and leaders with whom tively and in an unsolicited way “publish their commitments”.
they work. “I think in western culture accountability has pre- “I encourage them to go to their teams and give them the heads
dominantly negative connotations and that is because it is gener- up: ‘Here are the four most important things I need to accom-
ally used in a punitive way,” he says. “So after something has gone plish this week, here’s what they look like when they’re done,
wrong, after a relationship or a project has gone south, we start here’s the date and time for when they will be done, here’s who is
to look for someone or something to blame – that’s what we have doing them and I wanted you to know about it’.”
tended to call accountability.
“We’ve tried to redefine and reposition it in our work and in the The comfort of ambiguity
way it is used, and our definition is simply that accountability means The results, says, Evans are remarkable, although he concedes
‘clear commitments which in the eyes of others have been kept’.” that this change in culture will not work for everyone.
It is a concept that can create challenges for traditional leaders, “While our clients report lower attrition, I have observed that
but Evans emphasises that any accountability model can only when an organisation does not – by our definition – have a high level
work and enhance an organisations’s performance if it comes of accountability in its culture, and begins to institute our methods,
right from the top down. it has some increased attrition at first.
“There’s a type of client who I call a ‘first-class client’, and that “There are some people who are very comfortable in ambiguity
might be a CEO, who is flying first class, reads one of the articles and low accountability, and when they see the tide changing they
we publish and then lands and gives us a call saying ‘we want you may self-select out of the organisation, and go and work some-
to come and fix our people’. where else.” Evans concedes that it is a trend which has somewhat
“We always ask ‘where are you going to be in this process?’ and abated during the current recession when people are more reluc-
they say ‘well I’m fine – I just need you to come and fix my people’. tant to jump ship.
We don’t take those clients, because if the leadership is not engaged “When those people do leave, it tends to create a space that gets
in the change effort, the leadership will be our biggest obstacle.” filled by people who do want to be part of that effort because, using
According to Evans, for the change to work, it is vital that the our methods, the language the executives use changes when they’re
top executives are demonstrating and exhibiting these accounta- making and requesting commitments. When candidates are inter-
bility behaviours themselves, before they request it of anyone else viewing, they can hear the specificity with which they speak, and
in their organisation. they are either attracted or repelled by that type of language.”
UCD BUSINESS CONNECTIONS 19
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