Key competencies: accountability
In this month’s article of a series focusing on personal development, Ros Pepper, Organisational development manager at the University of Lincoln, offers an insight into the key competency of accountability
M
y series of features has been designed to support you as
payroll professionals to harness your skills, behaviours and confidence, and looking at the competency this month, I am sure we all appreciate just how vitally important this one is in your arena! So, let’s have a look at the definition:
ac-count-abil-i-ty noun: the quality or state of being accountable; especially: an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions.
In terms of the dictionary definitions, it is perhaps unsurprising that some can hold the word synonymous with blame, “you’re holding me responsible...” or “don’t blame me, it wasn’t my fault...”
Of course, this can be the natural tendency when things do not turn out with the expected outcome. For me there are two important aspects to this competency to consider in a little more detail.
‘Responsibility’ and ‘accountability’ What, would you say, is the difference? In one of the books I have referenced in further resources, Miller and Bedford
Diagram 1
discuss this question. I find their explanation interesting, in that they think of responsibility as being at the front end, clarifying “who is doing what and who will be responsible”, whilst viewing accountability as “the mindset at the back end – that is, after the fact. An accountable person owns the results, whether good or bad. So in this regard, someone can be responsible, but not accountable.” This is where company culture and behaviour play such a fundamental part in how we as individuals, employees, managers and leaders view accountability. Key elements here are around ownership and willingness.
In workplace situations how often do you ask yourself these questions: l What part did I play? What did my input have to do with the outcome? (ownership) l What could I have done better? What have I taken away or learnt from this? (willingness)
Actions speak louder than words in this respect. How we view our behaviours makes all the difference when thinking about accountability. The positive aspect here is that we all have the ability to change our behaviour. If things are not going well, we have the choice to act
differently, change course. The key here is encouraging people to see this; and this is where those important aspects of ownership and willingness come into play.
...WE ALL HAVE THE ABILITY TO CHANGE OUR BEHAVIOUR...
Take ownership of your own performance With the above in mind, now is a good to time to take a few minutes to assess where you fit with this for your organisation. Are you clear on your own role and responsibilities? Have you considered recently what your priorities are and where your focus actually is? Are you responsible and/or accountable for these? And, on a scale of one to ten, when was the last time you considered your ownership and willingness to address these key elements?
Look at your current role and responsibilities and ask yourself the ‘ownership’ and ‘willingness’ questions above; rate yourself on a scale of one to ten). What would need to happen to see these move in a positive direction? What might you need to make this happen and how will you achieve it? The second important aspect of ‘accountability’ is around the setting of challenging and achievable objectives. Let’s remind ourselves of ‘SMART’ objectives/goals’ – see Diagram 1. Most people have come across SMART objectives, but if this is something new do read up more about them. The setting of objectives is so important and many of us do not lead by example in ensuring our priorities and focus for the coming few months or the next year, are set up for clarity and success. This goes hand-in-hand with the ownership and willingness element of any role – are you
12 PayrollProfessional
professionaldevelopment
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