The word accountability gets used a lot in the world of startups - mostly by frustrated leaders wondering why people don’t seem to get the things done that they say they’re going to. But accountability has a lot of (understandably) negative connotations, most notably the undertone of blame i.e. ‘I want to hold people accountable.’ >>> ‘I want to know who to blame when stuff goes wrong.’

I find it helpful to break down accountability into the underlying motivators - the things I’ve observed people typically mean when they talk about this topic:

I don’t trust the team

It’s rare that people put it in these terms but often, deep down, this is really the issue founders and leaders are trying to ‘fix’. There is a belief that without constant vigilance and oversight, people won’t do their best work and that will ultimately reflect badly on you.

I don’t have visibility of what’s going on

This often becomes a problem as companies shift into a new stage of growth and don’t yet have the processes and infrastructure in place to manage. Leaders who were used to having their finger on the pulse when the team was smaller now start to feel increasingly disconnected.

I want predicability

Innovation requires risk. Highly innovative companies are willing to make big bets knowing that sometimes they’ll get it wrong. There is often a challenge when people in a leadership position want to have high innovation and predictability at the same time. One common situation in which this occurs is when startups hire a senior leader who has exclusively worked in much bigger organisations that may be seeking 10% optimisation vs. 10x improvement.

I want to be helpful and I don’t know how else to do it

Leaders will often be told that it’s their job to hold their team accountable. Whilst there is of course some truth in this, the model that many will follow is to micromanage (or similar unproductive behaviours). Even the most well-meaning leaders can do a lot of damage if not equipped with the right tools; and the irony is that when leaders deploy the wrong approaches then people will often live down to those expectations.

A few thoughts

• Establish a culture of impeccable agreements - The Conscious Leadership group propose a model focused on taking responsibility and impeccable agreements. In my opinion it’s a much better framing of the topic and gives a leader the tools they need at a 1-1 level.
• The role of vision and storytelling - if you believe that the team simply don’t care enough about solving the problems you’re trying to solve, then you have some work to do to ensure you are joining the dots between the efforts of today and the vision of what that can lead to.
• Gaining visibility - it’s critical to establish ways of cutting into the ‘black box’ of the organisation to get a clear sense of what’s going on. This is typically best done with some clear, quantifiable metrics. There are plenty of books and resources on this topic but Andy Grove’s (former Intel CEO) book ‘High Output Management’ is a great resource on this (and many other things).
• Identifying the root cause of a lack of trust - is lack of trust actually about lack of visibility? Is it about individual performance issues? Is it about you? I hate to break it to you but it’s almost always at least a bit about you. Simultaneous work to gain visibility, to manage performance, and to better understand yourself and how you show up is likely needed.
• Predictability - if you want predictability then startup leadership is likely not the right career path for you. You can bring some order to the chaos, but the whole point of a startup is that you’re doing something new that doesn’t already exist in the world and uncertainty is an inherent part of that journey. I have seen two distinct patterns of behaviour in response to this uncertainty - those who seek to avoid and control it, and those who embrace it. I believe embracing uncertainty and designing an operating system around that principle is an important recipe for success.
• Being helpful - in my opinion, the most value add you have as a manager of people is to a) set really clear expectations, and b) to actively coach people to succeed. If you feel you lack the skills to do these things effectively then there is some work for you to do.