Today we are diving into a topic that can make or break any leadership team and that is the high cost of avoiding accountability in your leadership team.
And this is a big one because when leaders avoid accountability, the negative ripple effects touch every part of the business that is coming up next.
Welcome to the Chris LoCurto show where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are.
Welcome to the show folks. I hope you're having a fabulous day wherever you are. Today we are talking about the effects of a lack of accountability in a leadership team.
Now if your leadership team isn't unified, and I will tell you, most leadership teams think that they have a level of unity or they're somewhat unified, I will say I've been working with leadership teams for decades and I'm going to say most of them are not what you would consider the definition of unified to be.
So they like each other, they talk a lot. But what we find out is that there is a lack of unity.
Now if there's a lack of unity, then there's a lack of alignment. If there's lack of alignment, then there's surely poor communication or, or failure to hold each other accountable.
If you have this in the leadership team, you must understand that this is running through your entire business.
And if it's running through your entire business, then man, we have got a lot that we have got to fix here. Right. We are probably operating in what we would call a shotgun approach.
You have all of your resources going in different directions. Instead of a laser focused unified direction. You are going to feel the impact of that. There's no doubt. But before we dive into that, I want to share a quick story.
Story: Kodak (00:02:03)
I shared a good story last episode on IBM and this week we're going to talk about Kodak. And you probably remember Kodak, they've made a somewhat of a. I don't know if I'd say it was a surge, but they've made a resurgence.
Let me say that the company that once dominated the photography industry before, what you might not know is that Kodak actually invented, listen to this, the first digital camera back when in the 1970s.
Yes. The first digital camera was actually, could have been available back in the 1970s. And that sounds like a game changer, doesn't it? Should have been.
But here's where things went wrong. Instead of holding themselves accountable for making tough decisions, Kodak's leadership team avoided them.
Some wanted to push forward with digital. Others were afraid of disrupting the film business. And that's understandable. However, no one took ownership of aligning the team.
So while they stalled, companies like Sony and Canon ran with digital photography. By the time Kodak finally tried to catch up, it was too late.
They went from the industry leader to filing for bankruptcy in 2012. Their downfall wasn't just about technology. It was about leadership, misalignment, fear of tough conversations, and definitely lack of accountability.
And that's exactly what we're talking about today. The high cost of avoiding accountability in your leadership team and what you can do about it.
Lack of Team Alignment Creates Chaos (00:03:37)
So first thing you have to understand, lack of team alignment creates chaos.
Guys, this, this, I don't know a better way to say it, when you do not have an aligned team, when accountability is absent, when the leadership team becomes misaligned, chaos ensues.
Now, you might not think it. You might be thinking, we're still working, we're still. Of course, you probably don't, you may not know that you're misaligned.
That's also a big possibility. You know, you might be thinking, no, things are going well, we're making a profit. You know, we have some problems here.
And there's, here's what I can tell you. If leaders aren't on the same page, then that confusion filters down to the rest of the organization.
You just may not know it's actually existing. Nobody may be throwing red flags, you know, hey, somebody do something about this.
Hey, we're all confused, right? So it's possible that this is happening and it seems like the business is operating well and it seems like things are going okay.
What are they and are you sure of that? I have absolutely no desire to be a fear monger here.
What I'm saying is, of the decades I've been working with leadership teams, they've always been surprised at what level there is misalignment, at what level there is lack of accountability, at what level there is a lack of high levels of quality communication.
So take for example, a company where the leadership team is constantly in disagreement about, say, priorities, right?
One leader is pushing for aggressive sales targets, another is prioritizing operational efficiencies, and another one is focused on employee engagement.
All good things, right? But without accountability and alignment, different departments chase different goals. This is what I'm talking about when I say a shotgun approach. What happens when you do this?
It leads to confusion. It leads to incredible inefficiencies. You are not using your resources the way that you should.
Every team member, every dollar, every, you know, the brick and mortar, every asset, whatever it is, when they are going in different directions, you are not getting the absolute best out of the resource.
I don't care what it is, if it's going in different directions and it should be focused on moving in the same laser focused direction.
You are losing money, you are losing profit, and I guarantee you, you're spending way more money on payroll than you should. That's a hard one for a lot of folks to swallow.
We've got good team members, we've got all this stuff going on. Yes. But if you are in a laser focused direction, you can actually use less resources, including team members.
The size of our team we get, we accomplish big things with our team because it's very efficient.
So when you are not on the same page, when you have different goals, confusion, inefficiency, and definitely frustration runs throughout the company. Right.
And even folks that don't have a clue that it has anything to do with misalignment are experiencing the frustration. So unfortunately, you have teams that are working on cross purposes. Right?
Different purposes, different things that they're focused on, different priorities that they're focused on. Deadlines get missed.
Employees lose confidence in leadership because it appears as though they, you know, this team over here, maybe they've got a leader that stands out and it seems like they're working on something that's fun and exciting and our leaders not focused on that.
Whatever. Or, you know, these guys over here getting away with, you know, not focusing on things that we have to focus on. Whatever it is, it's going to impact your team.
So what do we learn from that? Well, the first thing you need to find out is, is your leadership team on the same page? Do we recognize the same company priorities?
Not just team priorities, company priorities. Are we aligned with that? Are the top company priorities all moving in the same direction?
As we walk through StratPlan, one of the things we help each company leave to understand and recognize is that the whole team needs to be moving in this direction that we're going in.
Right. It all has to align. Or if we're taking that and applying it to a plan that's already in place, it all must align. So alignment is absolutely key.
Unspoken Issues Lead to Toxicity (00:08:31)
Second, unspoken issues lead to toxicity. When leaders avoid accountability, when problems don't get addressed, then they absolutely fester.
They create resentment, they create toxicity.
When you have unresolved conflict, what you find is, is that again, you have people not working together, you have resources that are not working in their greatest efficiencies.
You have problems, you have issues, you have team members that probably don't like each other, that don't want to work with each other.
Toxicity starts to grow like crazy. So think of a senior leader who's probably, I don't know, frequently missing deadlines, right? But no one seems to address it.
The top leader doesn't address it. Nobody else is addressing it over time. How do you think that impacts the rest of the leaders?
How do you think that impacts the rest of the team? Because you know, people are seeing this, you know that people are recognizing what's going on, right?
What are you going to experience? Resentment. You're probably going to experience a decent amount of passive aggressiveness.
Somebody's going to be making some comments, somebody's probably throwing some barbs, right?
And you're also definitely going to experience team members disengaging with that leader, maybe even with other leaders, because they see what's going on, they see that accountability isn't being enforced.
And so in their minds, unfortunately, some people will go to the place of, well, if nobody seems to care about that, then I'm just going to do my own thing.
You have to understand that unspoken frustrations turn into major issues. They can definitely lead to turnover, even high turnover. Right?
Low morale is not uncommon in a situation like this because there's a lack of trust, there's a lack of buy in, there's a lack of ownership.
It doesn't seem like anybody seems to care because these issues aren't getting resolved. So I will just stick over here in my corner and I will do the bare minimum needed for me to collect a paycheck.
You have to solve the unspoken issues. Well, how do. How, Chris, if nobody's saying it, how can I possibly do that?
Simple. Dig into your team. You've got to spend time going team member to team member and finding out what they're experiencing.
You might spend all a decent amount of time talking with team members only to discover, hey, everything is great. There aren't any problems or any issues.
Now, you know that's not going to happen, right? You're going to find something in there. But you might discover that there's no huge issues, there's no big problems.
Hey, that's great, that's fantastic. Keep rocking. Solve the small problems, you know, get everybody aligned to make sure we're all on the same page.
But what if you discover at least one big issue that is affecting the team morale? One big issue that is dropping trust.
One big issue that it's probably been sitting around for quite a while and nobody's addressed.
Well, now you have an opportunity not only to address it but you also have an opportunity to help your team see that you address things like this, that you are going to jump on this, that you are going to make things happen.
That is what a team needs to see of its leadership. They do not want to see leaders sitting on their thumbs not doing anything right. That's where you lose champions.
Because over time, champions will get frustrated and they won't want to work in that environment. So dig in, find out what's going on, see what your team is experiencing, see what your leaders are experiencing, and then tackle it.
Put a plan together on how we're going to solve this. What are we going to do about it? How are we going to share with the team that we're fixing it?
How, you know, how do we get the team involved? Maybe might even be possible to get some quality input from team members.
What do we do to solve this third thing, without accountability, especially in your leadership now, you need it everywhere in the team.
You know, again, number one, your biggest issue is going to be a lack of high levels of quality communication. Number two, biggest issue throughout your company is going to be lack of accountability. Definitely we've got to solve accountability everywhere.
Productivity and Profitability Take a Hit (00:13:13)
But when we have a lack of accountability and leadership, I promise you, your productivity and your profitability are taking a hit. When you do not have accountability, then the inefficiencies multiply.
They don't just exist, they grow like rabbits. They start showing up on the bottom line. They start showing up every-- everywhere.
So if a business owner avoids, let's say, difficult conversations, not, not sitting down with underperforming leaders, you know, instead of improving those leaders, they continue to make poor decisions.
They allow them to make poor decisions. This is going to start costing the company more and more money.
It's going to start wasting a whole lot of time. And again, going back to the resources, it's going to cost you clients. Because I guarantee you, at some point your clients are going to start to experience whatever that issue is.
And all of this is going to lead to lower productivity once again, tank your morale. What happens? People don't want to put in as much effort. Don't hold leaders accountable.
What happens to team members? Well, if they can get away with it, so can I. All of this is going to tank your productivity. When your productivity tanks, your profitability tanks. Period.
That's just the way it happens. So when accountability is avoided, business growth stalls, expenses increase, profitability erodes.
All this stuff may be happening inside of your business right now. Okay, I hear you. I get it. Chris, what the Heck do I do about this?
Action Steps (00:14:55)
All right, there's some steps that you can take right now.
The first thing is you need to make sure that you are setting clear expectations of what you have for every single leader on your team.
You've got to ensure that every leader understands what their responsibilities are, what they are going to be held accountable for.
If you will set clear expectations of, here's how you operate, here's how you do, here's, you know, tough conversations yourself, here's how you do hiring and firing, here's how you handle project management, here's how you, whatever the thing is that we're failing in.
And again, you need to go through and do a really good job discovering where we are struggling, where there are issues.
You got to assess that first. Then we need to set the clear expectations for every single leader to understand their responsibilities. This is what you are responsible for.
And then what I would do is I would help them to actually understand areas that you as a leader can see that they're probably going to struggle.
Some areas that they may fail, they may not communicate well, they may not ask questions, they may not bring problems to you to solve. They may operate in a silo, right?
They may figure, I've got all this, I could do all this on my own. Whatever those areas are that they're going to struggle, you need to tackle those. You need to have those discussions. You need to put expectations in place as to how they solve problems.
If you run into this, this is what you do about it. If you experience this, this is you come to me and you talk to me about this. Then once you've set those clear responsibilities, put performance metrics on them, find a way to measure their success.
Find a way. What is the expected outcome that you're looking for? Well, I think that they should be here in this timeframe, or I think they should accomplish this by here, or I think that they should be leading this way by this time.
Put metrics in place to measure those expected outcomes. If you're expecting that they get to a specific place, then you can measure. Doesn't matter what it is, figure it out.
Put those in place and then hold them accountable to those metrics. Help me to understand, why did you not get here? And by the way, don't wait until the expected timeframe is done.
You should be checking in on this on a continuous basis until you know for a fact that they are hitting your expectations on a continuous basis as well. Right?
If they are not, then you need to do something right now. Don't wait 30, 60, 90 days to find out that a leader is failing. That is not accountability.
Accountability is getting in there, discovering what's going on, finding ways to help them out, maybe have tough conversations but lift them up, try to make them successful, do everything you can.
That is a stronger version of accountability than hey, here's where you need to be. I'll check in with you 30 days from now and and see if you're there. Right. So put some performance metrics on it.
Number two, create the regular check ins. You've got to hold leadership team meetings where accountability is a standing topic.
Don't just have one on one discussions with each leader about accountability and you're not rocking this with the whole team. Now. I don't know how big your leadership team is.
Might be just a couple of people. Great. Fantastic. This is the place for you to be working on accountability with those leaders.
Each person needs to see this is a full court press from you. Each person needs to see you are serious about this. Each person needs to take ownership and understand you're coming their way.
There's a good possibility you're going to press into their area. There's not even just a good possibility.
It's a for sure thing. You are going to do this to make sure that we have accountability in place.
So make that something that happens on a regular basis. Make it a standing topic that we talk about accountability.
Number three, for all of my High Ss and Cs out there, especially this is for everybody. Whether you're a D, I, S, or C. (If you have not done personality profiles in your team, go to the store at chrislocurto.com and get it done.
Put it into your team. Get it done. Make it happen. You will be blown away at how this is going to change your entire company. So but especially to my Ss and Cs address issues early.
Do not please, for the love, let problems fester. Get in there early on and address them as soon as you possibly can. Have tough conversations when necessary. Do what it takes to make sure that you're solving this early and often.
Do not wait and hope that it fixes itself. Do not wait and hope that it goes away. Do not wait because you're afraid to have a tough conversation.
Get into our information, discover how to have quality tough conversations and then get it done early. Here's what you will learn.
I learned this back in the early 90s when I had a bunch of stuff that was piling up on me as a leader, I as a high S I'm an 88 S and I found myself just procrastinating, procrastinating.
And I finally got ticked off because some of these things were just falling down on top of me. And I just made a decision one day. Solve every issue as soon as it comes through the door as fast as you possibly can.
And at that time, I think I had a handful of issues and I just went ballistic. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. And yes, it was conflict back then.
It's not conflict now, but it was conflict back then. And I started creating these processes of how I was going to do this. An amazing thing happened. All of my problems went away very quickly.
They weren't hanging around like a bad old girlfriend. Right. Bad old boyfriend. Right. They didn't hang around like a bad relationship.
They were gone. They were done. I was sitting there going, oh, my gosh, that wasn't anywhere near as tough as I thought it was going to be.
I knocked those things out. And look, I can move on with other things now. Did problems come again? Sure, of course they did.
But I made it a point that I was going to address those as soon as they came through the door. And I've been doing that for, what are we, 30 years?
And just it's been a fantastic static thing that I do. As issues arise, just knock the issue out early enough.
Number four, you have to realize everybody is watching you, so you better be leading by example. If you don't show that accountability is a priority, it will not be a priority for anybody else on your team.
You've gotta be modeling it. You've gotta show them that it matters. The sooner you model accountability, the sooner those people who actually desire accountability and want to see accountability will start soaking that up.
Now, with that being said, here's what I can promise you. Those people who do not want accountability, they're going to start to bark, and you're going to have to have some tough conversations.
You're going to find some people who want to push back on accountability. Do not let them. Here's something that I've shared with a lot of companies.
When they have people that seem to respond negatively to accountability, what I'll say is, then they probably don't need to be in your business.
Oh, but so and so super important. I'm like, you'll find out very quickly that they're not. They're nowhere near as important as you think they are. Right.
They're important people. But anybody who doesn't want to be held accountable in a role in your business probably is not doing even 50% of what you think they are. That's why they don't want the accountability. They don't want to be found out.
So press accountability. A crazy thing happens. I haven't had to actually fire anybody in an incredibly long time. Why? Because accountability causes them to leave.
When you put accountability in place and it's quality accountability and it's something that they can absolutely live up to, should live up to.
When they start to feel the pressure of the accountability, what you'll find is people who don't want it, people who are hiding something.
They will leave because they could see that they're probably going to get fired soon. So lead by example. Put accountability in place and you'll be shocked at who soaks it up and wants it and does a great job with it, and who absolutely battles it.
Number five, establish consequences and rewards. Now we call it choices and consequences. Around our house, around our business, business. Put in choices and consequences.
Make accountability a key part of leadership evaluations. This is easy. You can put it in every single discussion. When you see somebody is choosing to do something.
Now again, make sure that the caveat is that they're choosing. Use, use the words. Choose, chose, chosen. It's fantastic parenting trick that works in HR incredibly well. Choose, chose, chosen.
Hey, I notice you're choosing to do this thing over here. If you continue to do that, you're going to choose your consequence.
And your consequence is a write up. Your consequence is a permanent write up in your file. Your consequence is, you know, a work process.
Your consequence is whatever, getting fired. Fill in the blank if you will. Establish those choices and consequences and the positive side. Choose good choices.
Get good consequences that put rewards in there. Hey, because you chose to do this, here's how I'm rewarding you now.
Don't reward them for stuff that they should do on a regular basis. It's okay to pat them on the back for that.
But you know minuscule rewards when they're going above and beyond and they're doing the things that you want.
Let's say you put in a new aspect of your culture and you see people following that and they're doing a great job with it. Reward them, recognize them, talk about it, say something, do something, Right?
As people continue to go above and beyond, reward them. Hey, you're choosing to do this. You're choosing to treat our clients with such amazing respect.
You're choosing to, I don't know, pick up trash in the parking lot as you walk by it.
You're choosing to whatever it is, put something in there, talk about their choices, and then give them rewards. And believe it or not, just the recognition itself might be a great reward.
That might be exactly what they need, that might help them to continue. Because people are going to repeat what they're rewarded for. And the great thing is other team members see that they're going to do it as well.
Additional Resources (00:26:17)
So some additional resources for you as you are implementing accountability.
Episode 367 Leading High levels of Communication and Accountability. This is where we're sharing a powerful conversation between Joel Fortner and myself, our president.
And this is from a recent Facebook Live which is focusing on how understanding DISC personality styles can help you lead your team more effectively.
And 486 the Risks and Rewards of Accountability. And this is where we take a deep dive into the risks and rewards of holding other people accountable.
Conclusion (00:26:55)
So folks, avoiding accountability doesn't just hurt your leadership team. It affects your entire business. It creates chaos, it builds silos, it fuels toxicity, it reduces responsibility, ownership, profitability, and it erodes trust.
But here's the good news. You are the person who can fix this. You can change this. But you have to start by committing to a culture of accountability.
You've just got to make the choice. When leaders are aligned, they hold each other to higher standards, they communicate considerably better, and your business thrives on top of it.
You're not running in a shotgun approach. You're not spreading your resources out and not getting the best from the resources that you have.
So if you need help implementing accountability in your leadership team, reach out to us and let us talk about how we can help.
Well, folks, that's all the time that we have for today. I hope this helps you immensely on understanding how much accountability you need inside of your business and that this is something you should jump on right away.
The sooner you do this, the sooner you're going to see greater impact from all of your resources, especially your leadership team.
As always, take this information. Change your leadership, change your business, change your life. And join us on the next episode.
