Are certain behaviors secret to building Accountability in the team?

The environment in which your team functions is an essential element in success. When leading a team, consistent support from your team members becomes vital. Primarily, they affect your performance majorly. Moreover, your team members are crucial in developing a harmonious culture where everyone can thrive.

Similarly, the personal relationships of employees matter too. You will love to see some key behaviors in your team members as a manager. You can take a look around your organization to understand what sort of actions are required. In corollary, you can take note of habits that will be helpful for the team. The responsibility to promote these behaviors falls upon you as well.

Although, sometimes, your team members may not be at their best behaviors. Therefore, it becomes your duty to inculcate those behaviors in your colleagues, which lead to productivity and harmony. In order to get this done, you should first understand what it means and then plan your steps accordingly.

As a team leader or a manager, you are bound to have expectations from your team members. However, whether those expectations are justified or not can be a matter of confusion initially. At times, the behavior of your team members might be entirely different from your expectations. In such a situation, you might be confused about exactly how a team should behave. Depending upon the situation, you might even be disappointed at how your team behaves. But as a manager, it becomes your responsibility to bring them on the right track. Nonetheless, you have to clarify your expectations in behavior. These things should be clear to you personally before you make them known to your team members.

To learn more about what behaviors managers usually expect from their team members, continue reading here.

When a manager builds a team, they usually look for people who do not need constant hand-holding. Instead, you will appreciate team members who take up challenges and hold themselves responsible for their results. Accountability is an excellent quality to have in a team member. However, you might often face the challenge of a lack of accountability in your team. Or otherwise, you may need to increase the degree of accountable behavior in your team. For doing this, you can take up multiple ways.

Firstly, you can serve as a model for behavior for your team members. A manager or leader always acts as the prototype of ideal behavior for employees. You can lead them to develop personal accountability through your own example. It will go a long way in creating a healthy culture and increasing your organization’s productivity. Secondly, you can take steps to build personal accountability. This can come from everyday activities like making space for clear communication and feedback.

A more detailed guide to developing personal accountability in your team is available here.

Apart from working individually, you can encourage your employees to have accountability partners that keep them in check. After all, two are better than one, for if either falls, one can help the other. These partners can come from the workplace itself too. But that need not always be the case. They can simply pick someone they are comfortable with tracking their progress. If two people work together on a similar project, they can keep checking each other’s progress over time.

Moreover, your accountability partner does not have to be a single person. You can create groups that keep each other in for shared goals and commitments. Additionally, your organization can arrange to provide employee accountability partners as well. These people can engage with employees and help them remain consistent with their objectives.

More than mere accountability, these initiatives also provide a space to network and discuss feelings about their work. Hence, accountability partners can be a great addition to your array of productivity-enhancing managerial tools! Read this to learn more about accountability partners, where to find one, and how to coordinate with them.

All in all, you can change your team dynamics for the better by carefully placed interventions. Therefore, as a manager, you must always look for opportunities to enhance the value derived from processes. As the behavior of team members is a vital part of the development of company culture, which directly affects productivity, it becomes an important area that needs focus. Hence, you can take steps to create a culture of accountability in your team that will make it easier for everyone to collaborate and achieve more. These bitter pills of behavior improvements will indeed show you results in the long term.