I get asked often by leaders: “How can I get my team to be more accountable?” Here’s how…
When I coach leaders, one of the biggest questions they ask:
How can I get my people to be more accountable?
But: that’s the wrong question to ask.
(The quality of the questions we ASK directly influences the quality of the answers we receive.)
In John Miller’s book—QBQ! The Question Behind the Question—he illuminates the importance of changing the questions we’re asking (internally in our heads and externally in our convos).
Instead of asking when, who, why questions such as:
- When is this next generation of employees going to get it?
- Who dropped the ball?
- Why do we have to go through all of this change?
- When is [name the person/department/vendor or corporate] going to get it right?
Instead, we need to ask what and how questions like:
- How can I shift my leadership to coach, train, and equip the next generation of employees?
- How can I contribute or ensure we don’t drop the ball as a team?
- What can I do to better adapt to this change? To equip others to better adapt?
To truly raise the level of accountability in your team and org, you must first practice asking better questions of yourself—before teaching the idea to your team.
In order to INSPIRE higher levels of accountability…
…we must lead by example and MODEL a higher level of accountability.