Each month we share useful intel from our industry-wide viewpoint and our lead coach, Victoria Hill, highlights a game-changer skill to help real estate professionals be better. This month our highlight is accountability. For individuals, high accountability increases performance and career progression. For teams, collective high accountability increases output and results. Naturally for businesses that positively impacts the bottom line. But perhaps most exciting of all is that for us as an industry, increasing accountability would mean we could tackle our macro challenges more effectively. Surely then, this is worth our attention.
Where has all the Accountability gone?
This is a question I am often asked, as leaders in our industry struggle to reconcile different levels of work ethic and enthusiasm between people. Many believe this has fundamentally changed (for the worse) since Covid and wonder whether a strong work ethic will ever return. Others are busy addressing leadership gaps to embrace a new way of working to reignite enthusiasm. Whatever your position on this, we can be certain of one thing; accountability is a performance accelerator and should therefore warrant our focus. This article looks at what accountability is, how to recognise it and shares some fundamentals that need to be in place to promote it.
What is Accountability?
When businesses talk to me about wanting accountable people, what they tend to mean is a sense of obligation to account for their activities, accept responsibility for them, and disclose their results in a transparent and growth-focussed manner. With this sense of obligation, accountable people are often more diligent, adopt a more considered approach and track their own results without being asked. In doing so, they demonstrate that they care - about the team, the business and outcomes for clients. This is a catalyst for performance and contributes to a culture of ownership, where mistakes are viewed as opportunities for improvement rather than failures to be avoided. So how can you tell if your people are showing accountability?
Accountability in Action
Here are some key elements of accountability I observe in the teams I work with, and real life examples to help demonstrate what accountability really means in our everyday roles.
Leadership:
Goals and roles are made clear so that everyone understands who is doing what and why.
- Accountable Approach: Proactive willingness to set out goals and ensure roles and responsibilities are clear.
- Unaccountable Approach: Assumes people should know what they’re doing, and shows a reluctance or inability to communicate this clearly when asked.
Transparent Communication:
All communications with clients, stakeholders, and team members are clear, honest, and timely.
- Accountable Approach: "We've encountered some delays with the property inspection, but we're coordinating closely with the team to resolve this. I'll keep you updated on our progress."
- Unaccountable Approach: Avoids mentioning the delay, hoping to resolve it before the client notices.
Ownership of Mistakes:
Someone readily admits their mistakes and focusses on finding solutions rather than assigning blame.
- Accountable Approach: "I overlooked this clause in the lease agreement. I take full responsibility and am working on amending the document right away."
- Unaccountable Approach: Tries to shift blame or minimise the error's significance.
Commitment to Deadlines:
Tasks are prioritised and time is managed effectively to ensure that client reports, contract submissions, time-sensitive deliverables etc. are completed as promised.
- Accountable Approach: Uses time management tools and checks in regularly on progress to ensure deadlines are met.
- Unaccountable Approach: Misses deadlines and offers excuses related to workload or external factors.
Proactive Problem-Solving:
Using foresight instead of relying on hindsight. Rather than waiting for issues to escalate, an accountable people anticipates potential problems and addresses them proactively.
- Accountable Approach: "I've scheduled a maintenance check to identify any potential issues before they become serious problems."
- Unaccountable Approach: Ignores minor maintenance issues until they result in significant / critical disruptions.
Continuous Improvement:
Accountable professionals seek feedback and use it as a tool for improvement and often invest in their own personal growth.
- Accountable Approach: After completing a project, offers a debrief and asks the client for feedback to identify areas for improvement.
- Unaccountable Approach: Avoids or dismisses feedback and reacts defensively to criticism…”I’m sure I’d hear about it if they weren’t happy” or “They won’t get better service anywhere else”.
Promoting the Accountability Advantage
In my experience of coaching teams and people in growth businesses, here are some ways team leaders have successfully increased accountability in their teams:
- Set Clear Expectations by defining roles, responsibilities, and deliverables for each person, for example hold a kickoff meeting and share a detailed project plan. Consider using a project management tool to track who is responsible for what if necessary.
- Lead by Example and Hold Everyone to the Same Standards by demonstrating accountability in your own behaviour. Admit mistakes and share what you’ll do to correct them. If you miss a deadline, openly explain why and what steps you are taking to get back on track, setting a standard for transparency.
- Celebrate Successes and Learn from Failures by providing regular feedback. Recognise achievements with a team lunch or acknowledgement, and analyse mistakes without blame by holding constructive debrief meetings to focus on lessons learned and improvements.
- Track Performance and Follow Up on Commitments by encouraging your team to track their own performance, and regularly review progress toward goals. Ensure follow up items do not drift. Develop discipline to summarise action items and who is responsible for each and by when. Use transparent tracking tools for everyone to see.
Micro Behaviours for Macro Impact
Promoting accountability is a tangible way to translate small, everyday acts in the day job into significant economic and cultural benefit. It’s an admirable quality too, highly aligned with integrity. How will you ensure accountability?
PROMIND Coaching provides a series of coaching programmes that deliver practical toolkits to equip and empower real estate professionals. You can find out more on this page.
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