How to Deal With Lack of Accountability In The Workplace

Lack of accountability often manifests as missed deadlines or lack of follow-through, which are symptoms. The root cause of these issues is different, especially in a remote or hybrid working environment. 

Many patterns come up as an accountability problem and do a great job of disguising the actual reason people come off as less accountable. 

In this article, we’ll explore that root cause and understand how to fix it when people seem to lack accountability. 

What does lack of accountability mean? 

Lack of accountability occurs when people don’t take responsibility for their actions or decisions. They don’t own up to their mistakes or fail to follow through on their commitments. 

At a workplace, you’ll observe this with a lot of finger-pointing. For example, sales teams blame marketing for not driving qualified leads into the business, and marketing folks blame sales for not following up with the lead effectively. It goes around in a loop, never to end, impacting a business's overall operations. Trust between people takes a blow, causing problems in personal and professional relationships. 

When you say you have an accountability problem, your team hears, “I don’t trust you that you’re putting in your best effort.” or “You’re letting me down.” 

When these situations arise, try to fix the actual cause rather than its symptoms. 

After understanding how lack of accountability looks in a workplace, we’ll explore how to fix it.

Examples of lack of accountability in a workplace

Verbalizing a lack of accountability sounds threatening or condescending to your team. It makes it hard to inspire changes or get to the root of the problem. In such situations, you keep on solving for the symptoms rather than addressing the root of what keeps your people from being more accountable. 

To get to the root, you must follow the signs leading to the issue's primary cause. Look out for: 

Employees blaming others for their mistakes

Michael Timms, a leadership development consultant, says in their HBR article, “We’re naturally wired to blame other people when things go wrong. These propensities are partially psychological, driven by fundamental attribution bias. We tend to believe that what people do reflects who they are rather than considering that other factors (social or environmental) may be influencing their behavior.”

People blame others as a defense mechanism to protect their self-esteem and avoid responsibility. They feel they should avoid sharing their mistakes or shortcomings openly to protect how others think about them in the workplace. 

Team members casually missing deadlines

There are several reasons why. One reason might be an optimism bias, where we feel that the future will be better than the past despite contradictory past experiences. 

Sometimes, less clarity on what to do and how to do it keeps us from meeting deadlines. Or it might be less transparency, where the scope of a task changes without proper communication and alignment. 

‍Bernard Toney Jr., a foreign service medical provider, feels it’s mostly due to the lack of clarity in executing tasks.

Managers don’t follow through on their promises

When leaders don’t keep their promises, they fail their employees. Their team ends up feeling defeated, disrespected, and unimportant. However, a leader is also a human and may be under much pressure from their superiors. Still, not following through on promises raises a burning question about their leadership abilities. 

Don’t you feel these are symptoms of a bigger problem at the workplace? 

Workers ignoring company policies

When you think about company policies, what comes to your mind? I immediately think of a policy document that distinguishes between what's acceptable within an organization and what is non-negotiable.

Policies are generally perceived as restrictive. 

Defensive people would rebel against it when it mandates them to follow practices different from usual.  When you go deeper, you’ll notice that people look at policies from a place of fear rather than empowerment. 

When they don’t adhere to company policy, it seems like a lack of accountability from afar, but when you get to its roots, it’s a surprise. 

‍Prashant Jituri, a Business Trainer and Life Coach, says, “No one likes to take instructions, and when discussing policies, the first approach is one of resistance and fear. This probably comes from a space where people see them as binding and non-inclusive, perceiving that they may have to forego their freedom to conduct.”

He adds, “If broadly seen, policies, in reality, make conduct simpler as you become aware of what's acceptable and not a norm in the organization. Somewhere deep within, it’s relevant to the values of the organization. It’s about making the individuals aware of the same and sending a message on the boundaries the organization has set for conduct. If seen from the organization's perspective, it simplifies life for everyone concerned.”

People avoiding the responsibility of fixing a problem

There are many reasons why people might not take responsibility for fixing a problem. Fear, lack of confidence, or feeling overwhelmed are usually the primary suspects. 

Some might shy away due to adverse consequences if they don’t follow through and find an appropriate fix for the problem. 

What really causes the lack of accountability

The examples above show the symptoms of a bigger problem that causes lack of accountability in organization. It’s a culture problem. 

As teams become increasingly distributed, leadership tries to keep them aligned through more control and command. But whenever you do this, you question employees’ integrity and their hard work for the company. You might have several biases that tell you otherwise and make these controls positive. 

If you’re leading a remote or hybrid team, you should lead with vision and culture. How you communicate them matters a lot. 

Verbal communication becomes a big part of your day when working remotely or in a hybrid setup. It’s important to have the right technology in place to set up good collaboration and meeting culture to improve productivity and align people with business goals. 

If you don’t take any measures, lack of accountability can affect your business in several ways, including: 

• Decrease in productivity. It’s a result of employees not taking responsibility. Tasks are delayed, and quality suffers, impacting overall work productivity. 
• Poor team morale. Employees who observe others getting away with not doing their jobs become frustrated and demotivated.

• Loss of trust. Employees show lesser trust toward management as no one is held responsible for their actions. 
• Errors increase. Without accountability, mistakes are more likely to happen and go uncorrected, which affects a business's performance and reputation.
• Higher attrition rate. Good employees leave the company when they feel their efforts are not recognized or if they are constantly picking up the slack for others.

All of these signs ultimately contribute to a business' financial losses. 

It’s essential to deal with a lack of accountability as soon as possible at all levels of organizational hierarchy before it becomes a much bigger problem. 

How to deal with lack of accountability in the workplace

To fix a lack of accountability in the workplace, you should: 

Set clear roles and responsibilities

You must do it consistently with every task, project, or activity you take on. It’s not just a one-time thing you define when hiring a person. 

The practical way to do it would be to add the responsibilities as action items for people to follow through after meetings where you discuss a new project or task. 

In this age of AI, meeting assistants can automate this process and create action items for relevant people that you can directly assign. These tools go further and automate note-taking, helping employees be more involved in discussions and take ownership better. 

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Lead by example

Leaders should set a model of accountable behavior. For example, a leader documenting the tasks they’ll own on the team’s communication channel after a meeting and assigning an ETA will inspire others to do the same. 

Fortunately, these things can be automated to an extent, and you don’t have to spend valuable time documenting such snippets after every discussion. Reelay, a corporate AI meeting assistant, shares meeting minutes automatically after a discussion over email, keeping all parties accountable for items discussed on the call. 

It makes it easier to refer to the discussion later whenever people feel there’s a lack of clarity.

Ensure culture is an ongoing discussion

A company’s culture isn’t set on a few documents stored in your knowledge base; it lives and breathes through every communication and action. Make sure all your company meetings echo the culture, with accountability as a part of it. 

When you reward and recognize people for embodying a company’s culture and values, it inspires them to align with it in their day-to-day. For example, G2 has a culture that values performance, authenticity, entrepreneurial spirit, and kindness (PEAK). People nominate their peers whenever they display such values at the workplace. 

It motivates the team to embody the company's cultural values, keeping everyone aligned. 

Set clear goals for everyone on the team

Ensure your goals are specific, measurable, achievable, and relevant (SMART) to your business’s objective. This will help your team understand what’s expected of them. As a manager, it’s best to discuss these goals and their progress when you have 1:1s or team meetings to encourage people to be accountable throughout. 

This will help ensure no last-minute surprises increase your chaos when addressing senior leadership’s concerns. Give your teams tools like project management software so they can track progress and everyone has visibility over it. 

Encourage transparent communication

Encourage people to discuss tasks, activities, or projects openly where they need support. Not everyone can do everything perfectly. As long as people are culturally aligned, it's okay to make mistakes. Motivate them to make new ones so they always learn something in the process. 

Transparent communication makes it easier for people to contribute and support you when needed. For example, if you’re facing hurdles in a task you’re working on and need more clarity, encourage people to add it to the collaboration platform where others can pitch it. It gives you the clarity you need to perform and deliver as promised.

Communication is crucial in keeping people accountable at work. If you don’t have systems and platforms where people can easily communicate, consider onboarding them. It ensures you don’t miss out on context while working as a remote or hybrid team. 

Accountability is inspired, not commanded.

The more you show how you keep yourself accountable, the easier it will be for the team to replicate it. You can’t simply ask or force your people to be accountable at the workplace; you need to inspire them by leading with example. 

Make sure they have the right technology to turn their inspiration into action, making accountability a daily reality. 

‍Start by setting the right meeting culture at your organization. Get Reelay and inspire meeting transparency. 

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