“Holding people accountable” has been a leadership rallying cry since the beginning of commerce. 
Over the past few years has, it has become even more important in the global economy where work and leadership comes in all different sizes, flavors, and time zones.
Too often, ineffective leaders think that holding their teams “accountable” means criticizing without feedback, engaging in a culture of the “blame game,” or worse yet, reinforcing bad systems, structures, and behaviors by “fixing the problems” and “saving the day” after things blow up.
Leadership is never easy under the best of circumstances. It is almost impossible when there are a lack of Business Acumen, the deep and applicable understanding of the system of how a business achieves its goals and objectives. Specifically, it is clear to me that one of the biggest mistakes that leaders make is trying to execute a leadership style – such as “holding people accountable” – without the skills and tools to understand the relationship between business and accountability.
Based on my experiences of designing, developing, and delivering impactful Business Acumen and Leadership development programs, I share three perspectives to think about as you execute your leadership approach that can help you realize the relationship between business acumen and employee accountability.
The Alignment of the Strategy and Value Proposition to Customers
One of the worst things a leader can do is attempt to hold people accountable to the wrong strategy or wrong value proposition to customers. For example, consider the low price, low end retail organization Manager whose company sells on competitive prices. The Manager gets upset and frustrated with his team because their Customer Service scores are lower than the competition across the street. Clearly this Manager doesn’t have the right strategic thinking skills to understand that he is holding the employees accountable for a metric that is not associated with the strategy of low price and high volume unit sales! The more appropriate accountable measure should be volume of products sold, customers in the store, and revenue growth. Customer Service scores are not a metrics of performance for this strategy and value proposition to customers.
Suggestion: Check you value proposition and make sure you are holding your team accountable for the right metrics.
Marketing and Sales Strategies
Another area of business where business leaders hold their people accountable for the wrong metrics are the Marketing and Sales strategies. The marketing strategy should reflect the overall business strategy and should contain strategic actions and tactical actions. Too often, leaders look at the Marketing function and become frustrated by what they see is a lack of “progress” but in reality they are missing the relationship between the Business Acumen and Accountability. For example, the strategy could be to create awareness so the sales team isn’t always cold selling. The Sales team could have a transactional approach to support the marketing effort which is appropriate with the strategy. Unfortunately business leaders without strong business skills could focus on the wrong metrics.
Suggestion: Check your overall strategy and make sure you are holding your Marketing and Sales functions accountable for the right metrics that are consistent with the overall and tactical strategies.
Supply Chain Management and Operations
The other significant areas that could have disconnects are the functions of Supply Chain Management and Operations, where in some organizations a majority of the employees are. In my experience, these are functions where leaders need enhanced Business Acumen skills to be able to lead more effectively. Too often leaders in these functions try to do everything including making products faster, cheaper, and better! The problem is that most organizations can’t do all three. Unfortunately, leaders without the business skills to understand this, end up creating metrics for all three and hold their teams accountable for metrics that are impossible to achieve. This disconnect can severely impact the morale and engagement of the company which in turn can reduce financial performance.
Suggestion: Be very clear on the overall strategy and value proposition to customers and create strong alignment in these functions with metrics that support the strategy.
