Holding others accountable is always coming from a good place when we are doing it out of a genuine interest in seeing someone grow. There is a right way to hold accountability sessions and a wrong way. By the end of this post, the difference will be crystal clear.
If someone in your circle is holding you accountable, remember they aren’t out to “get you.”
They are out to “get you” to where you want to be one day.
Facilitating major breakthroughs is hard but a Mastermind network supporting you and holding you accountable can make a major difference.
Accountability comes from a place of genuine concern for others that you have shared destinies with. Much in the same way a parent shows love and care for their children you can also care for a client, teammate, coworker, and take ownership in their success. In this way, you take part in shared success: a feeling of mutual satisfaction.
You do this because you see the potential in others and what they one day could become with support, positive reinforcement, and accountability done right.
Think of all of the communities where you have meaningful interpersonal relationships. It could be your team at work, your team inside a mastermind, or your family unit at home.
The endeavor of holding others accountable to their most important weekly commitments will help them advance into their next best version. The person mediating the accountability session does so out of genuine concern, ultimately out of love, so the other person gets real results like personal and professional breakthroughs.
We at The Level Up Mastermind hold each other accountable because we can see good things in the future if adherence to weekly commitments and wildly important goals is highly focused on.
If you take it easy on the people you have been tasked with holding accountable to real results then you are doing them a disservice by turning a blind eye.
If your approach to accountability is overly merciful, it’s setting others up for a hard life. At the moment it may be annoying to the person receiving accountability because it’s all the unaddressed problems and work, but that temporary annoyance is largely more preferable than having a subpar life. We can all agree on that.
Think about if Navy SEAL training in Coronado, CA had drill instructors that took it easy on the SEAL candidates.
They would be doing the future SEALS a disservice that could cost the SEALs their life. If the accountability provided during training is soft then real combat situations will be way more dangerous to the unprepared SEALs. What makes SEALs, SEALs is they are prepared for anything because of the rigorous training that they were graded on and held accountable to. Real work is the most real measurement that is predictive of actually reaching wildly important goals.
The SEALs were rigorously trained so they were ready for any mental or physical challenge because they have already been put to the maximum psychological and physical tests in training.
The keystone that turned sailors into SEALs is a cadence of accountability.
Some peers, coaches, and advisors placate others out of fear of causing a negative reaction. They are soft and inconsistent with accountability because they don’t like confrontation and they don’t want to risk the relationship.
Others like parents, peers, and advisors can go the opposite direction and keep tightening the screws of accountability far beyond what’s needed. People who do this to others do not have enough concern about causing a negative reaction. The result is a breakdown in communication and negative blowback. Empathy is essential in the accountability recipe.
A great teammate, coach, coworker, or consultant knows how hard to push their fellow student, coworker, or client without causing any resentment. They provide accountability with the wisdom of when to be hard and when to be soft.
Whoever is administrating accountability must have empathy and internally know when they are being too merciful, too easy, and just as importantly, when they are being too severe.
Executives have a common problem of being surrounded by teams of people who will always tell them what they think they want to hear rather than take the risk of providing direct “no-BS” feedback.
If everyone in society gave each other direct feedback we would all advance much faster. If people were always honest and always told you why they didn’t purchase specifically from you, you could change your approach rapidly to meet the customers current needs.
Sometimes this can take a while to learn if direct feedback isn’t given.
Elon Musk has said publicly it is one of his biggest problems in the workplace. He needs teams around him that will dare to give him the most real, most honest, and most candid feedback even if they think it’s not what he wants to hear that day.
Mid-level and upper-level management has a tendency to walk on eggshells with company leadership out of fear of being judged or looked at as a problem. They like their salaries and their benefits and they worked hard to get there. The last thing they want to do is ruffle the feathers of the CEO.
The underlying paradox is, however, the more dovish they are with the CEO, the more they are doing him or her and the company as a whole a disservice into the future. They aren’t getting the real “no-BS” feedback.
The executive that has the advantage is the one with the “no-BS” high-accountability team around him or her that will tell it like it is. The executive with the disadvantage is surrounded by a series of “yes-men” and “yes-women.”
Accountability is not to be taken for granted. It’s a valuable support network. It exists to help you grow into your next best version, it’s a network that is there to grease the wheels of success.
Accountability is the only way to grow, reach new heights, attain new levels of success, and finally experience deep fulfillment in business and in life.
“Accountability is the glue that ties commitment to the result.” -Bob Proctor
“On good teams coaches hold players accountable, on great teams players hold players accountable.” -Joe Dumars
“Responsibility equals accountability equals ownership. And a sense of ownership is the most powerful weapon a team or organization can have.” -Pat Summitt
“Accountability breeds response-ability.” –Stephen Covey