Recent events have returned the notion of accountability to our attention. While we’d like to think that leaders of character never stray very far from always remembering the need to be accountable, the reality seems to be that there is a wax/wane cycle like the moon. But the combination of the economic crisis of the last several months and the scrutiny of both business executives and political figures has brought accountability back to center stage, where it always belongs.
You’d think we’d do better at remembering the idea. Famed women’s basketball coach Pat Summitt of the University of Tennessee wrote about it more than a decade ago in her book, where she relates her decision to remove from the team a star player who had violated team rules about housing. The cascading effect of not holding the star player accountable would have been unacceptable.
Noted ethicist Rushworth Kidder wrote recently that former senator Tom Daschle’s cabinet nomination was properly withdrawn because to go forward would have put at risk the notion of “the moral commons.” The waiver or allowance or special handling of a situation for one individual can become a calamity in the aggregate, if all individuals receive the same favored treatment.
The military services have done a good job of teaching accountability as a core value in their professional military education courses for leaders. Military officer Mike Schmitt, a lieutenant colonel at the time, wrote effectively more than a dozen years ago about rules of accountability. When I reviewed his work recently in connection with research for a leadership lesson for our company’s programs, I was struck by the timeless currency of what he said. Some examples, with our comments added:
- To hold others accountable, you must accept accountability for yourself as a leader. If an executive leader’s bonus is very large because the performance standard lacked rigor, what do others in the company think? Isn’t the “moral commons” in play, especially in these troubled times of shrinking revenues and layoffs that reach into the homes of millions of families?
- Loyalty cannot be misplaced. Shouldn’t a leader be loyal to core values such as accountability rather than to individuals who are “good people” and well-known to the leader, if their performance or behavior fails standards?
- Can a leader afford not to create an expectation among followers that they too must uphold accountability in the ranks they supervise? The strength of the honor codes in the military service academies lies not so much in the “thou shalt not” prohibitions about lying, cheating and stealing as in the so-called “toleration” clauses that say “nor tolerate among us those who do.” This one can be especially vexing, particularly when a leader’s loyalty may be more to colleagues than to core values.
- Consistency is critical. While a thoughtful leader can and should consider factual differences between cases, a wide and inconsistent variance in defending accountability as a core value is fatal to maintenance of trust between the leader and followers. Nor should a leader forgive for convenience. Is anyone fooled when the star athlete guilty of a transgression is benched for the immediate next “cupcake” game on the schedule but is quickly restored to the lineup for the following tough game against the arch rival?
A veteran antitrust investigator told me once that price-fixing rarely occurs when times are bad. Look for it, he said, when times are very good and there is “plenty around for everybody.” The current set of bad times born in 2008 and raging in 2009 seems to be serving nicely to restore a demand for accountability in all leaders. Let’s hope the demand for accountability will survive an economic recovery. Leaders of character will have a say in that determination.