Entrepreneurs and business leaders often have the mentality of “If you want it done right, do it yourself.” Aside from the fact that no one has expertise in every area (well, apart from you), trying to take on everything yourself can quickly lead to stress, being overwhelmed, errors and burnout.

Micromanaging never works, but it’s all too common. As you started your business, you likely did everything and learned a lot. So, you know you can do anything.

As your business starts to grow, you work with people who don’t cost a lot and get let down. You have little trust in anyone else to accomplish a task, take on everyone else’s work along with your own and can’t take a break. Over time, you can build up resentment for your team members and worry about what happens if you have to take time away. Your team tires of your micromanaging and their productivity and satisfaction begin to plummet.

Besides, how could you possibly delegate? You’re an entrepreneur, so probably never worked for an amazing manager who delegated appropriately to you, so you have no idea what delegation even feels like.

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. According to the Pulse Survey from Officevibe, one in five employees don’t feel empowered to decide how to do their work.

What’s the solution? Hold your team accountable without micromanaging them, and you can see more success and productivity.

Benefits Of Team Accountability

Accountability is putting trust in someone to handle responsibility and is a huge motivator to perform well. Accountability and positive results are often connected, and high-performing teams have a culture built around accountability.

Why is it such a motivator? Because accountability means having a commitment to your own work and the work of others. Your reputation, credibility and workmanship are on the line. You own the outcome, good or bad.

What Does Accountability In The Workplace Look Like?

Accountable employees are empowered to do their work and know what’s expected of them. The same is true of accountable teams or departments. Instilling accountability in your team means that they’re expected to meet deadlines, understand and adhere to company policies and work toward larger business goals and objectives.

Empowered team members are given latitude to work as part of a team or independently, as long as the goals are common. Teams celebrate successes as a collective win and share in mistakes.

Accountability isn’t blaming team members for their mistakes or punishment, however. Accountable team members take responsibility for their actions, success or failure and the consequences in order to improve.

What Happens When There’s No Accountability?

Without accountability, there’s no motivation to achieve a goal. What keeps a team member striving for success or working toward a deadline if nothing is acknowledged?

On a bigger scale, teams and departments can’t be engaged and productive if there’s no responsibility in the wins and the losses. Accountability is a key factor in purpose and drive to succeed.

How To Build Accountability

Accountable employees accept responsibility for their individual actions and their contributions to a team. They learn from successes and failures and move forward with a drive to do better in the future.

Establish Clear Commitments And Responsibilities

Accountability is about empowering employees to deliver on commitments and making the expectations, responsibilities and rules well known. This is a crucial step toward fostering a culture of accountability.

Team members must understand what’s expected of them in order to meet or exceed those expectations. They need to understand the objectives of the project, team, department or company and how their individual work contributes to that.

Be specific. Conduct meetings to get everyone on the same page and remind team members of their responsibilities. If they’re not meeting your expectations, tell them why and how they can improve.

Lessons Learned From Wins And Losses

Every win or loss has a lesson. Mistakes are learning opportunities to provide constructive criticism and fuel better outcomes in the future.

The key to effective constructive criticism is balancing the positive feedback with the negative feedback. If all feedback is negative, team members may be insulted, angry or disengaged. By combining both, you show team members that they did some aspects well and they’re given a learning opportunity to do better in the future.

In addition, teaching team members how to succeed teaches them to perform a task effectively, so you no longer need to micromanage them.

Be Firm In Taking Action

Accountability can be taken too far, as can micromanaging. You must understand when, as a leader, you should step in and take action, and how far. Consistency is important here since every action should have equal reactions and consequences.

If a team member is consistently failing to meet expectations, it’s important for you to step in and see if there’s a reason. Perhaps you need to step in and help to ensure the task moves forward smoothly — but not do the task itself.

If the issues continue, the team member may need stricter guidelines and more monitoring to get the desired results. The team member then has an opportunity to hold themselves accountable and take responsibility for their performance.

Bring Accountability To Your Team For Better Performance

Holding your team accountable shows them that you trust them to handle their own work and that you value their contributions. Empower your employees to keep them motivated to succeed.

If your team is empowered and held accountable, that frees up your time to work on the big strategy items — to change the world for the better and to achieve great things (and maybe even achieve your own champagne moment).

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How To Hold Your Team Accountable Without Micromanaging