What is your experience with being "held accountable"? Most of us have had a bad experience with accountability at some point in our lives when it was used as a tool for condemnation or it failed to attach the action step to a goal of forward progress. However, "accountability" does not have to be a "four letter" word.

Accountability gets a bad rap it doesn't deserve. Accountability can be a leader's best friend!

Professional coaches are trained in the accountability process and leaders of all types should model what good coaches do with their clients.Through my coach training, being a coaching client and in coaching my own clients, I can attest to the power of a well structured weekly accountability process.

I wish I would have been trained in coaching skills while I was still in Corporate America so I could have used the process with my direct reports!

If you want some facts to back up my experience,this section is for you. Fairley and Zipp's "The Business Coaching Toolkit" quotes the following from the results of a research project performed by the American Society for Training and Development. The study related the probability of a person's completing a goal based upon the actions they took relating to that goal. These results speak for themselves.

ACTION TAKEN/PROBABILITY OF COMPLETION

1. If you hear an idea.............................................10%

2. If you consciously decide to adopt an idea..................25%

3. If you decide when to act on the idea.......................40%

4. If you design a plan to act on the idea......................50%

5. If you commit to another person to act on the plan.......65%

6. If you have a specific  accountability appointment
with the person to whom you made your commitment.......95%

Accountability can be our best friend.  What accountability structures do you have in place either personally or for your direct reports? What experiences do you have with accountability? We'd love to hear from you in a comment!