A New Definition for Accountability and the Output of a Leader

As I enter the capstone course of my University of Iowa MBA program – the Strategic Business Growth (SBG) – I want to use this as an opportunity to coalesce all the learnings from the program into written analysis. I believe there is a gap in not transferring our thoughts onto paper, therefore I offer up this 8-week mini series to share the personal insights & learnings from the program's core lessons, particularly Capstone SBG.

Week 1: Right from the outset, the course underscores the critical function clearly defined roles play within an organization. It meticulously differentiates Accountability, Responsibility, and Authority (ARA):

• Accountability: The person with the "ability to count" and raise the red flag if things go off track.
• Responsibility: The person with the "ability to respond" when deviations occur.
• Authority: The individual wielding final decision-making power.

Beyond Definitions: Achieving Alignment

These distinctions resonated deeply. Often, "accountability" is inflated into a catch-all, used to highlight short comings of leadership to have difficult conversations. This muddles the true meaning – being the one who monitors the outcome and communicates deviations. Unsure if I agree solely with the "ability to count" definition, I believe the specific definitions matter less than achieving unified understanding and consistent application within the team.

The crucial question becomes: Have we effectively communicated and agreed upon who owns accountability, responsibility, and authority for each work process?

Leading Through Growth: Beyond Technical Skills

My experience suggests that the gap in these ownerships is due to the inability of leaders to identify what their “work product” is. We often ask the question, “what is the true work product of a leader? While seemingly straightforward, the answer can be complex. Frontline staff often have clear work products – treating patients, assembling widgets, or managing logistics. However, leaders have much different work products. As a leader of a nursing team, your work product must pivot from “treating patients”, to developing a “team who can treat patients”. Often this slight, but significant change is missed, leaving the leaders true work product incomplete.

Leadership demands a unique skillset to deliver their work products. One work product a leader must “output” is a team that is crystal-clear on the role each person owns in accountability, responsibility, and authority. Identifying who "counts" outcomes, who "responds" to deviations, and who makes ultimate decisions. Defining these roles is a critical "work product" that leaders must deliver.

The Challenge Within Your Organization

Within your own organization, can leadership define what their "work products" are? Could one of them be ensuring a well-defined accountability, responsibility, and authority?

Stay Tuned

Thank you for reading! Join me next week for the second installment of this series, where we'll delve deeper into valuable lessons learned from the MBA Capstone program.