Dan may not be the most frustrating person I ever worked with, but he’s got to be in the running. I’m not using his real name because I hope he’s changed, but back when we were both starting out, he was a constant trial to work with. You wouldn’t have guessed if you just met him.
Dan was well educated, well groomed and well spoken. He made a great first impression and that impression might last if you never had to work with him. That’s when you learned that Dan would never be accountable for anything bad.
I worked with him on several projects. When things went well, he was fine. He didn’t hog the credit. He acknowledged the contributions of others. But when things did not go well, Dan was another sort of beast entirely.
When things went wrong it was never, ever Dan’s fault. He wound up getting fired over that behavior. That was forty years ago. The company didn’t really have any mechanisms to help people like Dan live up to their potential. What about today?
Leadership development should include developing accountability
Today we’ve got all kinds of assessments and programs and support systems. Coaching is a part of the leadership development landscape. But for those things to work you have to identify people who refuse to be accountable for their decisions and their performance.
Then you have to be ready to work on the issue again and again and again for a very long time. You have to steel yourself for difficult conversations. And you have to decide if the person you’re working with will ever get it.
Great leaders are accountable. The question is: “How do we help potential leaders learn to be accountable?”
