Why Accountability Matters and What Avoiding It Is Costing You
I’m a self-professed people pleaser.
And if that’s you too, you’ll recognise this tension:
holding others to account can feel uncomfortable.
Not because you don’t care about standards.
Not because outcomes don’t matter.
But because you care deeply about people.
Still, accountability is one of the most critical skills in a leader’s toolkit and avoiding it has consequences, whether we intend them or not.
A hard lesson I learned early in my career
Earlier in my career, I learned the hard way that avoiding accountability conversations doesn’t make the work go away.
It usually leads to one of two things happening:
You quietly pick up the work yourself, telling yourself it’s quicker or easier.
You pass it to a high-performing team member the one who always gets things done.
On the surface, things still move forward.
But underneath, real damage is happening.
The impact?
Leaders head straight towards burnout, doing the work of others will also impact the time you have for leading
High performers become overloaded and resentful
Capability gaps never get addressed
Standards become inconsistent
And eventually, your most capable people disengaged not because they don’t care, but because they’re carrying too much and the sense of fairness
Avoiding accountability doesn’t protect people.
It redistributes the cost often to the wrong places.
Why accountability feels hard
For many leaders, accountability gets tangled up with fear:
I don’t want to damage the relationship
I don’t want to feel like the bad guy
I don’t want to come across as uncaring
So expectations get softened.
Feedback gets delayed.
And accountability becomes something we avoid.
But here’s the reframe that matters:
Accountability isn’t harsh. Ambiguity is.
You can’t hold people to account without clarity
Accountability doesn’t start with a difficult conversation.
It starts much earlier.
You can only hold people to account when you’ve been clear on:
What needs to be done
Why it matters
What “good” looks like
The impact of the work on: others, timelines, risk or outcomes
When people understand the impact of their work, they make better decisions without needing to be chased. They know when to ask for help, when to check in, and how to prioritise.
Without that context, accountability feels arbitrary.
With it, accountability feels fair.
Accountability is built on three foundations
You can only genuinely hold people to account when you have:
Set clear expectations: Including outcomes, standards and impact.
Provided timely, honest feedback
So people can course-correct early.
Provided the right support along the way
Capability, resources, examples and check-ins — not rescue.
When any of these are missing, accountability feels uncomfortable — not because accountability is wrong, but because the groundwork wasn’t done.
Accountability isn’t a moment it’s a pattern
Many leaders treat accountability as a single, hard conversation.
In reality, it’s the natural outcome of:
clarity upfront
feedback along the way
consistency over time
When these are present, accountability doesn’t feel like confrontation.
It feels like alignment.
And it protects your best people, and instead of burning them out.
The leadership shift
The real shift for leaders is letting go of “How do I avoid discomfort or being the bad guy” and stepping into “What does this person need to understand about the impact of their work , and what do I need to name?”
Accountability isn’t the opposite of care.
It’s how care shows up when outcomes matter.
