MASTER OF PUBLIC MANAGEMENT

INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT :
NAME: MACKEY

MATRIC NO :

COURSE : LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT

LECTURER :

LACKING OF ACCOUNTABILITY IN LEADERSHIP

TITLE :
Table of Content

No Content Page
1.0 Introduction 1
2.0 Accountability Theory 2
3.0 The importance of accountability in Leadership 4

4.0 Lack of leadership accountability 6

5.0 Improving leadership accountability 8

6.0 Impacts of Leadership Accountability 12

7.0 Conclusion 15

8.0 References 16
 0

Introduction

Accountability in the context of leadership is one requirement of an effective and influential

leader in the workplace. As accountability is a key concept in leadership and the design of
organization, accountability stems from the tasks inherent in a role which means indicates the
authority of the person in that position has to do within that role. Accountability in the
organization is vital since the lack of true accountability causes excessive cost, both economic
and psychological, de-motivation in those working for the organization, dissatisfaction in those
served by it and sub-optimal performance in general.

Generally, being accountable simply means being responsible for decision made, action
taken, and assignments completed. In leadership, accountability is the acknowledged
responsibility for actions, products, judgments, policies, administration and management. It is
also defined as taking ownership to ensure responsibilities are achieved as expected. In the
leadership character research, accountability and responsibility sound comparable. Crossan
(2013) stated that accountable leaders accept consequences, are conscientious and responsible,
and take ownership. Responsible leaders are also willing to take responsibility for personal
choices, admit mistakes and failures, and embrace responsibility for serving other to "leave the
world a better place".

In certain situation, the leaders are trying to avoid accountability by shifting blame.
Instead, the leaders blamed employees which were particularly painful because of the pressure
employees endured. Accountability is not a "program" to be "installed" throughout an
organization or a "flavor of the month" management fad. Accountability is a philosophy for life.
There are five essentials delivered from accountability namely clarity, alignment,
communication, energy, and trust. Clarity means leaders role, the direction to go, and
expectations and promises to each other. When people accept accountability, life in an
organization or in a relationship is straightforward and productive.
 1

1.0 Accountability Theory

Historically, the study of accountab ility in psychology has been scarce (Lerner & Tetlock,
1999). However, more recently there has been a rapidly growing body of accountability
research in social psychology that has examined the influence of accountability with respect to
diverse topics such as negotiation, attribution, and consumer preference (Lerner & Tetlock,
1999). However, almost all of this work can be traced back to the work of a few theorists (Frink
& Klimoski, 1998).

One of these early theorists is Carnevale (1985), who suggested that individuals are
accountable to multiple constituencies. Additionally, Cummings and Anton (1990) and
Schlenker and colleagues (Schlenker et al., 1994; Schlenker, Weigold, & Doherty, 1991) have
received recognition as being among the most influential accountability theorists by their
respective proposals of two of the limited number of existing models of individua
accountability. However, the most influential work in accountability to date is that of Tetlock
(1985, 1992), on whose work the bulk of modern accountability theory and research is based.

Definitions of accountability tend to revolve around two specific themes. One theme
concerns the context, that is, who and what is involved in a given situation, and the second theme
involves the notionof an evaluation and feedback activity in some form.The first theme concerns
the interpersonal context and focuses on persons in two distinct roles. One is sometimes referred
to as the ‘‘agent’’ (Adelberg & Batson, 1978; Cummings & Anton, 1990), and is the focal person
whose behavior is subject to evaluation by another.

The other is often referred to as the ‘‘audience’’ or ‘‘principle,’’ and is some person or
persons having opportunity and reason to observe and evaluate the agent. Schlenker and Weigold
(1989) add that people can evaluate their own behavior and therefore self-accountability is a
viable concept. Other issues of the interpersonal context include such notions as the structural,
social, and interpersonal contingencies which embed the accountability phenomenon.The second
theme concerns the activities that are seen as elements of the accountability phenomenon.In
essence, these are activities associated with the observation and evaluation of agents, the
determination of the behaviors that the agent may be compelled to defend, justify, or otherwise
 2

answer for, and the creation of expectations for such an obligation. Finally, in order for
accountability to have an influence on behavior, there needs to be an associated reward or
punishment system which makes the evaluations meaningful to the agent (Mitchell, 1993).
Accountability therefore can be explicit in organizational policies and practices in addition to
being implicit in social normative expectations. Thus, a broad conceptualization of
accountability includes both formal and informal systems, objective and subjective evaluations
and rewards, and internal and external audiences. An important point to note here is that the
presence of evaluation mechanisms is not necessarily what directly influences behaviors. Rather,
it is the expectations surrounding potential evaluations which are at the root of our responses.
The evaluative mechanisms and relationships that exist are used for the basis of perceptions and
expectations about future evaluations. Put another way, rather than seeing accountability
primarily as a state of affairs, we tend to view it as a state of mind which is derived, in part, from
a state of affairs.
 3

3.0 The importance of Accountability in Leadership

In today's global economy, accountability play important role in supporting ethical leadership as
leaders with accountability provide attention to the development of ethical perspectives with
organization components. Accountability has the potential to sustain ethical and personal
development. According to Gilbert and Rasche (2007), accountability helps organizations to
implement ethical behavior in order to cope with the increasing demand for transparency and
ethical performance measurement. Meanwhile, Schatz (2013) highlighted the importance of
accountability as the way to hold organizational leadership directly responsible to their public in
order to enable those leaders to be in line with the social and organizational requirements.

Accountability is important as it inspires confidence. When leader practices

accountability, it can increase the team members' skills and confidence. However, leaders must
avoid of using accountability for controlling behavior. As a leader, the key is to provide the right
support by giving constructive feedback, improving the members’ suggestions, giving the
members’ freedom to decide, and challenge them to think the better solution as a team. People
need to be listened and concerned about their performance by their leader because they will be
more motivated, likely to step up and tend to improve their performance.

Accountability improves performance by eliminating the time and effort that has been
made or spent on distracting activities and other unproductive behavior. Accountability also
promotes ownership when the leaders make people accountable for their actions, thus leaders
effectively teaching them to value their work. By building a culture of accountability on the
onset, the leaders rid the organization of ineffective behavior, hence put the right people on the
right jobs and sending the message that the leaders are serious about the excellent work.

Accountability is also important in building trust which is essential in any relationship

between leaders and employees. Leaders that accountable to something will always willing to
make commitments and responsible for his or her own actions, thus promotes trust between
leaders and the people around. Leaders that allowing herself or himself more accountable to the
trust will effectively telling people that leaders are going to admit it and make amends when the
 4

trust is broken.

Accountability in leadership is important as it is a desired trait for any organization. By

making people more accountable for their action, the leaders are effectively teaching them to
value their work. Through positive feedback and corrective actions, people learn that their
behavior and actions have an impact on the team by feeling they are important to the
organization instead of feeling floating members without clear roles to play. When the people are
valued, they are more driven to work hard thus encourage them to have a sense of ownership in
what they do. Effective leaders must understand the importance of two-way accountability and
act accordingly for their team’s success.
 5

4.0 Lack of leadership accountability

The ignorance of accountability by leader will lead to the several problems such as breed
resentment. A leader that refuses to admit his or her mistakes as a leader and not taking
accountability for failure, others will begin to resent her or him. In context of communication
among the team members, it is extremely unlikely they will tell that the leader is not holding
himself accountable. Giving unsolicited feedback to leaders is viewed as criticism. Thus,
without the option for healthy communication, resentment builds.

Lack of leader's accountability will also lead to shatters trust and respect. Leader will
lose respect and trust from others if the leaders fail to do what he or she has promised. Without
trust in leader, people become less transparent, collaborative, honest, and ultimately less
engaged. They can begin to feel less aligned with company values, which leaders are meant to
exemplify, and may start looking for a workplace that better matches their values.

Employees look to their leaders to set the tone in business. As the leader give poor
example and refusing to take accountability, then a "pass the buck" mentality can trickle down
through the organization. This situation will lead to the increase of disorganization scenario. If
everyone is not holding an accountability of each other, then time gets wasted, deadlines are
unpredictable, and people get frustrated. Most leaders that struggle with accountability usually
are not understanding the distinction between responsibility and accountability, not having
appropriate support or resources, have a skills gap, and lack of discipline.

Many organizations teach people to be unaccountable by rewarding people for not

producing results. Besides, for the high performers, they are nor rewarded due to their
accountability. Unaccountable leaders in organization are also enabling people to perform badly
by not having the courage to follow through on consequences. On the other hand, the fibre of
the organization is at risk due to the lack of accountability, thus requires leaders to act
efficiently before the root of conflicts damages the organization.
 6

Other reasons of organization suffers from weak accountability in leadership are the
leader lack it, do not believe in it, or fail to practice it. The practice of accountability is not
component of the culture story. There is no expectation for it because it is never defined and
extolled. Standards is not exists or they have become unimportant, employees are punished for
being accountable, nut rewarded for being less than accountable. Profits, growth, and other
results are deemed more important than integrity, trust, and honour.

Besides, life's drama is the focus of employee' attention and leaders are not cares about
the long-term effects of their actions and decision. Organizations suffers from weak
accountability in leadership are lead to few consequences that exist for unprofessional or bad
behaviour. The practice of accountability is nonexistent in the environment the organization
operates in.

There can be a number of reasons of organizations lacking of accountability such as

unclear direction or purpose, faulty strategy, key roles not linked to strategy, and lack of
understanding about accountability. Other reasons are poor organization design which is not in
flow because of the lack of a framework of principle. Negative company culture and history,
genuine capability problems, an obsession with continuous cost reduction, lack of feedback
from the external environment, lack of performance measures, and lack of consequences for
action are also contributes to the lack of leaders' accountability in the organizations. Since
accountability corrodes slowly and become weaker, the leaders that decreasing accountability
tend to ignore creativity and focus and thus lead to the work delayed and creating unproductive
organization.
 7

5.0 Improving leadership accountability

There are the ways of improving leadership accountability in organization. Firstly, the leader

need to use words and a tone that demonstrate intent of ownership to gain or rebuild the trust as

it prove an accountability of the leader. Being a leader requires more respect through honesty

rather than always seeming right. Being accountable for something means getting the job done.

That means leader need to see the project through, even if the leader failed at first. A great

leader realizes that true success is when the entire organization is doing well. It is not simply

furthering themselves or seeking glory. Leaders who have a fear of leading or of getting things

wrong will tend to fail in having accountability. This means leaders must willing to make hard

decision and own up to them if they turn out to be wrong.

More effective than external measures is creating a culture of accountability. It takes

leaders at all levels to change it while in organization, senior leaders serves as role models with

the goal of employees becoming more self-accountable. With regular feedback and guidance

from managers, employees know when they are off course and can self-correct. Accountability

becomes a conversation. When leaders serve as role models and hold their employees

accountable, followers make better decision.

In an accountability culture, people hold themselves accountable where they admit

mistakes and take responsibility for solving problems. When they do, their leaders handle

mistakes with grace and offer forgiveness. A culture of accountability must include forgiveness
 8

as forgiveness is one of the four moral habits of strong character leaders. Forgiveness comprises

of letting go of one's mistakes, letting go of others' mistakes, and focussing on what is right

versus what is wrong. Since forgiveness involves an internal emotional state as well as an

interpersonal, forgiveness is associated with positive outcomes. When leaders offer forgiveness

for mistakes, positive feelings replace anger and bitterness.

All organization leaders must make leadership accountability a priority. This means a

shared sense of clarity among the board, the CEO, the executive team, and HR on the

organization's responsibility to support leaders and drive accountability throughout the

enterprise. Building leadership accountability requires organizations to do some difficult things,

including addressing unaccountable leaders in their team. Other method of improving the

leaders' accountability is accountability audit based on leadership contract book as the book

offers a road map for readers to step up and demonstrate strong accountability at the personal

level, and they can start by committing to the leadership contract and other key terms such as

making the deliberate decision to lead, clear about their core obligation, demonstrate resolve to

tackle hard work, and connect to build relationships and a sense of community.

Real accountability requires the leaders to search for and clarify accountabilities that are

hidden in leaders’ role, to judge which accountabilities the leaders’ accept, and to carry those

accountabilities through to completion. Generally, real accountability depends upon

transparency where others need to know the person that accountable to do something. Owning

mistakes by leaders takes less effort than hiding them from most of the time. Besides, owning

up to actions is one of the essential pieces of leaders’ personal maturity and is a key step in
 9

achieving real accountability.

Immediate response must be taken by leaders when something goes wrong by identify

the cause of what went wrong instead of keep blaming or point finger to other people. The

leaders must avoid to appear accountable for an area when something is going wrong and

scramble like mad to take credit for the accountability for any successes. As the leaders take full

responsibility for decision, the right decisions relays on a precise specification of who is

accountable for carrying it out, when it must be implemented, who will be affected by it and

who must be informed about it. Effective leaders regularly review decisions, especially all those

one related to hires and promotions.

Effective leaders always ensure that their decisions and actions plans are clearly

understood. The same way, they are aware of the importance of listening to both superiors,

subordinates, and peers. They make clear the information, inputs, and results they expect. When

misunderstandings occur, they do not focus on the negative role played by their team members

but on their role in miscommunicating their message. Accountable leaders take ownership of

negative results. While not tolerating nonperforming individuals, they make themselves

responsible for the positive performance of those around them. They listen first and speak last.

Effective and accountable leaders care about resources. They start and finish on time

because they feel responsible for peoples' time and efforts. They know meetings should be

a process towards higher productivity, honest communication, stronger team building, and

surely better results. And they respect it. Meetings are a needed tool for accountable results. For
 10

quality standards, they should always be articulated around a clear purpose and followed-up

with a transparent summarizing email with work assignments and deadlines.

 11

6.0 Impacts of Leadership Accountability

In Fig. 1, a conceptualization is proposed that demonstrates how leader style and reputation
influence the level of trust placed in leaders by others, as well as the degree of accountability
imposed on the leader. These processes, in turn, may set the stage for a leader to engage in
behavior that is self-serving and counterproductive to organization goals and objectives. This
conceptualization considers trust and accountability as alternative mechanisms of control, which
reflect reciprocal relationships with one another, and which emanate from leader reputation. In
the remaining sections, the linkages in the model are carefully examined.

Fig. 1. Model of leader reputation, accountability, and perceptions of effectiveness.

As the model suggests, the amount of trust given to leaders and the level of
accountability to which leaders are held will affect leader behavior. Moreover, this
behavior can be either functional or dysfunctional. However, given recent corporate
scandals involving executive misconduct and the theoretical interest in counterproductive
behaviors, we have decided to limit our discussion to illicit or dysfunctional leader
behavior. As described above, there can be legitimate and practical reasons for affording a
 12

leader trust, and the discretion that accompanies trust. autonomy in order to effect change
(Finkelstein & Hambrick, 1996). However, under agency theory (Eisenhardt, 1989), it is
assumed that the interests of organizational leaders are naturally at odds with those of the
organization. Consequently, organizations, at least in theory, impose accountability on
leaders by using corporate governance mechanisms (Eisenhardt, 1989).

As proposed in the model, a leader’s reputation can significantly influence the

development of stakeholder trust (Whitmeyer, 2000). Nevertheless, as reputation is a
valuable personal asset, it also might be used to explain appropriate leader behavior.
Specifically, leaders might not want to risk damaging their reputations by engaging in
illegal and/or illicit behavior. Moreover, the longer that it takes to develop a reputation,
the greater are the costs for behaving in a manner that is inconsistent with one’s
reputation (Ensminger, 2001).

Both the academic and popular press have recognized the importance of accountability for
the effective management of organizations (Ettore, 1992; Frink & Klimoski, 1998).
Moreover, accountability is a fundamental construct of organization theory (Lerner &
Tetlock, 1999). Accountability has been defined as the ‘‘adhesive that binds social systems
together’’ (Frink & Klimoski, 1998, p. 3). Specifically, Frink and Klimoski contended that
social systems, such as organizations, can be defined in terms of common sets of shared
expectations of behavior. Thus, like trust, accountability involves an expectation or
assumption that an individual will behave in a certain manner. Through accountability,
individuals are assumed to be held responsible for their actions, thus maintaining social order
(Frink & Klimoski, 1998).

Here are three big problems that can arise when accountability is ignored:
 13

• First, it breeds resentment. If you refuse to admit you’ve done something wrong as a
leader and won’t take accountability for failure, others will begin to resent you.

• Even if you have some great communicators on your team, it’s extremely unlikely
they’ll tell you that you’re not holding yourself accountable. Giving unsolicited
feedback to leaders is viewed as criticism. Thus, without the option for healthy
communication, resentment builds.

• Second, it shatters trust and respect. If you say you’ll do something, fail to do it, then
don’t own your failure, you’ll lose respect and trust will erode.

• Without  trust in leader, people become less transparent, collaborative, honest, and
ultimately less engaged. They can begin to feel less aligned with company values, which
leaders are meant to exemplify, and may start looking for a workplace that better
matches their values.

• Third, it sets a poor example. Employees look to their leaders to set the tone in a
business. If a leader is refusing to take accountability then a “pass the buck” mentality
can trickle down through the organization.

• If this occurs, disorganization increases. If no-one holds each other accountable, it

slowly becomes acceptable to arrive ten minutes late for meetings and push back
deadlines time and again. Time gets wasted, deadlines are unpredictable, and people get
frustrated.
 14

Conclusion

As accountability is determined by how the leader acts, there are lots of positive results when

practicing accountability in leadership such as improved performance, better employee

participation and involvement, increased feelings of competency, more commitment to work

from employees, more innovation and creativity, and higher satisfaction at work. By having a

real accountability among the leaders, the leaders are required to accept the responsibility for all

results produced from leaders’ actions. Therefore, it is important for leaders to build a culture of

accountability from the beginning since accountability is building a culture of trust and not fear.

When done with the right motivations and the corresponding appropriate actions, accountability

cultivated by the leaders will give people more freedom to do their best.
 15

6.0 References

Castelli, P. A. (2016). Reflective leadership review: A framework for improving organizational

performance. Journal of Management Development, 35(2), 217-236

COFEM (2017). How a lack of accountability undermines work to address violence against

women and girls: Feminist perspectives on addressing violence against women and

girls. Series, Paper No. 1. Coalition of Feminists for Social Change.

Eubanks, D. L., Brown, A. D., andYbema, S. (2012). Leadership, identity, and ethics.Journal of

Business Ethics,107, 1-3.

Gilbert, D. U., & Rasche, A. (2007). Discourse ethics and social accountability: The ethics of

SA 800. Business Ethics Quarterly, 187 – 216.

Hsieh, N. (2017). The responsibilities and role of business in relation to society: Back to basics?

Business Ethics Quarterly, 27(2), 293-314.

Hollander, J. A. (2013). “I demand more of people” accountability, interaction, and gender

change. Gender & Society,27(1), 5-29.

Schatz, F. (2013). Fighting corporation with social accountability: A comparative analysis of

social accountability mechanisms’ potential to reduce corruption in public

administration. Public Administration & Development, 33(3), 161-174.

Wachter, R. M. (2013). Personal accountability in healthcare: Searching for the right

balance. BMJ quality & safety, 22(2), 176-180.