Responsibility At Work - How To Be Accountable - Jobs Tips

Responsibility At Work - How To Be Accountable - Jobs Tips

Advancing your career also means being responsible and learning accountability. The honesty of admitting both your successes and your failures is an important requirement in any job. It also helps you stay active and motivated at work.

What Does it Mean To Be Accountable in Employment?

Although having responsibility and accountability for your actions in any job may sound generic, its definition is more precise and must be considered by all employees and employers alike.

Being accountable in any job means being able to know where you belong, what your actions have been, and what results you have achieved with them. This skill requires significant introspection and will be more difficult for those who have never done it previously. Introspection is the ability to look inside ourselves to detect where we can improve and what our strongest points are .

How Can You Know What Your Responsibilities Are At Work?

One of the easiest ways to know what your responsibilities are in your job and be accountable for them is to review the job description. If you accessed it through an online job portal, it is very possible that they are perfectly described.

Whether you have been working for a few days or for several years, you can always improve responsibility in your duties and know if you are strictly fulfilling them or not. Otherwise, it is necessary to analyze what is failing and how you can change it.

What Happens When There is No Accountability in A Company?

If there is no responsibility or accountability in a company, everything can simply fail. When staff are not aware of their responsibility and there are projects that are not delivered on time, punctuality that is not respected or work that has been done inefficiently, this can cause much bigger problems.

If no one remedies the lack of responsibility of individuals or organizations, the following consequences may occur:

• What is unacceptable ends up being accepted as the norm. All parts of the company become accustomed to delivering projects late or arriving 15 minutes late for a meeting.
• The organizational culture of the company will be damaged beyond repair, and this is something that is visible to the end customer, shareholders and other stakeholders.
• Just one individual who is not aware of the inefficiency of his actions and does not provide accountability puts his entire team in danger, and this causes low morale among his colleagues, unrealistic priorities, higher employee turnover and low levels. trustworthy.
• If team leaders know that the company culture is not accountable, it will also be more difficult for them to start new projects, since they will keep in mind that the responsibility they have been given is too high if it has to be carried out by just one person. .

What Are The Benefits Of Practicing Accountability And Responsibility?

Responsibility and accountability, combined with other job-specific skills, will help your progress at the company and in your career. If you are aware of all the actions you perform in your position, you will also be more likely to be promoted in the future.

The following points illustrate what the benefits of your practice are:

• Raise Confidence

Accountability is not just a function that a team leader or manager should have. It must be part of every individual in a team or organization. If just one person without responsibility is capable of affecting the entire team, it is easy to imagine that an entire team of people without clear responsibilities could cause the entire company to suffer.

Therefore, if all employers and employees are held accountable, both team leaders and workers will feel completely confident to embark on all the projects that are necessary.

• Increase Performance And Efficiency

If each party is clear about their responsibilities in each project and is accountable when something unforeseen occurs, it will be easier to achieve the final objective. In addition, it will be much easier to apply corrections when something does not go according to established plans.

In short, a lot of time is saved, which in turn translates into money. This makes projects more efficient and increases the performance of each employee.

• Improved Learning

An important point of accountability is admitting what we have done wrong. Not all people are willing to do this, either because they distrust new processes or because their psychology is rooted in other, very different ideas.

When a person is able to be accountable, they can identify, with all the honesty in the world, what they are imperfect in, what they fail in, or what they can improve on. Ultimately, this leads to understanding our strengths and continuous learning, both in our personal and professional lives.

Helps Improve Interpersonal Relationships

If all members of an organization are clear about their responsibilities and are held accountable when something goes wrong, mishaps that arise between workers will be minimized. All of them will know what the next step to follow is in a process that is internalized within the organizational culture. This process takes time, but it only offers advantages translated into better worker performance.

How To Improve Accountability And Responsibility At Work

To improve your responsibility and expand your competencies in this area, you should take into consideration the following tips, which will allow you to learn new professional skills while improving your accountability capacity.

Discuss Your Career Goals And Ambitions With Your Superiors

So that your leaders can know what their organization needs, it is essential that they receive the information that you can provide them through a simple talk. Convey work goals that align with those of the company and suggest new skills that may need to be incorporated into your job.

If they are open to listening, they will understand that you are an employee who is not afraid to be accountable and show a desire to continue growing with them in the long term.

• Take The initiative

Don't wait for anyone to tell you what to do. If it is within your responsibilities, take the initiative and complete that task or solve that problem. Make sure you have permission to do this first or if you need someone to supervise you. It's a good way to increase your ties to the company and helps your employers identify that you are an employee to whom important responsibilities can be delegated.

• Set Realistic Goals

For employee accountability to be effective, they must feel that their responsibilities are realistic and can be met. If those goals seem unrealistic or too ambitious, talk to your supervisor or team leader and send a new written statement with the new tasks or objectives you have in mind.

There is no better information for an employer than the realistic goals that an employee can set. Sometimes it happens that a company's culture establishes objectives that may not be on par with the expectations placed on employees, such as difficult delivery times, logistics problems or lack of liquidity to undertake certain projects.

• Identify The Company's Problems

One of the best ways to apply accountability and improve responsibility is to identify the needs of your colleagues and those tasks that they have difficulty completing. This shows a great disposition towards your company and its employees, but also improves its organizational culture.

Be careful not to put more tasks on your shoulders than you can handle or tasks for which you are not adequately prepared.

Admit Your Mistakes

Admitting your mistakes is difficult, especially if you have to do it in public or to your other team members. However, it is the most valuable source of learning because it will help you identify precisely which areas of your work you can improve. For example, if you fail to meet a certain deadline on a project, you can be proactive next time and readjust the entire process to achieve it in the future.

Make It A Habit

Like any other skill, taking responsibility and accountability should be done as a habit and not just when you have free time or on separate days. A good idea is to request regular feedback from your teammates or leaders to ensure that projects are moving forward optimally. To do this, you can ask the following questions:

• “Is there anything new we need to start doing as a team?”
• “Do you need more direction from me?”
• “Do you need more feedback?”
• “How can we improve our work within the team?”
• “What would be the maximum goal you think we could achieve? Is it realistic?”