Accountability rolls downwards

Something that happens so often that we generally accept and take it for granted is the way that accountability rolls downwards.

What do we mean by that?

What we mean is that individuals in an organization are often held accountable for things they don’t actually have any ability or power to control and should really be the responsibility of those further up the organizational hierarchy.

Customer service staff, for example, are often the ones held accountable for systems, policies and practices they had no input or say in, let alone any responsibility or control over. Customer dissatisfaction with an entire organization is often taken out on customer service staff, who then get written up or disciplined if they do anything less than what is considered to be their job, while those more senior never have to answer for their role in the situation (remember the SWA debacle a few months ago?)

Another example is in the ways project managers are often held accountable for budget and schedule, yet have no ability or power to pushback on decisions made by more senior staff that have an impact on budget and schedule.

Or a new team member is hired to bring about change, then experiences pushback for doing just that because those more senior did not get buy-in from the rest of the team in support of that change, or failed to hold them accountable for following through on their support.

When there is a complaint or a challenge, often the path of least resistance is to over-scrutinize how how those least aligned with power and privilege are or are not doing their job. This is usually the first step by default. The lower someone is in the organizational hierarchy the easier it is to hold them to account, after all.

Sometimes it’s middle managers who somehow seem to hold a disproportionate amount of power - we often see that leadership is afraid to hold these managers to account, especially if leadership’s culture is to be conflict avoidant. We see a lot of people pleasers in non-profit leadership, which can look like either getting overly involved… or not involved enough (leaders still need to lead). Either way, the result can be a lack of accountability appropriate to the level of power and responsibility.

Ultimately, though, the real piece that is often missing is community accountability.

We draw on restorative principles in our work (see The Little Book of Restorative Justice by Howard Zehr) and an important principle is that all those with a stake in the situation are involved in putting right harm.

How that community is defined can vary, but rarely is a problem, conflict or harm the sole responsibility of one or even several individuals… yet dominant culture and systems in the US and the western world in general, including our legal and so-called “justice” systems, are so hyper-focused on individual responsibility.

Restorative justice has us focusing on the harm that has been created (what was the impact?) rather than the rules that have been broken (who wasn’t doing their job?)

It encourages a consideration of root causes which in organizations are often a failure of systems, processes, polices and culture which leads to individual failure - both individual and organizational responsibility needs to be considered.

It encourages collaboration rather than coercion - how can the community as well as the individuals involved come together to co-create a better path forward?

I truly believe that behind every performance issue there is organizational responsibility. This does not mean that individuals should not be held accountable for their performance, but this cannot be the only level of accountability, nor should those lower in the organizational hierarchy be held disproportionately accountable because they have less power to push back.

When everyone has what they need to do their best work, everyone benefits.

Banner photo by Tim Foster on Unsplash

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