Accountable Leaders

CHAPTER 10Make Leadership Accountability a Priority in Your Company

Most CEOs I work with express frustration over the lack of accountability they see in their organizations. I find this is especially true of CEOs new to their companies. They usually arrive with a mandate to drive transformational change. They know they will need leaders to step up in new ways to drive success. However, after they spend time getting to know the state of their organization, they realize there are many leadership accountability gaps. The gaps may exist with the executive team or leaders at other levels of the organization. At other times, they recognize that the human resources function isn’t doing its job. Unless they address these gaps, progress will be difficult. However, addressing leadership accountability gaps effectively requires commitment on the part of the board, the CEO, the CHRO, and other senior executives. This chapter explores how these leaders must work together to drive success.

Leadership Accountability—the Critical Business Issue

In my experience, leadership accountability is a new business issue that many companies are beginning to understand. As a result, there is high variability in whether companies are thinking about it, discussing it, and ultimately doing something about it. I’ve learned that many stakeholders must step up. If they don’t, it will be hard to achieve success. For example, in one company, the CEO made leadership accountability a priority. He single-handedly ...