Hey, it's Laura and Jason.
Welcome back, and thanks for being here!
This is Issue #4 of The Weekly UNLOK, where human potential meets organizational performance.
"THE ACCOUNTABILITY TRAP"
FROM LAURA
Eight months in, and she already felt like she was failing.
I talk to a lot of people each week. A LOT. And this leader I was catching up with... a smart, loyal, and committed leader, someone I'd known for a WHILE...who was so excited to begin this job.
The CEO had brought her in specifically because she had garnered an incredible reputation in the industry.
So when we sat down, I was expecting to hear it was off to a great start.
Instead, she confided in me: Laura, I feel like I’m failing. Massively.
WHAT??!!
She had a clear mandate from the top. She had the title. She had metrics she was expected to hit.
So….what didn’t she have?
REAL authority that matched the scope of her role.
A clear picture of which decisions were hers to make without going back upstairs.
The cross-functional relationships she needed to get anything done.
She was being held to an outcome she had no real infrastructure to deliver.
I wish I could tell you this was the first time I've heard this. Sadly, not even close.
Most organizations have mastered "accountability".
Holding people accountable feels like good leadership.
It is.
But...
Creating the conditions for people to succeed is the other part of accountability and is often overlooked.
Leaders who are not under-skilled, but under-resourced.
THAT is the accountability trap. Expecting the outcome without building the conditions to actually deliver.
And it’s one of the most expensive mistakes a CEO can make, because the cost doesn’t show up in a line item.
It’s the shift from giving 100% to 50%….when a person who once lit up the room with enthusiasm and contribution starts giving only the minimum required.
Just how many of these people are inside your organization?
You can be getting so much more, so VERY much more from your people, and yet…they’re pulling back now more than ever. And it's getting worse.
FROM JASON
Someone misses a target, and the conversation immediately goes to the person.
It almost never goes to what the person was given to work with.
They didn’t hit a target. The leader’s instinct is to point out the gap, increase the pressure, make it clearer that this matters.
And those instincts aren’t wrong. They’re just incomplete.
Before you increase the pressure, there’s a question worth asking: did the person actually have what they needed to do this well?
This was something I had to learn early on in my career, a lesson that changed how I thought about accountability.
I had an employee who was early in a leadership role he hadn’t held before.
He would frequently struggle with decisions, and his instinct was to keep coming back to me.
My instinct early on was to keep answering him.
But fast forward a few months and nothing had changed, the loop repeated, he still kept coming back asking for my input on everything.
And I had to ask myself an honest question: was I holding him accountable, or was I just creating the conditions for him to stay dependent?
That’s when I decided I needed to stop answering the decision questions and start asking different ones.
“What information would you need to make this call yourself?”
“What’s the risk if you’re wrong, and can we absorb it?”
“What would you tell your team if they came to you with this?”
“What do you think we should do?”
Within a few weeks, he stopped coming back. Six months after that, he was making the kind of calls I’d been making, better ones in fact, because he was closer to the work and had more of the information.
You probably have someone like this on your team right now. Someone who looks hesitant, slow to act, and maybe dependent on your input.
The reflex is to read that as a capability problem. Sometimes it is. More often, though, it’s a design problem.
The accountability exists. The enablement doesn’t.
Over the course of my career I’ve learned that the leaders who get the most out of people are rarely the most demanding. They're the most deliberate.
They set clear expectations. They build the conditions: decision clarity, real authority, feedback loops, and access to what the person needs to succeed.
Accountability without that infrastructure is just a mirage.
You can see it. You can describe it. You can hold people to it. But nobody can realistically get there. Or at least give their best.
YOUR TURN
Pick one person on your team who has been underperforming or stalling.
Before your next conversation with them, ask yourself: do they have real decision authority in the areas they're being measured on, and have you communicated it explicitly?
Actual permission to act, be wrong, and learn. If the honest answer is no, that's where the conversation needs to start.
The opportunity here is to build the organizational infrastructure that makes accountability real: decision clarity, genuine authority, and feedback that serve as pathways to growth.
When those conditions exist, accountability becomes the natural operating mode.
One of the best things a CEO can do right now is ask: do the people I'm counting on have what they need to deliver? Get that right, and the rest follows.
We’re here for the ripple effect,
Laura & Jason
P.S. - Did this message resonate? Reply back and let us know. We read every reply.
BEFORE YOU GO: HOW WE CAN HELP
FOR COMPANIES: When people underperform, the instinct is to look at the people. What if that isn’t the real issue? Book a strategy call.
OR... [Take the free self-assessment →]
FOR INDIVIDUALS: If you’re looking for one-on-one support, Laura works with a small number of people personally. Book an activation session and let’s get into it.