Leaders
Ready to blaze a new trail?
Start with stepping into
Accountability 2.0.
Some of the questions leaders ask me most frequently include different versions of the following:
How do I motivate sub-par employees?
How do I engage and inspire people to strive for excellence?
How do I engage and inspire people to strive for excellence?
These questions, in all their variations, stem from a common source: Thinking that leadership is transactional when it is relational AND that success is garnered by exercising power over: situations, people, resources, outcomes.
In fact, the historically dominant culture, or Yesterday’s Culture, as I think of it, tells us the only way to succeed is to control, conquer and dominate whatever is needed, including ourselves, our needs, values, dreams. Even our well-being.
Yesterday’s Culture has taught us accountability is based in a “power over” dynamic.
But this only works as long as people respond to that old dynamic.
And guess what? They’re not.
Not only that, our continued striving to live into the outdated cultural mandates limits creativity, stifles connection and, frankly? Is killing us.
Consider
If you are not accorded power by Yesterday’s Culture, you may find it difficult to engage people over whom you don’t have direct authority.
If you are someone who prefers a more collaborative approach, those around you who are accustomed to responding only to power over may not recognize your authority to lead. Or be respected. Or heard.
So what do you do if you don’t want to perpetuate the unhealthy patterns of Yesterday’s Culture AND there’s no road map in the wilderness because you, my dear, are blazing the new trail?
Start
with radically updating and upgrading your notions of accountability. Elevate accountability from yesterday’s transactional events (usually unpleasant), to ongoing process woven into the fabric of relationship.
Start
with exploring how accountability is fundamentally linked to engagement, which is linked to connection – and then look to see how and where you are and are not connecting. Including with yourself.
Start
with seeing accountability as a pathway not just to developing the people you lead, but an intriguing doorway to your own personal and professional transformation.