Accountability goes hand in hand with authority and responsibility. Holding people accountable for their performance sounds intimidating to most, but it is actually very beneficial for workers. Like most policies, accountability must begin at the top. If CEOs do not hold themselves accountable, they cannot reasonably expect the same of others. Leaders make a habit of setting personal performance goals and sticking to them. The next step is to then promote the same level of accountability across the entire organization. Once these rules are established, they must be enforced. This can be the most unpleasant part of a leader’s job. It does not mean, however, that leaders cannot help employees by way of providing tools and resources for success. Additionally, employees can and should be rewarded when they perform as expected. This will build a culture based on excellence, quality, and supportiveness.
BUILD LOYALTY AND ENGAGEMENT FROM THE MIDDLE
It is not easy to inspire cultural change in managers and have them go on to inspire others. The best way to effect change is to give managers a broader sense of the organization, beyond their own individual departments or teams. After this, it is important to give managers the power to make a difference. This helps to ensure that they are properly aligned with the culture and strategies of senior leadership. Managers should be encouraged to get to know their staff as people, and to develop personal bonds with them. In this way, a team can develop a shared goal. This trust and openness will inevitably go back up the organizational chain to its leaders, who will find they are in charge of an organization with a strong sense of purpose.
BRING PEOPLE TOGETHER
One of the best ways to mend gaps in an organization is through the sharing of information. When employees know what is happening in the boardroom, misunderstanding and misinterpretation are reduced. Communication also brings people together because employees get to express their own points of view more clearly. This decentralized structure is sometimes referred to as horizontal management. Among its benefits, horizontal management can help hold managers accountable. However, leaders need to be mindful that over-decentralization can lead to gaps in communication, and various parts of an organization will develop their own ways of doing things. This can be combated with smart integration of disparate systems and standardization of company-wide operations.
Another proactive way to bring people together is to have experts from different areas of an organization collaborate to develop new best practices that keep different perspective in mind and can be adopted throughout the organization. This technique can bring about great innovations in efficiency and cost reduction. These sorts of initiatives take time and should be approached incrementally. Early successes will build momentum and prove to any potential skeptics that the system is working.
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