Tag Archive for: accountable leadership

FROM COMPLIANCE TO COMMITMENT: How to Inspire Ownership and Initiative on Your Team

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A recent coaching client told me about a member of her team who noticed that a small but recurring problem was slowing everyone down. The team member’s usual response to this was to complain behind everyone’s back. But because they had been focussing on ownership and initiative, she tried something different. She was direct about pointing out the problem and addressed openly how, through her lack of direct communication, she was contributing to the problem. And then she took the initiative to understand its cause, consulted her colleagues, and proposed a simple solution. Her manager welcomed the idea, trusted her judgment, and gave her the space to test it. Within weeks, the change had improved the team’s workflow and inspired others to look for ways they, too, could contribute. This is how a culture of ownership begins: not with slogans, directives, or fancy value statements, but with leaders who invite responsibility and people who feel empowered to act.

The shift from compliance to commitment begins when leaders stop merely assigning tasks and start creating a culture of initiative and ownership. This means moving beyond the passive assignment of task into active engagement. When people feel trusted, valued, and equipped to lead themselves, they don’t wait for instructions, they make things happen. They elevate everyone around them. Creating an ownership culture inspires a confident, accountable, and collaborative team that adapts effectively and delivers stronger results with less dependence on direction from above. It gives team members a sense of purpose, confidence, belonging, and personal agency, enabling them to grow, contribute authentically, and take meaningful ownership of their work.

The essential leadership question is: What would change if your team members stopped waiting to be told and started leading from wherever they stand? The answer begins with an invitation—not to do more for the sake of doing more, but to become the authors, contributors, and co-creators of a shared future.

While there is no specified formula for inspiring ownership and initiative on your team, consider the following guideposts:

  1. Define what ownership and initiative mean. Start by being explicit that these are values that are important to you. Be intentional and deliberate. Then make ownership and initiative concrete. Tell your team what ownership and initiative mean to you and get their perspective about what it means to them in tangible, behavioral terms. (e.g. noticing what needs to be done, taking action without being chased, being trusted and empowered to create results within specified guidelines, staying responsible until the outcome is complete, etc.), why it is important here, and what’s in it for everyone to think like owners.
  2. Start the conversation. If people do not have a shared understanding, a clear grasp of the expectations, and a compelling reason to behave differently, they will default to task-completion mode instead of proactive action. Set aside small and consistent designated time to have an open dialogue about this. Shine a light on success and learn from misses. Tell the stories. Devote time to learn about ownership and initiative from the experiences of people across the team.
  3. Model the way. Leadership begins when we visibly demonstrate expected behaviors. Others need to see what taking ownership and initiative looks like in practice. Invite challenge without defensiveness. Celebrate learning from misses as much as wins and make it safe for others to act by responding to initiative with curiosity (“What did you learn?”) rather than control (“Why didn’t you ask first?”). Over time, your reliability, transparency, and willingness to be held accountable to live what you expect from others becomes the cultural blueprint everyone else mirrors.
  4. Ensure that the right people are on the bus. The best way to build an ownership culture is to hire owners. Be sure you have hiring practices that assess ownership and initiative. While you can foster and strengthen ownership in people with better processes, you can’t easily “train” someone to take initiative if it isn’t in them.
  5. Connect before you expect. When people feel trusted, valued, and equipped, they are more likely to lead from wherever they stand. Ensure that your people know that it is a safe place to be honest, to make mistakes, and to speak up when they don’t know. People will not act like owners if they are punished for honest mistakes or uncertainty. Make it safe to surface issues early, admit errors, and ask for help before something becomes a bigger problem. Ownership and safety need each other, and genuine connection builds the bridge between them.
  6. Seek strength alignment. Inspiring ownership and initiative are about aligning work to strengths, asking for input from those on the front lines, celebrating initiative, and making it safe to try—and sometimes fail—so people feel trusted enough to lead. The goal is to cultivate leaders who lead with or without a title, who are ambitious for the cause, not for themselves, and people who weave a connection between themselves and others and work together toward a common vision.
  7. Make the shift from tasks to responsibilities. Ownership and initiative are more than having a job description or completing a to-do list. It means understanding the purpose behind the work, accepting responsibility for an outcome, and having enough autonomy to decide how to contribute. It also means creating clear pathways for people to grow into leadership in ways that reflect their strengths and interests.
  8. Clarify decision rights and support requirements. Many teams wait because they do not know what they are allowed to decide. Be explicit about what they can own independently, and what they need approval for. Clarify what support and resources are required to meet this expectation.
  9. Give real responsibility. Ownership grows when people are trusted with something that genuinely matters. Assign outcomes, not just isolated tasks, and let one person be clearly accountable for each important deliverable.
  10. Develop the habit over time. This is not a one-time conversation; it is a culture shift. Repeatedly reinforce the same message: “I expect you to think, decide, act, and follow through.” Over time, people stop asking, “What do you want me to do?” and start asking themselves, “What outcome do we need, and what’s the best way to get there and what’s my part?”

In summary, fostering a culture of ownership and initiative requires leaders to:

  • Connect everyday work to a larger purpose.
  • Match responsibilities to people’s strengths.
  • Delegate responsibility, not merely activities.
  • Give people room to determine the “how.”
  • Celebrate initiative, learning, and thoughtful risk-taking.
  • Make it safe to try, fail, reflect, and try again.

Accountability With Heart: Igniting Engagement Through Trust and Ownership

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When Brenda took over as the Executive Director of a community outreach, nonprofit organization, she walked into a team that had lost its spark. People were burned out. Staff meetings were tense. Deadlines constantly slipped and a sense of defensiveness hung in the air. At first, Brenda responded the way many leaders do under pressure—by tightening control. She introduced stricter reporting requirements and frequent check-ins. However, instead of improving performance, morale sank further. One afternoon, after a particularly difficult meeting, a colleague quietly took her aside and said, “We don’t need more tightening—we need more trust.”

This was a defining moment for Brenda, a moment that brought her to reach out and connect with me for coaching. “How could I actually make this request real?” she asked me in our first session.

Together we developed a plan – a plan Brenda has given me permission to share in this article. Below is a high-level overview of her implementation:

  1. One-on-one meetings with every one of her key leadership team members. The purpose was not to correct but simply listen. She asked them about their personal values and how they could feel more supported to live their values at work and away from work. They talked about how each person could be more supported to bring their unique abilities and passion more fully to their work. She talked to them about their defining moments growing up that led them to this work, and about why they decided to work here. She explored with them the kind of culture they wanted to work in and what actions would need to happen to start to live the organization’s espoused values.
  2. Assess fit. In these one-on-one meetings (for some she met more than once), Brenda also discussed their experience of being on the leadership team and what needed to happen to create a place people were proud to work. In these conversations she discovered there was one member that simply didn’t fit into the culture. Through exploring and recognizing that his strengths and approach didn’t align with the organization’s values or direction, she helped him create space to thrive elsewhere and moved him on, in order for the team to move forward authentically.
  3. Establish a team charter. Within three months of arriving, Brenda set aside a day with her entire leadership to ensure that they put a priority on the health of that team. To achieve this, they took time to share their values, to get to know people at a more personal level, and pinpoint the expectations team members had of each other. A “team charter” was written, a list of agreements and a process for responding when those agreements were dishonoured. The outcome was a blueprint for creating a team they were committed to, a culture that would enable them to do their best work, and mutual agreements that would inspire a place they were proud and grateful to work in. They also made agreements about how to extend the same kind of process to their respective teams.
  4. Rigid, controlling oversight was replaced with clear expectations and accountability agreements to each other. All this was balanced by genuine care. Self-care became a high priority in the organization to ensure the care they had for their own teams and the clients they served came from overflow, not emptiness.

The results, over a period of a few months, were transformative. People began taking initiative. Energy and engagement improved. Meaningful results began to emerge, signaling that important progress was finally taking shape.

The heart of accountability lies not in control, but in connection. True ownership flourishes when people feel seen, trusted, and valued for the whole of who they are. Trust transforms accountability from a system of enforcement into a relationship of commitment. When leaders embody warmth and integrity, they invite others to bring their best selves forward—not because they have to, but because they want to.

Too often, accountability in organizations is equated with surveillance or blame. But leaders who lead with heart understand that accountability is ultimately about stewardship. It means caring enough to follow through and having the courage to be honest—with oneself and others—about where improvements are needed. It also means creating psychological safety, so feedback is welcomed, not feared.

Ownership, in turn, is the natural outcome of trust. When people take ownership, they stop working for an organization and start working with it. They see success as a shared creation rather than a metric imposed from the top. This kind of engagement can’t be mandated; it must be cultivated. And it grows best in environments where empathy coexists with high standards, and where mistakes are treated as learning moments, not failures.

Brenda’s team rediscovered what many organizations forget: accountability is most powerful when it feels human. And being human means embracing imperfection. Behind every task and deadline is a person who wants to contribute meaningfully. Systems and goals matter, but they are sustained only by relationships built on trust and respect.

Leaders who practice accountability with heart create ripple effects that extend beyond their teams. They model responsibility without rigidity, compassion without complacency, and transparency without fear. Their legacy isn’t just performance—it’s a culture where people thrive because they are trusted to care as deeply as their leaders do.

In the end, engagement doesn’t ignite from pressure; it ignites from purpose. And purpose grows strongest in workplaces where trust and ownership meet—where people are accountable not out of obligation, but out of love for what they are building together.

Intentional Culture, Exceptional Results – Integrating Authenticity with Accountability

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One habit of good leadership is to be out in your culture, shining a light on success, celebrating wins, and catching people doing things right. There are likely some amazing things going on around you that you may be missing if you aren’t intentional. It’s natural for human beings to fixate on what’s not in our lives instead of focusing on what’s in our lives. Lately I’ve been putting this habit into practice in my own community. What I’ve discovered is that our little town is full of small giants (a term coined by Bo Burlingham), companies that deliberately choose to focus on excellence, purpose, and community impact rather than pursuing relentless growth or becoming as large as possible.

One of the small giants in Cochrane, Alberta is the Spray Lake Centre. Erin Wagner and her incredible team of leaders have created a vibrant, thriving, customer-focused environment that is at the heart and hub of our community for fitness, sports and recreation, as well as family and community connection. The SLS Centre also regularly hosts the Cochrane farmers’ market, both indoors and outdoors, and many other community events every year. When you visit Cochrane, stop by and get a shot of energy from this amazing place.

There are also many other small giants in Cochrane such as Found Books, Route 22 – Artist Collective Gallery, Yamnuska Wolfdog Sanctuary, Pink Wand Cleaning Services, Flores and Pine Restaurant, Alberta Metal Works, Align Developments, and the Cochrane Public Library. All of these organizations are part of Innovate Cochrane, a community-driven non-profit dedicated to empowering entrepreneurs and business leaders to build authentic, accountable organizations.

Everyone talks about the importance of culture, but when the pressure to deliver results mounts, culture takes a back seat. Like taking care of your health in times of high demands, it’s easy to declare, “we don’t have time for culture.”

But culture is always present, regardless of whether you are intentional about it. It is not a flavor of the month management fad. It’s the fabric of your entire organization.

Organizational culture is complex and multi-layered. To create and sustain a great culture requires leaders at every level to look beyond visible behaviors and statements from culture surveys to understand and influence the deeper beliefs that truly shape how organizations function.

My framework for organizational culture focuses on integrating the two fundamental elements of a great culture: authenticity and accountability in three areas: organizational, interpersonal, and personal.

The Importance of Authenticity

Authenticity means living in alignment with your true values, living and working in a place where you don’t have to leave who you are at the door, where you can express yourself genuinely, fostering meaningful connections and trust. Authentic cultures encourage open communication, vulnerability, and psychological safety to support people to tell the truth in a respectful way.

Leaders who lead authentically strengthen the overall sense of belonging and engagement in an organization.

The Importance of Accountability

Accountability means that we remember that culture isn’t what we say. Culture is how we hold ourselves accountable for how we act. You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do. Accountability starts with ownership. Accountability means that individuals and leaders take ownership for their decisions and their actions. We institutionally deny the fact that each of us – through our perceptions and our choices – is creating the culture that we so enjoy complaining about. Deciding that you have created the culture you are living and working in – and therefore you are the one to step into healing it – is the ultimate act of accountability.

Accountability means taking responsibility to work with clear expectations and agreements and being a person who can be counted on. It means having the tough conversations, providing regular mutual feedback, helping each other grow, and delivering on the promises you make. It means holding each other to the same high standards and asking for the support needed to deliver on agreements made.

How Authenticity and Accountability Work Together

Authenticity and accountability are mutually reinforcing. Authenticity creates the psychological safety necessary for people to be honest, while accountability ensures that this honesty translates into clearly defined and necessary results.

Authenticity supports people to operate from a place of truth, caring, and integrity, while accountability ensures that this integrity is backed by responsible action. Together they foster trust, engagement, and sustainable success in any culture.

RISE ABOVE – Unleashing Potential Through the Power of Accountability

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From the ages of fourteen to eighteen I worked part-time alongside Bob Dye, a carpenter that my parents hired for renovation projects. I remember the care that Bob put into his work. He was a true craftsman. He left nothing to chance. He took pride in his work. He taught me how to hold a hammer and how to sink a nail. He taught me how to use a power saw safely and how to square a floor in a crooked house. He showed up every day on time with a smile on his face and a positive attitude. Whether he was framing or finishing, craftsmanship showed through in everything he did.

He was patient with me when I made mistakes. I think he liked working with me because I showed up on time and worked hard. In hindsight, I’m sure I slowed him down, but he never mentioned it. I remember cutting a dozen two-by-fours three inches too short. He smiled and responded, “I also had to learn the hard way that it’s always good to measure twice and cut once.” I imagine my dad talked with him about having him apprentice me, both in carpentry and in life. My attitude was certainly bigger than my skill level, and he respected me for that. He was shy and gentle and had a big heart and was always kind and generous to me. I looked forward to working alongside him on Saturdays, after school, holidays, and summers. Dad would work with us whenever he could. I’m grateful that I had older men in my life that loved me, took time for me, and were good role models.

My parents paid Bob by the project, and when the project was done, he would give them an invoice and say, “Take your time and inspect our work. If it meets your standards, pay me. If not, there’s no charge and we’ll re-do it.” Bob was serious, even though not getting paid would have put a severe financial hit on his family. He also had a respectful way of making me feel part of his team, that we had achieved this together, even though he did the real work and there was just the two of us.

That pay-me-when-you-know-it’s-done-right approach was not a show. It was a demonstration of integrity. It was an expression of his character. And not once, in all those years, did we have to re-do a job or not get paid. As it turned out, Bob inspired me with a blueprint for how to run my business for the past forty years.

It’s inspiring to be around an accountable person, a person that can be counted on, a person that takes pride in their work, who demonstrates care and civility, who shows up, is committed to creating value before they get paid, and who makes you a better person for being in their presence. I’ll always cherish Bob for being my mentor.

Accountability is not a hammer to punish people. Accountability was never meant to be used as a disciplinary measure. Even though we need to face the consequences of our choices, accountability is not an HR performance management process or appraisal program. Accountability – the ability to be counted on – is a philosophy of life that inspires and empowers us to rise above mediocrity, renews our workplaces, restores our mojo, and gives us our freedom.

Learning About Leadership vs Leadership Development

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What’s the difference between learning about leadership and leadership development?
Being in the leadership development field for many years has taught me that there’s a difference between learning about leadership and leadership development.
It’s like the difference between reading a recipe and cooking the meal. Learning about something is very different than rolling up your sleeves and immersing yourself in the experience. In this case, the difference is the growth experience gained from leadership development versus simply the knowledge that there is such a thing.
Learning About Leadership
  • Listening to a podcast or audio book on an aspect of leadership that interests you.
  • Watching an inspiring TED Talk or YouTube video.
  • Reading a thought-provoking book on leadership.
  • Hearing a good speaker on leadership.
  • Attending a seminar that comes up on your social media feed.
Leadership Development
  • Making a conscious decision to grow as a person and leader.
  • Taking time to get honest feedback on your leadership.
  • Clarifying the gaps between your current reality and your desired future.
  • Defining your goals as a leader.
  • Determining the biggest source of growth in your life.
  • Mapping a plan for your development to help close the gap(s) you identify. This plan could include coaching, a leadership course, and some support and accountability to keep you on track.
We’ve never had more access to information on leadership, but what have you done lately to invest in your own leadership development?
This past month I facilitated our eighth Authentic Leadership Academy, a transformational leadership development experience.
The Academy is built around three fundamental principles:
  1. Inner harmony precedes outer harmony. Everything flows from inner well-being.
  2. There’s a difference between secondary and primary success. Secondary success has to do with position, popularity, public image, and profit. Primary success is about the person you become on the journey. It’s important not to confuse the two.
  3. Connecting with your true nature and expressing it consciously in your life and work requires the greatest amount of change and makes the greatest amount of impact.
The recent Academy was a manifestation of these principles. We created a community of incredible difference makers who were deeply connected to their humanity. Being with these leaders for three days reinforced my belief that being a good leader is, first and foremost, about being a good person.
What was particularly inspiring was observing the growth of participants who came with their teams, knowing that they can take the learnings back to their organizations.

RAISING ACCOUNTABLE KIDS: It’s About Principles, Not Perfection

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You can observe a lot by watching. – Yogi Berra
When grandparenting you aren’t in the thick of the responsibilities that come with raising kids, so you have a bit of time to observe. So, as a grandparent, here’s three observations I have about the state of child raising these days:
  • There’s no more important leadership responsibility than within the walls of our home. The greatest success lies in building strong character in our young people that will enable them to be contributing citizens of the world.
  • We’ve never been more aware of the needs of our children because we have access to extensive information on child development, the impacts of trauma on brain functioning, mental health, the importance of attachment, emotional regulation, and self-esteem and well-being.
  • We are now extremely anxious about how we’re doing as a parent and how our kids are going to turn out. And all the anxiety is spilling over onto our children. Paradoxically, the more we worry about our kids, the more anxious they become. Anxious parents raise anxious kids. They have enough of their own anxiety without us contributing to it.
For those who have assumed the vital and arduous work of leading young people, here are four strategies to consider:
  1. Don’t make life too easy for your kids. On the wall of my daughter’s high school English class was a quote by Van Jones, the political commentator: I don’t want you to be safe, ideologically. I don’t want you to be safe, emotionally. I want you to be strong. That’s different. I’m not going to pave the jungle for you. Put on some boots and learn how to deal with adversity. I’m not going to take all the weights out of the gym; that’s the whole point of the gym. This is the gym. In other words, making the space within the walls of our homes and our schools safe doesn’t mean rescuing our children from the challenges of life. Just as the struggle to break through the cocoon builds the strength of the butterfly’s wings, if we want our children to fly one day, they must struggle and develop strong wings. Don’t raise your children to be happy. Raise your children to be strong. Strength comes when our kids know they are not alone. We are right beside them, in their corner. Loving without rescuing. Being there without doing for them what they can do for themselves. With strength, happiness will follow.
  2. Don’t be afraid to parent. Saying no is not abuse. Our children do not need us to be their friend. Their friends are their peer group. What our children need is a parent. There’s a big difference between pleasing your kids and loving your kids. Pleasing is about giving them what they want so they will be happy and like you. Pleasing comes from insecurity. Loving them is giving them what they need – and what they need may very well be different than what they think they need or what their friends have. Children are not born with accountability – the ability to be counted on; they have to learn it. And they learn it, in part, when they can count on the caregivers in their life. If you are a parent, your kids are counting on you to be one. Let’s work at being secure enough with ourselves that we don’t depend on our kids for our self-worth. It’s not their job.
  3. Set clear boundaries around digital media. Digital media was originally developed for two reasons: information and communication. When it exceeds its function and is used, like any product or substance, to meet our emotional needs or to escape from our life it becomes addictive. Monitoring our own use and consciously and carefully supervising the use of devices with our kids is now an integral part of parenting. You can’t leave it to chance.
  4. Relax. You don’t have to get it perfectly. I remember a time when our youngest daughter wanted to change her curfew to go to a friend’s party. The easy road would have been a quick “yes” or a quick “no.” Instead, we spent the better part of a week negotiating with her and struggling to do the right thing. I don’t know, to this day, if we did the right thing. What I do know is that my daughter knows she was loved. She knows she was loved because she knows that we invested in the relationship. As parents and caregivers of children, we never really know what “right” is. There’s no formula. The goal is not necessarily to be a better parent. The goal is to find joy on the journey. And finding the joy will make us a better parent.
In Blackfoot culture, turtles are considered to be a symbol of creation and motherhood and embody the concept that is similar to “Mother Earth” in English. To the Blackfoot, the turtle is patient, wise, knowledgeable, and long-lived. The Blackfoot saying Iikakimat mookakiit means be wise and preserve and can be used to describe the turtle’s characteristics. And these characteristics fit well into my own approach and philosophy of raising accountable kids: be patient, wise, a good role model and the kids will be alright.