Usual villains might include our company, our boss, the husband or even the wife and even our government.
   
   As for developing more accountable employees in organizations, I feel compelled to acknowledge that to some great degree, organizations created our own challenge. For the greater part of the 20th century, corporations nurtured a parental relationship with the employee through assuming the responsibility for the employee’s training, development, communication, pension and healthcare. It is somewhat understandable as our economy afforded companies this opportunity, however, as our economy changed – more accurately expanded into a highly competitive global economy – the luxury of providing such employee benefits dissipated.

   It is no wonder that as employees we relinquished much of our personal responsibility for our future to our company, after all, they were willing to assume to assume the responsibility. No longer is that the case. Employees can no longer expect life-time employment with a single organization, employees cannot expect to be provided the necessary company sponsored training as organizations are as apt to hire the necessary skills than to burden the expense of training personnel. Additionally, employees are experiencing an erosion of traditional retirement benefits, as pension plans are not being offered to new employees and being frozen for existing employees. As for healthcare, employees are being expected to shoulder a much greater part of this expense.

   As employees we are now expected to assume the responsibility for our own development, training, communication and as of recently, become more involved in making appropriate retirement decisions. Now back to our original question, can we teach accountability? Can we convince employees to become more accountable for their own success and that of their company? Absolutely, and it begins with conveying to the individuals of the organization the value, necessity and benefit of becoming more self-managing. Employees must begin realizing the repercussions of placing their success in the hands of someone other than themselves.

   And following this communication, we begin directly answering the question that begs from every employee, “what’s in it for me?” Seeking dialogue with our employees and teams as to their goals and objectives is crucial. It is important to facilitate a better understanding of the relationship between the employee’s goals and those of the company. And in so doing, a motivation to succeed arises – the realization that the more we help our company achieve their goals the more we help ourselves. Also, as employees become more accountable for their success, through assuming responsibility for their development, they also become a more valuable and less dispensable asset to the organization.

   This is only a starting place as an organization; next we begin discussing how as leaders we must begin developing a leadership environment capable of “coaching” self-responsibility.