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Welcome to the Upside podcast where we help you get unstuck in your life and your business by elevating your thinking and provoking meaningful change from the inside out. I'm your host, Teresa Flood, and welcome to the Upside. So last week we talked about accountability and what it means to truly be an accountable person and about owning things as an individual to get the maximum amount of results in our life. And so I want to talk to you now as leaders, those of you who are leading an organization, leading a team, leading your family, to all of the leaders out there about building a culture of accountability. Or maybe you're not leading an organization, but you are a producer within an organization. Guess what? You are a leader and you have the ability to help create a culture of accountability. So I want to give you three ways that I believe we can help really cultivate this in our, in our, in our organizations. Because when people show up as accountable, they own their job, they own their role, they own the, the results of that role and things get done. If you have ever been a leader that has felt like you have to push people like through the race, push people across the finish line, constantly give them the next step to do, it's honestly very, very exhausting. Or if you have somebody that's constantly pushing back or looking for all of the reasons why something didn't work or why something wasn't successful, that is draining, incredibly draining to a leader into an organization. So the I want to give you three things and the first one is, is higher accountable people. If it is in your control to do so, if you are the person that is adding people to the team, be sure that in the interview process that you are looking for signs of accountability. Is this a human being that takes ownership of their life or is this somebody that is constantly passing the buck? This for me is the number one reason I would not move forward with a candidate. If everything has always been somebody else's fault, if they have a hard time finding their fingerprint of what could have been done differently, if there's a constant, if there's a pattern of, of changing jobs or changing roles because of other people or other situations, this could be somebody who doesn't operate as an accountable person. It is exhausting to try to hold a non accountable person accountable. It just becomes punitive at that point. It's a drain and it will never work long term. So remember, the best indicator of future behavior is past behavior. Does that mean people are not capable of change? Absolutely not. I fundamentally believe that's why I do this podcast is because I believe human beings can change, that we're wired to grow and to become better, that our past and our past mistakes do not have to be our future. And yet what the statement that the, that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior, all that saying is is that it is hard to change. It doesn't happen without intention. It doesn't happen without a plan for growth. So just because somebody was maybe not not an accountable person in the past doesn't mean they're not now. But you have to look and observe that journey. Hal Elrod is the writer of the Miracle Morning and he says the moment you take responsibility for everything in your life is the moment you can change anything in your life. It is a powerful position to be in. So victim language, when you're in that hiring process, it is a language of excuses. I love the statement you can have reasons or results and you can't have both. You can have reasons or results and you can't have both. So victim language. Somebody who is not a person who's going to own it in your organization is going to be somebody who's. Who has a language of excuses in hard times. Did they learn something or did they blame others? You cannot coach or train a victim mindset. It will always end up being somebody else's fault and eventually it will become your fault. Now, you may have inherited people in your team or your organization that are not accountable people. And by doing the next two steps, that will either cause somebody to self select out of their organization, out of your organization, because they're going to realize they don't fit and the pressure of an accountability culture is not going to suit them. They're not going to want to be a part of that. Or you're going to have created the standard and then you can make the decision to part ways. But this, the first thing is, is just to choose accountable people because that's going to make everything else easier or unnecessary. The second thing is, though, is to model as a leadership leader, taking ownership. Acknowledge your fingerprint on both successes and failures. So about eight months ago, a year ago, I don't know, a while ago, I got in a little car accident and I was with my girls. And this is a vulnerable moment because this was definitely my fault. So don't judge me too harshly, but I'm going to make a point by this. So I was at Stonebriar Mall, and if you know Stonebriar, it is a like, you know, like a circle around the mall. So you just go in this never ending circle, it's two lanes. I was in the interior lane so farthest from the mall, going in the little loop de Loo. And we were going to be turning into Nordstrom's because that is always the best place to park. And so I needed to cross into the next lane to be able to turn in. And y', all, I don't know, I did not see her, I apparently didn't look, I don't know. But I changed lanes and I hit a lady driving, I'm pretty sure she was driving kind of fast, but again, don't know. I should have never changed lanes. That is on me 100%. And she, I didn't hit her that hard but she just lost compete complete control and went and like went up the median and hit a stop sign which was all under her car. She was very angry with me, understandably very shaken up, very, very upset. And I have my 2 at the time 12 year old girls in the car and I had a decision to show accountability in that moment. And so the police officers come and I said officer, it was 100% my fault. I changed lanes, I didn't see her, 100% my fault. I take responsibility. And I got back in the car and I told the girls, I said that that's how you take responsibility when something is your fault. And I've actually since been able to remind them of that when we've had conversations where they need to step up and take accountability. I didn't mean to do that. It was not my intention. I didn't per se do anything wrong in that. I didn't have any malicious intent to hurt her, to cause her inconvenience, right to create just a whole situation. My intentions were not bad. It was still a mistake that I made that I have to own. And so as leaders, the same thing. When we make a mistake, when we mess up, it's going to happen. There's no perfect leaders, no perfect humans out there. Be accountable and own the mistake. Leaders must be close enough to relate to, to others, but far enough to head to motivate them. So when we're showing accountability, we're doing two things. We're relating by taking ownership of what didn't work, of what mistakes we made, but also we're leading because we're saying this is where we're going and this is how we do things here and in this organization. I think as leaders we often feel that owning something will make us look weak. If we admit we did something wrong, then we are going to look weak. Uh, but the truth is, is people want to know. They're not looking for perfect leaders to follow. They're looking for people that have the character and the vision to take them forward. Um, people might avoid accountability due to fear of negative consequence. So when we praise other people that are taking ownership, right? That creates a situation where somebody can come to you and say, hey, I, I need to own this. This didn't get done and it should have gotten done. I didn't call this person back and it's now caused this kind of repercussion. So but when you, when you praise somebody for taking accountability, it fosters that type of ownership. So model taking ownership, but then foster a coaching culture. Because what a coaching culture does is it allows somebody to take, to take responsibility and to own something. So you set clear expectations and standards with your team. Make sure that the people around you know what's expected. You cannot own something if you don't understand what it is in your job to do. Right? So the first thing you have to ask, ask as a leader, if somebody is not following through, somebody hasn't done something. Have I clearly communicated what the expectation and what the standard is? Give people regular feedback. People appreciate knowing where they stand. They want to know if they are doing a good job. Accountable people want to be praised when they do well. And they want to be saved the embarrassment of doing something wrong or the failure, the failed result of doing something wrong. So provide regular feedback to, to create this culture of accountability. Ask questions that promote self reflection and responsibility. When you give somebody the ability to come up with the idea themselves by asking powerful questions, you will cause them to own the next steps. Make sure your goals are personal and relevant to the individual. Right? Right. So that when they are doing their job, when they are working every single day, they understand the bigger picture of what it's attached to. If it doesn't matter to them individually as a human being, if it doesn't make any difference in their life, they're going to have a hard time long term being committed and owning those things. The quality of your life, Tony Robbins says, is determined by the quality of your questions. So jump in. Cause people to think around you. Create that coaching culture. So again, surround yourself with accountable people. As much as it depends on you, it will be far easier if you start with people that are truly accountable. Number two, model taking ownership. It does not make you a weak leader, it does not make you a weak parent. It does not make you a weak human being. As a matter of fact, I would say it takes strong strength to take full accountability. So model that to the people around you. Praise them, fill their bucket when they do take ownership of something. And then the third thing is foster a coaching culture. Ask questions, help people self discover so that they can take ownership of their roles. And that's all I have on that for today. Remember, when you invest in your growth every single day, you yield great returns in your life and your business. If you have not gone to my website, teresaflood.com and subscribed every week to my subscribers that are part of the Upside community, I'm going to send you a teaching guide. And if you go all the way back to episode one where I talked about personal growth, I share that. I believe one of the most powerful ways that we can grow is to teach what we learn to other people. And so if you are a leader who is is teaching a staff or a team on a regular basis, these teaching guides are literally handouts that you can use based on each episode to turn around and to take this content, make it your own. You don't have to give me any credit at all and give you a resource and a value to take and turn around and teach. Because I do believe not only is it going to help the people that you're leading and it's going to help you grow in massive ways. So go to teresaflood.com that's going to add you to my subscriber list and that email will come out every Thursday after the new episode drops. Again, thank you for listening to the Upside and we'll see you next week.