The Team Leader’s Job—Accountability and Results

Source: Accounting Today

Bob Prosen, author of Kiss Theory Goodbye: Five Proven Ways to Get Extraordinary Results in Any Company (www.kisstheorygoodbye.com), offers these suggestions for improving accountability:

• Identify the firm’s three main objectives. There may be more, but focus on these three.
• Assign objectives to team members. The aggregate of each team member’s objectives should equal or exceed the main objectives for the firm.
• Each team member should write down what he or she needs to succeed.
• The leader is responsible for helping team members achieve their goals. Agree on what that help will be.
• The leader should meet monthly with each team member and talk about perpetuating successes and improving on less than planned results.
• At quarterly team meetings, share results and discuss ways to improve.
• Rewards should be commensurate with success.

Communications should be candid—team members want to know how they are doing.

Leaders should be attuned to the nature of conversations among team members. Are they fuzzy or do they focus on what is getting done and what is not? Do team members talk more about how hard they work instead of what results they are getting? Beware of people who are more concerned with their activities than their results. People who are more concerned with results are holding themselves accountable.

From Accounting Today, December 11, 2006, SourceMedia Inc., One State Street Plaza, 27th Floor, New York, NY 10004, 800-221-1809. For the complete article, click on the following link: http://www.webcpa.com/article.cfm?articleid=22760&;pg=acctoday&page=1.