One Common (and Easily Avoidable) Leadership Mistake

One common leadership mistake is to spread accountability for an initiative too broadly. Rather than put one person in charge, too many people are asked to shoulder the load. As a result, both risk and reward become so shared and so diluted that the project outcome is often unsatisfactory. To make matters worse, diluted accountability also makes it extremely difficult to uncover what went awry and make improvements.

Having facilitated hundreds of executives through strategic clarity sessions, we are always surprised by how often leadership teams want to assign multiple people to lead an important initiative.  Resist this urge.

In our experience (and backed by leadership training programs results), leaders need to identify just one individual who is accountable for the initiative succeeding or failing. Of course, there is typically an entire team involved with various responsibilities for managing and completing tasks, but the leader of the initiative must have the final authority to make the critical decisions required to succeed. 

This one person moves things forward without the unnecessary delay that often stymies the group-leader scenario. The smart leader focuses all efforts toward the single goal and marshals the forces necessary in a way that makes sense to accomplish that goal. The effective leader knows how to pull together a cross-functional team, inspire them to action, set clear expectations and monitor ongoing progress.

Do you have one person who is accountable for each of your key initiatives?

Learn more at: http://www.lsaglobal.com/leadership-development/