How Leaders Inspire Accountability: Turning Ownership Into Trust

Accountability in leadership isn’t about blame — it’s about ownership.

In this episode of Relationships at Work, host Russel Lolacher talks with leadership expert Michael Timms on how great leaders inspire accountability by modeling it first. Together they explore how to move beyond micromanagement, empower teams through clarity, and build trust that fuels performance.

You’ll learn how to:

• Redefine accountability as ownership, not punishment.
• Model accountability to inspire your team.
• Build a culture where people take pride in results.

Michael Timms is the author of How Leaders Can Inspire Accountability: Three Habits That Make or Break Leaders and Elevate Organizational Performance.

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Transcript

Russel Lolacher: And on the show today, we have Michael Timms, and here is why he is awesome. He's a leadership development consultant, bestselling author and keynote speaker who specializes in helping CEOs and management teams create cultures rooted in leadership and accountability that lead to sustained growth and peak performance.

He does a lot with a lot. His latest book, How Leaders Can Inspire Accountability, Three Habits That Make Or Break Leaders, and Elevate Organizational Performance. While it helps us begin transforming positional leaders into true leaders. He's a TEDx talker. He's got one under his belt where he talks how to claim your leadership power.

It's getting a lot of attention if you haven't watched it, highly recommend, but don't do that right now 'cause I've got Michael here for us right now. Hi Michael.

Michael Timms: Hey Russel, how's it going?

Russel Lolacher: It's going really, really well. I always enjoy talking to a fellow Canadian. Thanks for being on the show.

Michael Timms: Yeah, for sure. No, I it's likewise, man.

Russel Lolacher: All good. And there's a lot of Americans that listen to the show. I'm sorry, there's not gonna be many, abouts. There's not gonna be a lot of sorries. We are west coasters that is not as much here as East Coast. So sorry to disappoint.

Michael Timms: That's right.

Russel Lolacher: Before we get into it, I'm super excited 'cause accountability is something I talk about a lot on the show and the lack of accountability.

But before I get into any of that, 'cause I've got so many questions, Michael, we have to start with the first question we start every episode with, which is, sir, what is your best or worst employee experience?

Michael Timms: Yeah, I, you know, I'd, I'd be hard pressed to come up with a best employee experience. I actually, so recognize Russel, I'm a consultant for a reason. And and one of those, well, for several reasons, but one of those reasons is because, um you know, when I was working in industry, I had five, five managers in three different companies.

And throughout my career my managers progressively got worse. And so first guy, great guy, really cared about me. Last guy, totally did not care about me, did not care about really anybody. Total narcissist. Total... I'm, I'm, I think he was a sociopath. He just would, he just cared about his objectives, did not care about you know, people were just a resource for him to get his objectives.

And I think, I mean, you know, it was a, it was a lot of negative experiences, but really he was just a super micromanager and he would always say, just run things past me, just run things past me and it's super casual. But really what he was meaning is, don't you dare make any decision, like any decision, like that's my job.

Your job is to simply do as I tell you. So there you go. That was my worst experience and that experience lasted probably three years.

Russel Lolacher: So here's the question I always ask when it comes to situations like that. 'cause believe me, I hear a lot of those stories. I, I, I know the answer. I have a feeling I know the answer, but I, I'm curious to your thoughts, how did, what did they do within that organization to be in a position of authority?

'Cause they obviously got rewarded. They were doing something right if they're in a position to be your boss. They've moved up in the organization. They were hired at a certain level. What did they do that obviously they didn't have leadership skills, so what was it that made them, what got them rewarded?

Michael Timms: Yeah, I mean, he was a highly skilled individual. So I totally respect his skills and he actually taught me a lot about writing. And, and, you know, and, and he, he got things done. I think he was, he, he did not work his way up in the organization. He was hired you know, and, and brought in at a, at a senior level.

So, I don't know, I really actually don't know where his background, but he came in at a senior level. And you know, and, and he, he did, he got things done. So I think that's, I think that's what put him in a position of authority.

Russel Lolacher: And that certainly is gonna segue easily into our accountability thing. 'cause we automatically, we do letters of reference and they're always people above them, not people that they are responsible for. And to your point, he got things done. So anybody above him just sees the top of the iceberg and just sees deliverables and meeting milestones and not seeing the wreckage under the surface.

Michael Timms: They don't see the carnage, you know, and, and all the people that have left and, and all of the, the, you know, lives that have been destroyed. Right.

Russel Lolacher: The the entrepreneurs they've inspired, like people that just have gone off to start their own businesses because they never wanna. Yeah.

Michael Timms: Inspired me to start to, to never have a boss again for the rest of my life.

Russel Lolacher: That one leader has done more for entrepreneurship than he could possibly understand. So let's get into this. I, accountability is such a huge thing for me. I talk a lot about some of the problems with leadership ecosystems and one of the biggest ones is around accountability and the lack that we seem to have.

And your expertise, your focus, your passion is a lot around leading with accountability. So before we get anywhere, can you define accountability for me?

Michael Timms: Sure. So, I define accountability as taking ownership of results and focusing on what you can do to improve future results. So it's kind of two, two things. One is the present, the other is the future. And in the present, you know what, I'm just gonna take ownership of my current situation. I'm not gonna blame anybody for how I got here.

I am here and I need to deal with this reality, and I need to, I need to own this, and I need, I need to own the decisions that I made that got me in this position. Okay. But the other part of that is, is focusing on what I can do. And that's I think where a lot of people, really don't understand the concept of accountability because any, especially when I'm talking to CEOs and people in senior leadership positions, they want me to come and talk to them about how can they make other people more accountable. And they think that's what I'm there to talk to them about.

But I do a little bit of surprise and reveal actually. And what I do is I reveal their own bias to them. Do a little bit of psychology trick, and they realize, oh, yeah. I totally am thinking about accountability in terms of what other people need to do, not in terms of what I need to do. And really in an organizational context, the level of accountability in an organization totally reflects the accountability of the leader. So if the leader thinks that there is an accountability problem, look no further than in the mirror because nobody's gonna demonstrate accountability to a higher degree than their leader for very long.

And so, and so that's why really a lot of my work focuses on helping leaders step up their level of accountability before I teach them how to support others to be accountable.

Russel Lolacher: Now to echo what you said, you said accountability is being accountable to the results. Is that correct?

Michael Timms: Yes, taking ownership of results.

Russel Lolacher: Ownership? So I wanna go back to the story you provided because your boss was technically accountable to results. It's how we got results that was the problem, right? So. What's the accountability piece when it comes to leadership?

Because that's the journey, not necessarily the destination.

Michael Timms: I, can you expand on that just a little bit? I'm not what?

Russel Lolacher: Absolutely. Absolutely. So if your, if your responsibility as a leader is to produce a widget. So you are accountable whether that widget gets made or not. If it gets made, not how it gets made, not how many people left the organization to get it made, how many burned out, blah, blah, blah. It's focused on the result, not the getting there.

So that's why I'm trying to, I'm trying to talk account leadership with result in that.

Michael Timms: Yeah, so, and, and it de depends on how you define results. If you're thinking about results as simply. You know, getting that, that widget I would say that's not, that's not a thorough explanation or definition of, of results. Results also talks about, you know, results is about you know, what you produce and the impact.

So. What, you know, what was the impact? What impact did you have on the individuals? What impact did you have on their performance? What impact did you have on the organization and the systems that you left behind? Is the organization stronger because of your influence? Can they, did you expand the organization's capacity?

These are all results that, that we need to take ownership of. And hopefully people in leadership positions see their responsibility as more than simply producing widgets. It's also the impact that they have on individuals organizations, systems, and, you know, the ability of the organization to, to do even better going forward.

Russel Lolacher: Thank, thank you for the clarity. I just, I know some people will look at it and go, well, I'm accountable to the result. I like ends justify the means to get me there. It doesn't matter. I'm like, yeah, but you're missing the leadership part, so I really, really appreciate the clarity in that. Thank you.

Michael Timms: I, can I actually expand on that just a little bit? Is that okay? The reason why it's important, so accountability is, is truly about results. As opposed to activities or tasks. And that's the distinction that we need to understand. You know, when we're talking about accountability you know, a lot of people are, you know, super busy doing things that do not produce results.

And they're, but they're saying, Hey, I'm doing, I'm doing my job. I'm checking these things off of my list. Right? You told me to do this. I'm doing, I, I did this. I think the thing that we need people to understand is that nobody was hired, nobody on the planet was hired to complete a list of tasks.

Everybody who is hired, who's being paid, they're being paid to produce certain results. And that is, I think, the key mind shift that or, or probably the problem if, if, if you as a leader feel like you're not getting the results that you want, I bet you people don't know what they are hired for. I bet you a lot of people on your team think that their job is simply to complete tasks and they think you are the person that needs to take ownership of the results.

But it's the leader's responsibility to help people understand what results were you hired to produce. You, you were not simply hired to do these tasks. What results were you hired to produce? And I think the more clear leaders can be with people about this, this is, these are the, these are the results I want you to produce , the, the more the, the the more results they will get, the better the results that they will, that they will get. Does that make sense?

Russel Lolacher: Yeah, it does. It does. You also touched on something where you kind of dipped your toe in it, and I want to just clarify what's the difference between responsibility and accountability?

Michael Timms: Yeah. And that is the difference is the focus on results versus tasks. So the responsibility is good. We want responsible people. We want to be able to count on, we wanna be able to count on people to do what they say that they're gonna do. Right. So that's good. But we more than being able to count on people to do what they say they're gonna do, we want to be able to count on people to accomplish what they say they're gonna accomplish, to produce what they say that they're, they're going to produce. So if I ask Russel to do something because I know he's an accountable person, it's as good as done. I know that if Russel encounter, he's gonna encounter problems when I ask him to do this.

For sure. There's gonna be things that are gonna come, you know, out of the, out of the, the weeds. And he's not gonna see these things coming, but he's gonna problem solve around it. And, and I know that because, you know, he's an accountable person, he's going to deliver the results that we've asked him to, to deliver.

And if he can't, he's not gonna make me bear the consequences for him, not he's gonna say, Hey, look. I wasn't, you know, I encountered this, this is a problem. Here is how I'm gonna mitigate it. It's not, it's not the ideal outcome, but I'm gonna make sure that you don't suffer the consequences of me not, you know, delivering exactly what, what you wanted me to, to, to deliver.

So that's the difference between accountability and responsibility. Account responsibility is taking ownership of tasks. Accountability is taking ownership of results.

Russel Lolacher: So what does it mean to you for somebody to be held accountable? Because we talk about it like you're accountable. Like, okay, but then they don't meet those things or they don't, they don't hit the vision of what they've said. What's, what are the consequences like that? I'm just trying to understand that because we throw the word accountable around, but then there's no, doesn't seem to be a lot of follow up.

Michael Timms: Yeah, so there's two sides to that coin. So first of all, I'm gonna suggest that we have screwed up the word accountability, and we have, we have used as a society, we've turned this word accountability. We've used it as a euphemism for blame and punishment because typically when we're saying we need to hold that person accountable is because they did something wrong and they need to be punished.

And so when many people use that word accountability, what they're really saying, it's just a nicer way of saying that person's to blame and they should be punished. And so I think we need to be careful about I, which in my opinion is the wrong way of using accountability that is not accountability, that is blame and punishment.

Let's be clear, let's be clear. When you think somebody is, is, is culpable and they should be punished, let's just say that, right? Let's not use this, this nicer word of accountability because ideally what we're, what we want is people need to take accountability themselves. Okay. So I prefer to say, Hey, I'm gonna support you to be accountable.

We all need support to be accountable. I have you know, one of the people on my team she holds me accountable. She helps me actually I'm gonna again, back that up. She doesn't hold me accountable. She supports me to be accountable. 'Cause I, I think most of us do want to be accountable. Most of us do want to be proud of our work and the results that we produce, and so we need people around us to support us to be successful and to, and to to achieve those desired results. So thought I'd make that clarification.

Russel Lolacher: I appreciate that. Yeah.

Michael Timms: You were also asking how, how do we, so when people don't meet, don't achieve what we want them to achieve. Is that what you're getting at?

Russel Lolacher: Yeah. I mean, we're holding somebody accountable. What does that mean? And positive or negative, it doesn't have to be, you know, not attaining something. But how do we follow up? Like other than just using as a lip services, it's a word that we use.

Michael Timms: Yeah, I think, I think in the way that you are talking about it, I think there needs to be a, a key component of accountability is consequences, positive and negative. And so, a leader who wants to get the right results had better focus on celebrating wins and providing positive consequences for achieving the right results.

And those positive consequences don't need to be monetary. They could simply be telling stories like, Hey I just, Hey team, can you gather together? I just wanna tell you a quick story. Russel, I'm gonna embarrass Russel for a sec here, but he did this and he did this, and this was the... this was the result that he produced.

This is precisely when we talk about the value of of follow through the, the, the follow the, the value of accountability. This is what we're talking about, right? So that's a positive consequence. You know what, and, and it's also modeling and teaching at the same time. When people don't get the right results. Really the consequence needs to be we as a leader, we just need to address it. And believe it or not, believe it or not, that is one of the, my toughest jobs as a leadership consultant, as a leadership coach, is to help leaders address problems directly. Because most people, even those, and I'd say sometimes, especially those in leadership positions, have a real tough time addressing performance problems directly. They talk around it, they sugarcoat it, but they don't say, Hey, you know what? You agreed to do this. You didn't deliver. What's up with that?

Russel Lolacher: Yeah.

Michael Timms: And, and that's, that is a consequence. And I think that's pretty much a summary of that's how we can hold other people accountable when they're not achieving what we want them to achieve.

Russel Lolacher: In, in your book, you talk about three habits of accountability. You talk about stopping blame, stop blaming making, expectations clear, which you've talked on, and ask for commitments. What are we getting wrong? What of those are we getting wrong do you feel, or or at least could be used, be a little bit more focused on?

Michael Timms: Yeah, so. I, I think we're, we're getting all of those actually, we're, we're not consistently doing so, and I'll just, I'll put those into my words. So I call the three habits of personal accountability and, and I teach about account personal accountability first, because as we model the way it has this magical effect on other people's behavior. They then feel more safe to say, oh, you know what I dropped the ball and here's what I'm gonna do to fix it when we're modeling accountability. And so the highest standard of modeling accountability really comes down to three simple habits. Don't blame. Don't blame other people or circumstances for your problems, right? You are where you are. And when you blame other people or circumstances, it actually kills accountability in yourself. It kills accountability in others because nobody is going to take accountability if they think they're gonna be blamed for doing so. So, so if you want, if you want a whole workforce of people who are absolutely terrified of taking accountability, then go to town and you just start blaming them for stuff, right?

And you'll create a workforce of people who's like I, nobody is gonna take ownership for any problems because they know it's a career limiting move. But if you teach people, so anyways, that's habit one. Habit two is look in the mirror. So say, Hey look, when I'm approaching a situation, let's say for example, you're, you're not hitting your targets.

Or let's say you're missing deadlines. You know, I'll be like, Hey Russel you agreed to this deadline. You missed this deadline. What's up with that? But also say, Hey Russel, you know is there anything that I'm doing or not doing that maybe contributed to you not hitting that deadline?

What can I do differently to support you hitting that deadline next time? So let's talk about that. I'm gonna take ownership for, for my part. If I wasn't clear on the objectives, Hey, I'll commit to be more clear. And looking in the mirror is taking ownership of what is my part in this problem. Okay. I'm not saying you missing deadlines is my fault.

That's not what I'm saying, but I'm saying that I probably have a part to play in you not meeting your deadlines. Okay. If I'm your leader. And then the third habit is engineer the solution. What can we do so I can maybe, you know, are there any systems or processes that we can put in place that will make it easier for you to hit your deadlines next time?

Okay. But instead of, the problem is, is that. Our brains, you know, oftentimes we'll hear, oh, we need, we need to give other people the benefit of the doubt. Right? That's, that's a good person. That's a good practice. We need to give people the benefit of the doubt. Well, the problem is, is most people don't realize that our brains are wired exactly the opposite.

There's this weird psychological gremlin that we all have roaming around in our brains called the fundamental attribution error, which actually anytime that we see a problem, if there were 10... If we walked into a room and there was like 10 10 possible reasons, and we see this problem, there's 10 possible reasons for this.

If one of those reasons is a human being, that's the only thing we see. We only see the human being and we completely disregard the nine other things that could have contributed to that problem. We are functionally, we are blind to other causes of problems including our own behavior, right? We're, we're often blind to how our behavior has contributed to this, this problem.

So my point is, is that as we, as we recognize that it becomes easier to, to resist the urge to blame, to look in the mirror and first, and say, Hey, before I'm, before I'm pointing fingers, and, you know , trying to figure out what other people did wrong, let's figure out what's my part in this. And as I take ownership and I say, Hey, you know what?

This was my bad. Other people are gonna be far more willing to do that. And then thirdly, let's engineer the solution. Let's come up with a solution that... here's, here's the opposite of an engineered solution. Russel, just be more careful next time. So if you say, just be more careful next time for something like that, you can almost guarantee it's gonna happen again.

Right, because we all make mistakes. We all, you know, get tired. We, we forget things we shouldn't forget. You know, we get distracted, right? There are, there are problems with being a human being, right? What can we, how can we engineer human fallibility out of this situation so we get better results next time? That those three habits are what I call the three habits of personal accountability, and as you do a, a better job of doing that, you raise your standard of accountability to the level that it actually inspires other people to do the same thing.

Russel Lolacher: Thank you for that. Staying on the personal accountability side of things, talking about how leaders may not necessarily see, like I think when we were talking before, how people will come, leaders will hire you, CEOs will hire you and go make them more accountable, not realizing that they are a piece of the puzzle.

What's the mindset shift from a personnel accountability piece, to get them to connect those dots going, you know what, it's actually, it starts with you. But they have to start thinking differently 'cause that's obviously not been their thought process up until you're in the room telling them differently. What's helped shift them?

Michael Timms: Honestly, it's this little psychological trick that I do that that helps 'em actually see their bias. And and really here, here's a, here's a summary of it. What I do is I say, Hey, look, there are basically three ways in which you can influence accountability within your organization. One is through your own personal example. Two is through, you know, the way in which you hold other people accountable, support other people to be accountable. And three is there are some organizational changes you'd like, you know, that leaders can make that will make it easier for people to get the right results. So, if you had the choice of what to learn about today, what would you prefer to learn about? Would you prefer to learn about, how to set a better example yourself, how to hold other people accountable or organizational changes you can make to improve accountability. Now, I've already told them, and what I do is I get them to vote using a live polling app. They vote and I say, okay, so I haven't seen the results, but I know what you've, I know what you've, you've said I, I know none of you have, or maybe one, you know. But almost none of you have have said you want to focus on your own example of accountability, right? I don't know what the, what the, the number one thing is, is that you wanna learn about, but that's, I know is gonna be the last thing you're gonna learn about. I show the results in always it is to a T, exactly the way they voted.

And that's a little light bulb moment that they realize, oh yeah. And I said, look this highlights your own bias around accountability, because the other two things are, what, what can we do with other people? Right? Because they're the problem. It's, it's, the irony is, is it's your example that has the greatest impact on organizational accountability.

Nothing I can teach you about how to support other people to be accountable or changes you can make to the organization... None of those things will work until you are already setting a high standard of accountability because what's gonna happen is people are gonna say, you know, look, you actually have to earn the moral authority to hold other people accountable.

And the way you earn that moral authority is by saying, you know what? We've got a problem here. Here's my part in the problem. I'm gonna do this better. What are some other factors, you know, that may have contributed this, you know, be, you know, us getting here and what can we do to solve this problem?

When you do that, and if people aren't volunteering and saying, yeah, and I'm part of the problem too, you've now earned the moral authority to say, okay, Russel, and what's your part in this? How might you have contributed to this problem? It's pretty tough for you to get mad at me or to take offense to that when I have gone first, right?

And people, but people get really pissed when their leader comes in at them and says, we've got a problem. What are you gonna do differently next time? People do not like that, right? Because you have not earned the authority to call them out. And so, anyways, getting back to the mindset shift, the mindset shift, the mindset shift is to say, look, I, I need to do a better job myself of holding myself accountable and to modeling that example so that.

So that people know what's expected and people know that it's actually not a career limiting move to say, Hey, that was my bad and this is what I'm gonna do to fix it. People recognize that's the way we do things around here. It's not about blame. It's about getting the right results in the future.

Russel Lolacher: So we're looking to introduce this into our team that we're responsible for. As a leader, we're responsible for a group of people regardless of how big it is. Is it modeling? Is it, I hear communication being a big piece of this as well when it comes to introducing accountability into a team. Because if we're doing this self work, we're working on our mindset shifts, but our team might be diverse.

It might have different generations that we're working with. How do we introduce this that is palatable to a team that might not be used to accountability as part of their culture.

Michael Timms: Yeah, the, the first thing is, is model those three habits yourself. Do that for a while before you talk to your team about accountability. You need to model those three habits for a period of time to earn the moral authority to talk to them about stepping up their accountability. So that's step one, and you need to do that for a while. I'm talking months, months of doing your best to model those behaviors. Step two is to define, clarify the difference between responsibility and accountability and say, Hey, look, I would like us to, I think we can do better. I think we can, we can execute better.

I think we can get better results. But in order for us to get better results, we have to know what results we're supposed to get individually and collectively. And I, and I think people need to understand, again, I think most people are confused. Most employees are confused. They think that they were hired to simply doing their job is simply, Hey, I did what you told me to do, and I think people think that that is their job. And it's the leadership's responsibility to clarify that's not what I hired you to do. I did not hire you to do this. I hired you to get these results. Now, of course, there's gonna be some things that are out of your control, but I'm, I'm asking you to own the things that primarily within your, within your control, right? So I think that that is step two is to make sure that people understand what results they are responsive to achieve. And if they understand what results they're, they're, they're accountable for and they feel psychologically safe, they feel safe, that if they don't get those results, it's not gonna be chopping off their head. Then they won't feel that they need to point the finger at their teammates and they'll be like, oh yeah, you know what? I didn't, that's, that's on me and, and I gotta do better. Right? And that's how you foster that continuous improvement mindset is to you model those, those behaviors and, and then help your team understand what they're accountable to deliver.

Russel Lolacher: I, I think you touch on something there that I don't think a lot of leaders get, and that's framing it around ownership. Accountability is one thing, but for whatever reason ownership seems to motivate. Ownership seems to give that purpose to a lot of teams because they feel like they have more skin in the game.

They're empowered by it. By having that ownership, even though accountability is wrapped up in it. They under, they somehow understand, I'm just talking from my own experience, but when you have a team that you give them ownership of their deliverables, their ideas, their attempts, failures, and everything, it seems to almost give the team more cohesion.

It gives the team more inspiration, motivation when they feel like they're a part of something as opposed to being told to go do a thing.

Michael Timms: It's, it's hard to, its a lot of pride and... And pride is, is is part of ownership. Like when we say, oh yeah, this is my baby, right? This, I am proud of this, this is my thing, right? I want, I, I am emotionally invested in the success of this thing. It's really tough to get emotionally invested in delivering activities or checking things off your box, right?

It's much easier if your, if your leader comes to you and says, we, we have a problem. This is the outcome we need. Can you deliver this for us? I'm not gonna tell you how to do it right. I mean, if you have questions, I'm for sure I'm here to help. But this is the, this is a result we need, can you, can you deliver this for us?

I can get emotionally invested in that. So yes, I will be, I will get this done for you. Right? And that's, that's... ownership is a feeling. And we can help people feel that way, or we can, we can make it hard for people to feel that way. And when we're focusing people on do this, do this, do this, do that.

It's hard to make people feel that way. They're not gonna feel that way. But when we focus on this is, this is the problem. This is what we need delivered, and this is why it's important. Okay, I can get behind that. And that one shift, if you can make that shift within your team you're gonna find people are far more willing to problem solve around the things that come up. Right? If I, if I simply tell you that as a silly example, but let's say, let's say I need you to, Russel, can you run to the store and grab some bread, milk, and eggs? And be back here in an hour. If I just say, Hey Russel, I need you to take my car. I need you to go down this road. I want you to go to this store, get bread, milk, and eggs, and be back in an hour.

If you jump into my car and it doesn't start, you're gonna come back to me and say, Hey Michael, I can't do what you want me to do, because you know, your car doesn't start. Or if the, if the road is blocked, sorry Michael, I can't do what you wanted me to do, or the store isn't open, Michael, I can't get what you want because the store isn't open yet.

But if I just simply said, Hey, look Russel, I need bread, milk, and eggs here, back here in an hour because we're making we're making french toast, right? Can you deliver that? And I don't tell you exactly how to do that. That frees up your mind to problem solve around the things that are gonna come up, right?

Because you're, you're, you, you're not seeing your job as going in this car, going down that street, going to that store. You're seeing your job as delivering that result. So again, the more you can focus on results the, the better your outcomes are gonna be to.

Russel Lolacher: That's why I love that you reframe it as in asking for commitments as opposed to assigning tasks. Because commitment's a promise. Commitment is, I'm in it with you. We're a team, as opposed to, yeah, I can checkbox leadership too and just, you know, go through all these things and at the end of the day, you're not really moving the needle on anything and the team doesn't feel like a team otherwise, is it, how do, how do you turn it around for team members that don't feel ownership?

Because going back to that whole diversity side of things, we're not all the same. We don't all pull in the same direction when it comes to the vision and the mission on the board. We're trying to inspire ownership in a team that may look at ownership differently than us. How do we reassess that?

Michael Timms: You know, I think, I mean there are, as you asked that question, I think you and me and all of your listeners are thinking about some people on our teams who are probably just never gonna get there. Right? I think, is that, is that kinda where you're going?

Russel Lolacher: Well, it can be. I mean, there's, I, I think my always issue with that is, there's two ways of looking at it. One, we have to be adaptable as leaders. We have to listen and know our... so here's an example. I did an exercise with a team I used to run where we did a values and motivation exercise. So we went through the values and then we also shared them with each other so that we knew what each of us actually cared about.

The other piece was about motivation. What's our primary, what's our secondary motivation? But then we had it as a conversation piece because what motivates me doesn't motivate Sally. But now I can communicate with Sally in a different way because now I know what motivates her family money. Whatever. So I see this as trying to understand ownership in the same way is what is ownership to you as a leader, can I make those efforts to understand that so that I can cater the conversation and communication to you so it connects. On the flip side of that, yes, they may never get it, but we have to at least try to a certain point before it's a, it's a lost conclusion.

Michael Timms: Yeah. I think the, I think what you're getting at and, you know, you talked about how, how you got there, but what you're getting at is if you want people to own results, take ownership of results. You need to care about them. If you rather, let me rephrase that. If you want people to care about the outcomes, you want them to, to produce you, they need to feel that you care about them. And I think that's really the starting point of, of helping people, you know, feel that ownership is that and, and people's willingness to emotionally invest themselves, their blood, sweat, and tears into accomplishing what you want them to accomplish is that you, if, if they feel that you care about them as much, you know, if not more than those results , they're gonna go the extra mile for you. If they feel that all you care ab you care about them as much as to the extent that they can produce the results that you want. Your relationship with them is gonna be transactional. It's gonna be very quid pro quo, right? What have you done for me lately?

And if you know, and if you, if I'm not getting paid for this, it's not getting done right, I'm not going to, I'm not going to go that extra mile, put in that extra effort. So, I think the key thing is is, and I know there's arguments about this you know, everybody needs to be treated differently.

I think the, the essence of that though is we just, as leaders must demonstrate that we care about the individual. That doesn't mean that we're not firm on standards and we're not firm on, Hey, this is what has to be done, but that they know that we care about them first as a human being and that we're there to support them to, to get those results.

So that's my thought.

Russel Lolacher: Fair. I wanna pull back the lens a little bit in this next next couple of questions because we're talking at it from a leader and the responsibility they have to a team. But you work with CEOs, you work with a lot of larger lenses, macro lenses to an organization. What does an accountable culture, accountable organization, what does it look like?

How did, how are they making that part of operations?

Michael Timms: What does an accountable culture look like? It, you know what in high risk organizations, it looks like me saying, Hey, Russel. Look, what you're doing is not safe. I'm not comfortable with that. I don't want to be right. So I need you to stop doing that right now. An accountable culture is where you're, that you understand, you understand the priorities, and you understand the desired outcomes and the desired outcome, you know, in many organizations that I work with is, is safety.

That's a, that's the number one priority. You know, and it's, it's me holding you accountable to agreed upon safety standards, right? We were all there, we all agreed to these standards. I'm seeing you not, not living up to this. I'm gonna call you out because I like, because I care about you and I don't, I don't wanna see you hurt.

I think that's an accountable culture. I think an accountable culture is when you say, Hey Michael you know, you kind of. When you said that thing, that kind of, that kind of rubbed me the wrong way. And, and it, you know, it didn't feel good and, and me saying, oh, you know what, Hey, thanks man. Thanks for bringing that to my attention. You know, I'll, I'll do my best not to do that. Again, that's an accountable culture when you can, when you can give each other feedback without everybody getting their, their backs up, you know, against the wall. Those, so those are just some examples. If you want like one example that comes to mind of how like a leader created a more accountable culture really is around performance management.

She, it was just a couple of simple tools, simple tricks that I gave her. She was struggling with, how do I hold people accountable? How do I, you know, and and I just taught her. There's a couple of key, key practices to helping people be accountable. One is to have one-on-one discussions with each individual. You cannot hold people accountable unless you're meeting with them individually on a regular basis. It just will trust me. It just will not work. And so I taught her about that. I also taught her about lessons learned debriefs. And so at the end of either a period of time or if it's a project based organization, the end of every project, we need to build time into the schedule to have lessons learned debrief.

And I actually phrase a lot of people call 'em retrospectives or whatever, but I'm specific on this is what is the purpose of this? The purpose of this is to extract lessons learned, right? And so when she got in the habit of doing that with her team, just those two things she said, totally transformed performance management. No longer is it this, you're not doing this and you need to do this and you're gonna get a low performance rating. She said it opened up communication and people were totally willing to say, yeah, how can we be better? How can I do better? And when it's framed, when you're building that relationship in one-on-ones and you're and not just building that relationship but building that communication vehicle through regular one-on-ones that they know that they can talk to you about the stuff that's important to them. And you're having regular lessons learned debriefs. It makes performance management. She called, she said it's like performance management made easy. It, it's no longer this perfunctory duty that I have to do and that everybody dreads people are actually looking forward to having these lessons learned debriefs and our one-on-ones to, to, you know, facilitate communication and figure out how can we, how can we be more successful individually and organizationally. Sorry, that's, that's another example of what I have seen.

You know, how these practices and habits can transform an organization to have more of a an accountable culture.

Russel Lolacher: How would you see it demonstrated? Is it executive, is it HR? I'm thinking of it from the lens of consistency and standardization, because not all leaders are created equal. Not all leaders have the tools to have those one-on-one conversations, and yet, if you want accountable culture, you're gonna have to get some baselines figured out.

You're gonna have to, again, consistency and standardization. How do, what does that look like?

Michael Timms: And that's actually why I work with organizations the way I work with organizations. Because if you want to create an accountable culture, there's gotta be some baseline behaviors that we expect of all leaders. Okay. Behaviors and practices. And I focus, what I do is I work with, when I work with an organization, I work with their top level first.

And I introduce these behaviors and practices to that top level first. And I say, before we tell anybody else about this stuff, I want them to see you model this stuff. Right? I want them to see you model these, these, these principles. And it's important that we, that we do this together. That we're all hearing the same message and that it's, and that it's supported, you know, by the CEO and the, and the top leaders, then we can, you know, bring this down.

But another key to my approach is that there are a million things you can focus on to be a better leader and to create this culture of accountability. I really focus on a handful of things, just a handful. What are the most impactful habits and practices to, you know, to get the results that we want to get as leaders.

Leadership, most people did not get into a management position because they were interested in being a leader. Most people end up in leadership positions because they were good at something else and they were so good that they were got promoted to be a leader. And so given that that's nine the case, 90 more than 90% of the time, you know, it's my job to make leadership way easier for people. And if we just focus on those handful of few things that if you just do these few things differently, you're gonna get way better results from, from your people. That's how we can create that baseline, and I think it really starts, it starts there.

Russel Lolacher: One thing, Michael, gimme one thing. One of those few things, gimme one.

Michael Timms: Yeah. Well, I've given you a few, there's one thing.

Russel Lolacher: Yeah, well, You've given me quite a few.

Michael Timms: I'll give you, I'll just re, I'll just reemphasize the place where you need to start, if you want a, if you want to in increase performance is to cut out the blame. starts with you as the leader. People are learning that from somewhere. And they're learning that blaming is the best way to protect themselves.

And if they feel that they need to protect themselves, who are they protecting themselves from? It's you. So I'd say. If you want the, the starting point, say, stop blaming. And how do you, and so how do you address problems without blaming you say this, Hey, where did the process break down here? So when you're addressing, you're saying, Hey, what are some, you know, let, let's analyze this.

How did we get to the place where we're at, where we don't wanna be at? You know, like, what were all the factors that led us to this place? And so when you're doing that, you're communicating, first of all, you're communicating. It's probably not just one person. Okay? There's probably a number of things that got us to where we are right now.

Let's wrap our heads around all, let's, let's make sure that we're aware of all of those things. But the other thing is, is when you ask that question, you're gonna, you're far more likely to get people to respond. Yeah, you know what, Michael, now that you mention it you know, we don't have this process in place or, or we need to improve this or the equipment isn't, isn't right.

And you know what? I, I probably drop the ball in this area. I could probably do a better job. You're way more likely to get that response when you address problems without blame, by simply saying, Hey, where did the process break down here? There you go, there's my, there's my little tip for you to, to get the ball rolling in the right direction.

Russel Lolacher: I'm gonna ask you a personal question to wrap us up here, Michael. You talked earlier about having a person that helps you be accountable. How did that person become that person for you?

Michael Timms: Well, I, I hired her for that, for that purpose. So she, she she's my assistant and she also manages my projects and we, we're, we're each other's accountability partner, you know . We each commit, you know, we meet on a regular basis and we each commit like, look, she needs me to do things so she can get her job done and you know, I need her to do some things so I can get my job done.

And so, I would suggest that, look, we all have key individuals within our sphere of influence, within our workplace, and at home. And, you know, that, that I would say we need to do a good job of building an accountable relationship with these individuals and for those people at work you know, I would, I would find who are the two or three key people who either, you know, rely on my work to get theirs done or who I rely on their work to get my done, my, my work done.

And I would set up a regular meeting scheduled with them. And I would say hey, look, what are the, let's, let's first agree on what I need from you and what you need from me. Can we agree to deliver those things for each other? And then can we agree to meet on a somewhat regular basis to check in and see how things are going to make sure that I'm delivering what I've promised and you're delivering what you've promised.

So if you, that's really the essence of building accountable relationships. And the same thing happens, you know, in a marriage or, you know, partnerships, whatever. It's like, Hey, look, this doesn't work if you are not getting what you need from me. This doesn't work if I'm not getting what I need from you.

Can we just be explicit about what we need from each other? Can we, and let's, let's lay that on the table. Can we agree to these things? And if not, can we find workarounds? Because it's way easier to address things upfront, proactively than to wait for things to fall off the rails. And for us to have friction and say, you're not meeting my expectations.

Well, you never clarified your expectations of me. Right. But that's really the essence of what I call building accountable relationships. And we can, it's within our power to do that with anybody that we want.

Russel Lolacher: I'm glad you clarified that because, and I say this is, I don't want accountability be thought of as something that people have to do by themselves. I don't wanna look at it going, Hey leader, go be accountable. Go make your team accountable. It is a relationship. Hey, it's the name of the damn podcast. It's about having those relationships that can be constructive, that can be supportive, that can be honest, and they don't need to be accusatory.

Because accountability, to your point earlier, always tends to be about punishment for not delivering a thing. When really it can be just a journey to get to a thing and you don't have to do that by yourself.

Michael Timms: For sure. Love it.

Russel Lolacher: Thank you so much, Michael. That is Michael Timms, he's a leadership development consultant, bestselling author and keynote speaker. If you haven't checked out his book yet, fix that. How Leaders Can Inspire Accountability, Three Habits That Make or Break Leaders and Elevate Organizational Performance. Thank you very much, sir.

Michael Timms: Thanks so much, Russel, for having me.