What does your team want to be known for? Belonging + Accountability = Identity

One of the many things I love about my whanau is our deep sense of identity. I’m grateful to have grown up in a family environment that has belonging as its foundation, and my wife and her sisters and their partners are all instilling in all of our kids the values from their families that create identity - what it means to be part of this group. I saw it not so long ago in a simple gesture. We were with my wife’s grandfather, and my son went and gave him a hug as soon as he saw him. Pretty low key, nothing special about it. Until that 91 year old man remarked how much he loved that every time my son sees him he goes straight to him, gives him a hug and asks how he’s doing. "He always looks after me," said Nono. It’s a small thing that I hadn’t really noticed, but I would certainly notice if my son didn’t do it. It’s part of our identity as a family.

What does identity look like in teams? It’s what teams decide they want to be known for. I think it’s where belonging and accountability come together.

Belonging is your sense of place. It’s knowing that you’re part of something meaningful and that someone cares deeply about your success.

Accountability tells your people their impact matters. That they have an important role to play in this thing they belong to and their contribution is meaningful.

Of the three elements I focus on for building a team that ‘nails it’, accountability is the one that I find leaders struggling with the most. It might be because they’ve experienced it negatively in the past – it’s been at the extremes: either a blame game that bruises everyone or the tepid approach that’s as effective as steering a car by wishing it would go in the right direction.

For leaders who are early in career (and probably most of the rest of us) there’s still that nagging anxiety that holding your people accountable risks some damage to the relationship. And early in career, relationship and quick results are the two things that leaders typically focus on.

But without accountability your people get frustrated. It’s great to belong and it’s rewarding to be challenged and grow. Without accountability for delivering what’s been committed to though, your people eventually start wondering “what’s the point?”. There’s no recognition of success, and there’s no heat on to bring their best. You end up undermining all the great work you’ve done to build belonging.

Getting accountability right actually strengthens belonging. Measuring what you’ve achieved as a team, making feedback a two-way conversation about growth, creating transparency about how everyone is contributing and talking about the uncomfortable things that are holding the team back from peak performance – all in a no-blame environment (but with the agreement that everyone – including you – learns from the conversation) – all that stuff ends up reinforcing that sense of belonging.

It tells people that what they do matters. Together, belonging and accountability give a team its identity. Every person in your team knows why they are here, what the team stands for, what’s expected of them and how their contribution is making a difference.

Belonging and accountability create identity

That combination of belonging and accountability is kind of like an air traffic control tower. It tells your people where home is, tells them what’s expected, keeps them on track and alerts them early if they are off track. And it still leaves the controls in their hands.

So when you are thinking about what your team wants to be known for, think about identity. As always, here are some questions that might help!

Have a great week.