What Robust, Shared Accountability Really Depends On

Driving robust accountability without practicing self-awareness or connection is like driving a car safely without practicing in inclement weather or on highways.

Hi there!👋

Last week, we right-sized the urgency of focusing on alignment, connection, and impact — especially when you think you don’t need to focus on it. The quote at the top was, “Anything that shouts or whispers ‘do as I say, not as I do’ in yourself is a newfound place to bring alignment and connection.”

If this quote did not resonate with you, feel free to re-read the newsletter from last week. That newsletter is essential to the practice of alignment on a fundamental level. This week’s newsletter is an extension of it. Of all the newsletters I have ever written, last week’s and this week’s are two I’ll be sharing with every future client.

Why? Understanding how self-aware someone else is, that’s only half the equation. It is crucial for each of us, when we want to accomplish something long-term, to continue practicing self-awareness. Last week’s newsletter gave you a simple strategy to do that.

Here are five quotes that speak to the urgency and importance of the practice of self-awareness — aka: the opposite of “do as I say, not as I do”:

• "What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." – Ralph Waldo Emerson

• "The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude." – William James

• "Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom." – Aristotle

• "He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened." – Lao Tzu

• "Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves." – Carl Jung

**The last one is one of my favorites for practical reasons. 😅

As a reminder, it's the individuals who practice self-awareness and connection that achieve better results, faster, and with greater ease and success. And it’s the teams made up of these folks that drive performance and value at scale.

Developing these qualities within your team and continuing to cultivate them within yourself is the key to driving long-term performance and maximizing value.

With that being said, you cannot have robust accountability without self-awareness and connection. Here’s how the accountability required to maximize value and depends on the self-awareness and connection of everyone involved:

Enhancing the ability to empathize:

• As someone becomes more self-aware, they gain a better understanding of their emotions, thoughts, and behaviors.

• This understanding makes it easier to empathize with others and see situations from another’s perspective, fostering deeper connections and a greater sense of accountability.

Improving the use of language:

• Self-awareness helps someone recognize how they use language and words.

• By being more aware of how they themselves communicate and use language, they can better adapt to the needs of their stakeholders (both internal and external) — facilitating stronger connections, better accountability, and more effective communication.

Building trust:

• When someone demonstrates self-awareness, they show a willingness to acknowledge and address where their own actions or statements were misaligned or fell short.

• This transparency and authenticity can build trust with others, creating a stronger foundation for connection.

• As opposed to “do as I say, not as I do”, leading by example drives self-accountability and group accountability. People can tell when someone leads by example — and they are much more likely follow suit when that happens.

Resolving conflicts:

• A greater sense of self-awareness allows someone to identify their own role in conflicts and understand the emotions and motivations behind their actions. As we’ve discussed in earlier newsletters, “taking the emotion out of it” misses the mark. Rather, it’s “taking the disconnection out of it”.

• This insight can help someone navigate conflicts more effectively, leading to resolutions that strengthen shared accountability and connection rather than weaken them.

Acting with intention and purposeful prioritization:

• Self-awareness helps someone clarify their intentions and priorities, making it easier to connect with others who share mutually beneficial intentions and priorities. This alignment promotes intentional action, collaboration, and accountability within teams and organizations.

Accountability, self-awareness, and connection are interdependent because they collectively create an environment where individuals have a deeper understanding of themselves, take responsibility for their actions, and build more meaningful relationships with others.

And for anyone wondering if focusing on this could come at the expense of “the bottom line”, meet my new favorite sentence (again):“The data is clear. The companies that create the greatest total value across all dimensions of performance don’t do so at the expense of shareholder value.”

— Harvard Business Review 2023.

Alignment encompasses the creation of the greatest total value across all dimensions of performance. It maximizes value, deepens connection, and amplifies impact. It is personal. It is professional. It spans culture, strategy execution, and performance management.

And now you know how the robust accountability needed to achieve sustained success depends on the self-awareness and connection of everyone involved.

Until next time,Rachel

P.S. I welcome any thoughts you’d like to share — I read them all, always. Just click reply. 👍

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