Ensuring Accountability
Holding yourself and others to high standards of accountability, and creating infrastructure and transparent corporate culture that supports and measures personal and organizational responsibility and accountability.
Level 1. Delivers own work in keeping with commitments to others
BEHAVIORS
- Checks assumptions about mutual expectations and clarifies standards of overall performance
- Monitors the quality and timeliness of one’s work, appropriately using the resources at one’s disposal.
- Follows through with personal commitments to others.
- Welcomes and acts upon constructive feedback to improve behavior and results.
- Admits openly when mistakes have been made and take responsibility to deal with them quickly and efficiently.
QUESTIONS
- Describe a time when it was critical to ensure that your own work was on time and of appropriate quality?
Probing Questions
* What did you do to ensure a mutual understanding of the expectations with your supervisor?
* What discussions did you have with your supervisor or others and why?
* What risk factors did you identify?
* How did the final product measure up to time and quality standards?
- Give me an example of a situation where others were dependent on you meeting your commitments on time.
Probing Questions
* What did you do to keep your colleagues informed?
* How did you monitor the quality and timeliness of your work?
* How did you integrate feedback from your colleagues?
* What was the overall outcome?
Level 2. Promotes accountability within teams
BEHAVIORS
- Works with individuals to establishes clear roles and responsibilities within the team.
- Discusses with team members the objectives, deadlines, and desired results for individuals and teams, establishing regular review and oversight procedures against a plan.
- Empowers team members to take ownership of problem-solving in their own areas.
- Identifies what to measure and establishes measurement procedures.
- Shares accountability with team members for successes and failures.
- Monitors progress, quality of work, and use of resources making adjustments as needed.
- Provides regular and timely feedback to individuals and teams, such as recognition for achieving goals on time and within budgets.
QUESTIONS
- Tell us of a time when the work of your team was not up to expectations or a project was late?
Probing Questions
* Who took accountability for not meeting the expectations?
* How did you hold your team members accountable for those aspects that applied directly to them?
* What were the consequences and how did you deal with them?
* What accountability and responsibility lessons were learned from this situation?
- Describe a scenario where you assigned responsibilities to empower employees to act in a more efficient and effective manner.
Probing Questions
* What factors did you consider when allocating responsibility?
* How did you communicate the changes?
* How did you measure whether the intended goals were being achieved?
* What were some of the results?
Level 3. Holds self and others accountable across teams /functions
BEHAVIORS
- Delegates authority to match responsibility, holding others accountable for agreed commitments.
- Takes personal and open responsibility for the work of others within his / her line of authority.
- Identifies the limits of acceptable risk, congruent with achieving desired results.
- Maintains a cost-effective balance of controls and risk-taking to ensure effective and efficient operation within budget.
- Establish processes to ensure that employees have the necessary tools, resources, information, and/or equipment to get their jobs done.
- Promotes mutual aid between the team, considering the objectives of each team.
QUESTIONS
- Describe a situation where you assigned a large and complex cross-functional project to a team leader.
Probing Questions
* What did you do to identify specific responsibilities that were given to different players on the project?
* How did you measure the degree of completion or success in holding team members accountable?
* How was the ultimate accountability for the integration of all aspects of the work and final deliverables determined?
* Was the project successful? Why?
- Describe a time when you had to confront a senior member of your staff who made a decision that appeared to be contrary to legislation, codes and standards.
Probing Questions
* What did you do to prepare for this meeting/discussion with the staff member?
* Tell me the steps you followed in conducting the meeting?
* What were the potential consequences and how did you address them with the individual?
* What impact did this have on the rest of the team?
- Talk about a time when you had to define and communicate acceptable levels of risk to achieving a desired goal or outcome.
Probing Questions
* Describe the context.
* What risk elements were considered important and why?
* What were some of the offsetting controls to ensure that risks were being taken within acceptable limits?
* Were there any incidents where you needed to apply consequences for unacceptable levels of risk-taking? Please describe.
Level 4. Establishes systems and processes for ensuring accountability
BEHAVIORS
- Broadly communicates relevant standards, codes, and legislation, and consequences for non-compliance.
- Establishes monitoring systems that respect the full accountability of teams and are limited to the most critical risks.
- Establishes organizational systems for defining authorities/responsibilities; tracking, monitoring and measuring success; assessing and managing risk; etc.
- Establishes performance metrics to help understand how individuals, teams, and the whole organization are doing relative to the objectives.
- Holds other leaders accountable for giving individuals/teams the freedom in deciding how to get work done.
- Addresses systemic barriers that undermine personal and team accountability.
QUESTIONS
- When have you either developed or contributed to the development of and Authority Control Framework for your organization?
Probing Questions
* What elements did you ensure were included in the framework?
* How did you identify the necessary internal controls as part of the framework?
* What oversight was included to ensure the staff was held accountable for exercising authority within standards?
* How was the framework implemented?
- Describe a situation where you developed operational performance metrics for the organization to use in determining how well objectives were being met.
Probing Questions
* What consultation did you do as the context for this work?
* What were the key performance indicators to measure accountability?
* How were the performance metrics applied at the various levels of authority within the organization?
* How did you relate the metrics to vision and strategy?
Level 5. Builds a culture of accountability
BEHAVIORS
- Builds an organizational culture in which taking responsibility for personal activities and the actions of others is valued.
- Develops processes and organizational structures that support accountability.
- Sets a climate where the team and organizational achievements are recognized, rewarded and celebrated.
- Ensures that the entire organization is held accountable to the highest standards, codes and legislation.
- Communicates organizational actions and results to internal and external stakeholders in an open and candid manner.
QUESTIONS
- Describe a time when you were required to determine a new or modified organization designed to align to the accountability structure and maximize performance.
Probing Questions
* Was the organization completely under your control or were you developing it under the purview of a steering group of stakeholders?
* What action did you take to fully grasp the rationale behind the accountability structure?
* What were some of the more difficult challenges in aligning responsibilities, positions, units, directorates, etc with accountabilities?
* Why were you successful (or not successful)?
- Describe a situation in which it was necessary for you to build an organizational culture in which taking responsibility for one’s own actions and those of others was important.