Accountability
Responsibility for decisions, actions, outcomes, consequences, and learning, rather than simply being blamed when something goes wrong.
Accountability is the willingness to own both decisions and their consequences.
In adaptive organisations, accountability goes beyond completing tasks or meeting targets. It includes understanding the impact of decisions, learning from experience, and using feedback to improve future performance.
Accountability is the prior design of who may decide, who must act and who answers for the consequences. It requires clear decision rights, sufficient authority and access to reliable information; otherwise responsibility is merely ceremonial.
Good accountability is not blame after failure. It expects people to explain their reasoning, learn from consequences and correct the work while preserving the psychological safety needed to surface difficult truths.
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