Who Is Accountable

Leadership Practice · Holding People Accountable

This one is about holding someone to a commitment when they have a real reason for missing it — and you do it out loud, in the conversation itself. Sam is your project manager. A vendor contract deadline slipped yesterday and took a product launch with it, and he is pointing at Legal and Procurement, who genuinely were slow. Nothing to prepare beyond a quick mic check.

In this scenario you'll step into a conversation with someone who reports to you, missed a deadline, and has a good reason ready — and respond out loud.

You'll practice:

naming the real friction without letting it become the excuse
separating the effort someone made from the outcome they owned
leaving the problem with the person who owns it, when taking it would be easier

The skillHolding People Accountable

Holding people accountable is keeping an outcome attached to the person who agreed to own it, including when something real got in the way. Effort and outcome are not the same promise: sending the emails was the effort; the signed contract was the outcome. It is not toughness — the conversation has to leave the person still able to do the job, and still holding it.

In one version of this the reason is genuine, everyone agrees the other team was slow, and next quarter the same date slips the same way. In the room it looks like being reasonable: nobody piled on, nobody got defensive, and nobody said whose outcome it was — so the next hard hand-off comes back to you.

Sam is not lying — he has the emails, so agreeing with him feels like fairness and quietly ends the conversation, and somewhere in it he will offer to let you take the problem off his hands. He gives the outcome back only when the friction is acknowledged, the deadline is named as his, and he is asked why he did not escalate. Run it more than once and what becomes visible is your own default with this kind of person — which move you reach for first, and whether that is still the one you reach for later.

The situation

You manage Sam — usually your most reliable project manager. Yesterday a vendor contract deadline slipped, and a product launch with it. You asked what happened. Sam pointed at Legal and Procurement: too slow, never answered the emails.

Your job is to put the outcome back where it belongs. Cross-functional work is genuinely hard — say so. But sending the emails was the effort, and the signed contract was the outcome Sam owned. Don't flatten him, and don't take the deflection or offer to fix it yourself.

How it opens

Sam — your usually reliable project manager — defensive and stressedLook, I sent Legal the draft two weeks ago, and I followed up with Procurement on Monday. I can't force them to do their jobs faster. It's not my fault they missed our deadline.

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