As businesses grow from start-up to mature organizations, they institute systems and structures to make sure that things are well managed. This also means hiring experienced managers to run departments.

I had a client who was the director of finance and HR and she often saw that people were not held accountable by the managers. She would often use the expression that people needed to be taken to task. This may be an outdated expression but there are still managers who think and function that way.

I remembered this when I was thinking about the relationship between responsibility and accountability. This is because I am working on a new online training program on performance  management and thinking of how to explain what the benefits of the program are.

I realized that leaders do not want to supervise their employees and be checking to see if they are doing the work properly and timely. What they want is for people to take full responsibility and hold themselves accountable.

To get to that level where everyone is taking full responsibility and being accountable takes work. And the work needs to be done by everyone, not just the leader and managers.

When I say have employees be fully responsible I mean that they function at the highest level that a human being can reach. I covered this in a recent article and video about the levels of growth and how fear plays a big part in how we function.

To perform most of the time at the responsible level requires self-awareness and personal development. An important role of the leader is to continuously provide the means for people to grow and develop themselves to function at the responsible level. Below is a list of qualities of people who function at the responsible level in the various dimensions of life. You can download the complete form and worksheet from my website.