Accountability among team members does not occur until trust is built. Since trust doesn’t just happen, if you want to enable for and encourage accountability on your team, you will have to focus your efforts initially on enabling the team members to get to know each other. Once they get to know each other, they will begin to trust each other, and will be accountable to each other.
Consider these best practices to build trust and enable for accountability on your teams:
- Enable for team building activities where team members share information about themselves both on a professional and personal level.
- Schedule assignments with shorter durations initially (chunk up tasks smaller if necessary.) This enables individuals to build trust by seeing that others on the team are meeting their responsibilities by completing assignments on time.
- Schedule regular communications as well as “social time” with the team so that they regularly talk with each other, share information and continue to build relationships with each other.
- Have the team work collaboratively to develop processes for working together/sharing work, solving problems, resolving conflicts, and making decisions.
Of course once trust is built it doesn’t mean it can’t be lost! The team leader as well as team members must continuously work together effectively and show that they can rely on each other for trust to be maintained on the team.
