Effective Leadership Principles for the Younger Generation: Behavioural Accountability

Calling all aspiring leaders! This is a blog you’ll want to read!

In this series of posts I will be discussing effective leadership principles for the Younger Generation, principles I wish I had known about or learnt when I was starting out on my leadership journey. No matter your style, niche or scale, these principles will form the foundation of your leadership behaviours. In this series I will be covering the following principles explaining why it’s important, how you develop in this area and what you can do to start now: Communication, Authenticity, Influence, Decision Making and Behavioural Accountability.

The next principle I want to explore is Behavioural Accountability. Before you proceed with reading, I want you to imagine a world where people take ZERO accountability for their actions. People just do what they want with ZERO consequences. The world’s leaders have no interest in improving the world because they aren’t accountable. The world would be a completely different to world we live in today, maybe for the worse.

Why?

At the start of my leadership journey I wanted to increase my level of influence. However, I later realised that my influence growth was being stunted by a lack of accountability. This is where I let others take the blame for my mistakes, failed to complete actions or targets. Doing this made me feel guilty and also hampered my progress. I didn’t enjoy this feeling.

I decided to change this and start taking ownership for my behaviours and actions. Once I saw this shift I notice the following changes:

• My level of influence grew
• My happiness grew
• I formed better relationships
• I saw greater results
• I saw exponential growth and development
• I saw an increase in respect and support

The key message here is that behavioural accountability provides positive returns in your life and that you need to start being accountable for your behaviours and actions as soon as you can!

How?

So how can you start to become behaviourally accountable? Start by understanding that your behaviours drive your actions and that for every action there is a positive or negative consequence to which you are responsible.

What?

To take the next steps and elevate your leadership development, understand the above and be conscious of your actions. Once you start taking ownership and become behaviourally accountable you will reap the rewards.

Thank you for reading, JT. Don’t miss part four: Decision Making.