Shivali Kukreja, Head of Risk & Compliance, nib New Zealand: Driving Customer-Centric Innovation & Strategic Impact in Financial Services.
Accountability is a simple concept: Own your actions, your decisions and their outcomes. Yet in the world of business, accountability can be elusive. When accountability is diluted, decisions become unclear, execution falters and trust erodes. Organizations stagnate not (just) because they lack talent or ambition but because they lack leaders who truly embrace accountability.
I’ve built my career transforming challenges into growth opportunities. Over the years, I’ve seen how accountability, coupled with strong governance and risk management, drives sustainable success. At its core, accountability is about clarity—who owns what, who delivers what and who is responsible when things go wrong.
As leaders, our job is to make accountability an unshakable standard. It’s not a burden; it’s a strategic multiplier that builds trust, fuels innovation and delivers results.
Why Accountability Must Start With Leadership
The moment a leader says, “That’s not my problem,” they’ve lost their team. Accountability is not just about fixing what’s broken; it’s about owning everything in your sphere of influence. Leaders don’t just oversee processes—they take responsibility for outcomes, good or bad.
Consider this hypothetical situation: An automated control was set up to catch errors in fees charged to customers and alert the operations team when something didn’t add up. But due to a configuration miss, it failed—and the issue slipped through, leading to losses. IT patched the problem, but not long after, another control failed—this time because it hadn’t been properly tested during a system update.
Operations blamed IT for not doing enough. IT pushed back, saying operations should’ve been monitoring things more closely. But no one stopped to ask the bigger question: “What more could I have done to make this work?”
This wasn’t just a system failure—it was a breakdown in leadership. No one asked the question that matters most: “What more could I have done to ensure success?”
Accountability Requires Uncompromising Ownership
Accountability should never be blurred or shared to the point of confusion. Leaders must have well-defined responsibilities, but clarity alone isn’t enough. True leadership means showing up with relentless ownership.
In the example above, IT may design a technically sound control, but if operations doesn’t monitor it effectively, the risk remains. On the flip side, operations might monitor diligently, but if IT deploys weak or untested controls, the outcome is the same.
Accountability works when every leader in the chain is unwavering in delivering their part. Anything less chips away at trust—and trust is the foundation of effective leadership.
The Role Of Risk Management In Accountability
Risk management isn’t about avoiding failure. It’s about identifying risks, preparing for them and ensuring that leaders have the tools to act decisively. Done right, risk management doesn’t stifle innovation—it accelerates it.
In the earlier example, effective risk management could have prevented failure by:
• Establishing clear ownership of each control’s life cycle, from design to monitoring
• Creating a testing framework that validates controls before deployment
• Facilitating transparent communication between operations and IT about risks, responsibilities and outcomes
Risk management forces accountability into the open. When leaders proactively address risks, they turn uncertainty into action and action into progress.
Governance: The Accountability Amplifier
Good governance makes accountability nonnegotiable. It provides the guardrails for decision making and ensures everyone understands their responsibilities. Governance isn’t red tape. It’s clarity, transparency and alignment.
In the example of the failed controls, strong governance would have:
Defined Clear Roles: IT owned technical design and testing, while operations owned performance monitoring.
Required Alignment: Regular discussions between operations and IT to address risks and validate solutions
Escalated Issues Transparently: Clear processes to ensure gaps were addressed immediately
Governance amplifies accountability by removing ambiguity and forcing alignment. It’s not about micromanagement—it’s about making sure every leader owns their piece of the puzzle.
The Consequences Of Accountability Gaps
When accountability fails, the impact is exponential. Systems, trust and performance suffer. Leaders who avoid accountability aren’t just letting their teams down—they’re letting their organizations down.
But accountability gaps are opportunities for growth. Address them directly:
• Hold performance reviews that identify the root cause of failures.
• Create metrics that tie accountability to outcomes, ensuring clarity of ownership.
• Provide leadership development to build the skills needed to own their decisions and collaborate effectively.
Accountability isn’t about assigning blame; it’s about building better leaders.
Embedding Accountability Into Leadership
Accountability isn’t a checkbox—it’s how great leaders show up every day. Here’s how to embed it into the DNA of your organization:
Set the bar high. Leaders must model what accountability looks like—own the decisions, own the results, own the consequences.
Make responsibilities crystal clear. Every leader must know exactly what they are accountable for.
Use risk management as a leadership tool. Ensure that leaders understand and embrace risks and opportunities rather than avoid them.
Measure accountability. Tie performance to clear, measurable goals. What gets measured gets delivered.
Collaborate without dilution. Leaders must align their efforts but never relinquish their distinct accountabilities.
Conclusion
Accountability is what separates good leaders from exceptional ones. It changes everything. It’s the difference between organizations that thrive and those that merely survive. When accountability is clear, embraced and relentless, organizations can move faster, innovate smarter and build trust that endures.
True accountability isn’t a shared responsibility—it’s an individual one, owned by every leader in their domain. Leaders who take ownership create a ripple effect that drives excellence across the organization.
As leaders, we have a choice: to own our outcomes or let circumstances own us. The best organizations don’t leave that choice to chance—they embed accountability into their culture, ensuring that every leader delivers.
Leadership begins and ends with accountability. Are you ready to own it?
The information provided here is not investment, tax or financial advice. You should consult with a licensed professional for advice concerning your specific situation.
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