The Ugly Side of Accountability - Emerging Nurse Leader

By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN

Does holding a staff member accountable sometimes backfire on the leader? One of our blog readers Heidi Brown, MSN, RN shared the following thoughts on this subject in a recent email:

Heidi’s email

There is a tremendous amount of research about the benefits of accountability; both for employee and organization. There is no disputing that. However, there is a negative side that does not get a lot of attention. The flip side to accountability is that some good people will ultimately lose their jobs. If someone is good at their job but a challenge to manage because of their lack of time management skills or repetitively late to work despite adequate counseling, the organization has human resource policies that address these.

With the significant research on leadership styles as they relate to accountability, it would seem obvious that this individual seems mismatched with the organization and will be let go. The individual unit or division might lose stability and groundwork. The overall organization seems to benefit by not having to put so many resources into managing this one person. But what happens when the employee disputes that decision and the organization ultimately reverses its position and hires this individual back? Does the unit or division benefit by having this experienced person back again? Or does morale take a hit because rules were violated but no punishment was given? In effect, accountability was attempted but thwarted. Does this manager have the ability to rebound from this situation or is this a game-changer for all forward progress? Accountability has an ugly side when it is touted as the gold standard but some are not able to make the tough calls and support those putting overall success above hurt feelings.

Heidi is not the first leader to share an experience like this with me. In a recent coaching workshop, a nurse leader talked about how an attempt to hold a professional nurse accountable for her performance led to an EEO grievance despite following HR protocols. The nurse leader’s organization was in her words “gun shy” about such grievances. She received pressure to stop the counseling around professional accountability. The staff nurse involved felt vindicated by the outcome and her lack of accountability continued. The nurse leader had invested considerable effort in trying to hold the staff member accountable but was unsure as to whether she would ever do this again.

These stories illustrate why a culture of accountability is so important in organizations. Individual nurse leaders cannot fight this battle without strong organizational support for their efforts.

Read Rose Sherman’s new book – The Nurse Leader Coach: Become the Boss No One Wants to Leave