Responsibility vs. Accountability

Accountability in Practice

In short, accountability means looking after yourself. And that's not selfish or immoral. It's simply realistic. And understanding there is always a distinct difference between accountability and responsibility, not only after something has gone wrong, is the first step in figuring out what you might be responsible and accountable for, and how to be responsible and accountable. Knowing that helps you make good decisions to protect your interests or those of the company or mutual benefit organization you have invested in. Here are some illustrative vignettes:

• Many owners in homeowners associations incorrectly assume the association has separate money that can cover for errors made by the directors or the management company, and thus don't pay any attention to who is on the board, let alone consider taking a seat on the board. When unexpected expenses arise, such owners may be surprised that they have to cover the costs, and only then wonder if they could have done better were they on the board.
• A homeowners association board member, who is distinctly aware that the ownership collectively must fund all maintenance requirements, likes the idea of being on the board. But, he chooses not to go to meetings for a year. He is then surprised to find himself the defendant in a lawsuit by the owners trying to hold him accountable, along with the other board members, for hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damage and medical bills. Now he finds out that no one else on the board paid any attention to their duties for that year either, while unrepaired water leaks caused massive structural damage and noxious mold.
• Personnel officers in a commercial enterprise tell a finance officer they're going to save the company money by falsifying payroll records to avoid taxes. If the finance officer doesn't understand that, by knowing of this illegal scheme, he is now potentially accountable for unpaid taxes and civil or criminal penalties, he might not realize how important it is to his interests to speak up against it.
• The I.T. department manager delegates all his tasks and believes that accountability means merely explaining away failures, so he takes it pretty easy at work. The company suffers a devastating I.T. outage, and he's surprised to be fired despite his drive and honesty, being a strong leader, understanding outcomes and concepts, and being able to explain in detail how all his subordinates didn't do their jobs.