In practice: There is a certain freedom in a place that does accountability well. It sounds counterintuitive — most people associate accountability with consequences, oversight, someone watching. But that's not what it actually is.
I had coffee recently with a sales leader I know, about six months into a new job. She mentioned how much she loves the culture — specifically, that they know how to do accountability well. Here's what that looked like in practice: when a colleague started prioritizing her own work at the expense of a shared goal, the sales leader spoke to her directly. When it happened again, she looped in their manager. The conversation was had, the issue was resolved, and she walked away feeling heard. Direct, clean, done.
What made that possible wasn't a policy. It was a shared understanding that the business comes first — and that when something runs counter to that, you name it. No maneuvering around who's involved. No calculating whether it's worth the political risk to say something.
That's the freedom part. In cultures that do accountability well, people spend less energy on politics because accountability applies across the board — not selectively, not situationally. And because the expectation is clarity, people don't have to waste time wondering if they should raise something. They already know the answer is yes.
Rules can't manufacture this. You can mandate a process, but you can't mandate the willingness to have a hard conversation — or the trust that it will be handled well when you do. That has to be built. And when it is, it turns out to feel a lot like freedom.
If your team is long on rules and short on accountability, that's a solvable problem. It's also the work I do. Let's talk.