Accountability

THE TENSION

Accountability. Most technical leaders consider themselves accountable people. They meet deadlines, they own their work, they do not make excuses lightly. What is less often examined is whether their accountability extends to the commitments made on behalf of their team - and what happens to that accountability when things go wrong.

“Accountability is not what you say after something goes wrong. It is the standard you hold before anything does.”

THE SCENARIO

Kirra Williams has been Country Mapping and Land Management Team Lead at ICAN - the Indigenous Community Action Network - for ten months. She leads participatory mapping programs supporting Indigenous land management, cultural heritage recording, and native title processes. The work is technically complex and deeply relational — built on trust between her team, community members, and Traditional Owners across multiple country groups.

A significant deliverable - a cultural heritage spatial dataset for a land management planning process - was due to the relevant land council three weeks ago. It has not been delivered. Two community consultations that were to inform the dataset ran late due to logistical challenges. A team member who held key relationships with one community group resigned unexpectedly mid-project. The mapping platform the team relies on had a licensing issue that cost ten days.

In a call with the land council’s coordinator last week, Kirra explained each of these factors carefully. The coordinator listened. The conversation ended without resolution.

Kirra’s manager, who was on the call, spoke to her afterwards. “You explained the reasons clearly,” he said. “But at no point did you say: this is on me, and here is what I am going to do about it.”

Kirra sat with that. She had framed the situation as a series of circumstances. She had not once used the word accountability in relation to herself.

The land council coordinator has worked with many organisations. She knows the difference between an explanation and a commitment.

WHAT’S DRIVING IT

Accountability is living from the viewpoint that you assume full ownership for promises and agreements made by you or on your behalf - including those that are inferred. When you are being accountable, your word can be counted on fully, without question, in every relationship and situation. It is not about blame or fault. It is about ownership, regardless of the circumstances that made delivery difficult.

Every factor Kirra cited was real. The logistical challenges, the resignation, the platform issue — these are genuine. They do not change the commitment that was made, or who made it. The land council did not receive those factors as explanation. They received them as the substitution of explanation for ownership.

Accountability in leadership has a particular weight when the relationships at stake are built on trust that has been accumulated slowly and lost quickly. In Kirra’s context, the gap between an explanation and a clear commitment to make it right is not just a professional matter. It is a relational one.

A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP WITH ACCOUNTABILITY

A healthy relationship with accountability means you will complete what you or your team have agreed to when you give your word - and when that is not possible, you clean it up without resentment and without deflection. You choose to deliver as promised or make it right when you don’t. Others know you to be someone whose word has value, rigour, and genuine power.

In practice, this looks like Kirra calling the land council coordinator and saying: ‘I want to take full accountability for the delay. The circumstances were challenging, but this commitment was ours and the delivery is late. Here is exactly when you will have the dataset and what I am doing to make sure nothing else delays it. What do you need from me in the meantime?’ That is accountability. It does not require the circumstances to have been different. It requires the response to be.

REFLECTION PROMPTS

- When a commitment your team has made is not met, what is your instinct - to explain the circumstances or to own the outcome?

- What is a current commitment - yours or your team’s - that is at risk, and what have you done about it proactively rather than retrospectively?

- How do the people who depend on your team’s work experience your accountability when things do not go to plan?

- What would it look and sound like to be fully accountable for the land council situation if you were Kirra - and what would it cost and what would it give?

If you recognise the gap between explaining circumstances and taking full ownership - The Being Profile explores how accountability operates in your leadership - and what becomes available in your relationships and your team when your word is something that can be relied upon completely. Get in touch at hello@mappingbeing.com.au

While the organisations referenced exist, the team lead, other people and the team name have been used for demonstration purposes only. Any resemblance to real-life people, teams, organisations or situations is purely coincidental.

Reference: Tashvir, A. (2021). BEING (p. 531). Engenesis Publications.

[Published: 19 October 2026]