She just won’t take ownership

‘How do I deal with my peers who don’t take ownership or won’t hold themselves accountable?’

When I asked you recently to share your leadership frustrations, this one came up more than once.

There could be several reasons for this and I find the most common ones are these:

• You don’t have a strong, collaborative relationship with that peer. Action: Find ways to strengthen the relationship so you can mutually support each other.
• Your ‘ask’ is unclear—you’ve not been clear on the deadline, the task, or the importance of a piece of work. Or your ‘ask’ is ambiguous. Action: Be crystal clear on those things and collaborate on setting realistic actions, accountabilities and deadlines. Also, ask yourself—what’s in it for them?  And make sure you can answer that question!
• Your peer is struggling with workload Action: See point 2! You may be able to lighten their load or support them with something.
• It may be that your organisational goals are unclear or in conflict – when ‘everything is a priority’, nothing is a priority. So what is the big goal for which you are both accountable?

Other things you can do?

• Role model what accountability and ownership look like.
• Ask questions such as, ‘How can we both hold ourselves accountable?’ and ‘Which part will you own and which part will I own?’

Still getting nowhere?  An honest conversation is required.  First, seek to understand their perspective rather than blame or attack and then decide what you want to do next.