Accountability forms the bedrock of a high-performing organizational culture, but for many teams, the tendency to shift blame creates a significant obstacle.
Often stemming from fear of failure or a lack of ownership, this behavior can undermine workforce morale, stall professional growth, and contribute to a 20% decline in employee engagement, as reported by Gallup in 2024.
In 2025, with a 3.5% unemployment rate (SHRM, 2025) intensifying talent competition and economic pressures mounting, cultivating accountability has become a top priority for business success.
The HR Spotlight team engaged with HR and business leaders to tackle the question:
Shifting blame comes easy to some employees, a habit that can be quite detrimental to workforce morale and growth. What are your go-to solutions to improving accountability within your workforce?
Their responses—from fostering open communication to implementing tech-driven performance tracking—provide actionable insights for creating a culture of responsibility and teamwork, empowering organizations to flourish amidst today’s economic and cultural challenges.
Read on!
Leila Rao
Agile Coach, Author, Cultural Cartography
Leila Rao
To strengthen accountability, start with clear expectations and shared goals. When people know what success looks like, and how it fits into the broader purpose, they can take initiative with confidence.
It also helps when work is visible. Supported, not surveilled, celebrating progress and making room for real-time course correction when needed.
And perhaps most importantly, accountability stems from feedback – especially when it’s part of everyday culture, not just isolated occasions.
A quick conversation, a thoughtful check-in, a moment of acknowledgment – these all reinforce that follow-through matters. It’s in showing up for each other that accountability becomes a shared value.
When people feel aligned, equipped, and respected, accountability doesn’t need to be enforced, it’s embedded.
Nirmal G
Founder & CMO, WP Creative
Nirmal G
I used to think accountability was about setting rules and hoping people followed them. But what really changed for us was creating a space where people felt safe to speak up.
What I noticed was that when something went wrong there was either silence or finger pointing. That slows everything down and builds tension. So we made one simple change. Every task has one clear owner. No confusion, no passing the buck.
We also started doing weekly check-ins. These aren’t formal meetings, just a chance to talk about what’s working and where someone might need help. It’s helped people feel more supported and less defensive. I also make sure to own my mistakes. If I mess up I say it. That sets the tone.
When people see being honest won’t get them in trouble they’re more likely to take responsibility. Over time that built a stronger, more accountable team.
Ushmana Rai
Owner, TDEE Calculator
Ushmana Rai
Shifting blame is usually an indication of a more insecure, confused, or untrusting state of being in people. The solution that I have always turned to is creating an accountability culture where it is seen as empowering, rather than punishing.
Define ownership clearly: There must always be one, and only one, person who is responsible for every task or project. Shared responsibility leads to shared excuses.
Make accountability visible: We just have simple dashboards open to all, with tasks, owners, and deadlines on it. The visibility alone brings in enough pressure—without micromanagement.
Normalization of accountability from the top: Leaders have to show what it means to own up to mistakes. If a manager doesn’t ever say, “This is my fault,” no one else will.
Looking forward to holding oneself accountable: Instead of raising questions like, “Who is to blame?”, we ask, “How can we avoid such things in the future?” It is a change in orientation from defensiveness to improvement.
Accountability can only be active when people feel empowered and trusted. It is not about control; it is about clarity, consistency, and culture.
Jean-Louis Benard
Co-founder & CEO, Sociabble
Jean-Louis Benard
Accountability in the workplace is important for overall success. Maintaining it is not just limited to having expectations and rules in place. One of the biggest challenges I have faced is tackling employees who have the tendency to shift blame.
To handle this issue, I focused on offering my team psychological safety, where they feel safe to own both their successes and failures. This doesn’t mean you overlook mistakes. You simply normalize failure and turn it into a learning opportunity.
The best way to do this is to stay vulnerable and open about your own mistakes and lessons. Teams are often more open to learning and improving when they feel it is okay to make mistakes.
To build a sense of accountability, clear communication is also important. Have specific expectations for each individual and goals that can be tracked so that everyone knows what they are responsible for.
Regular check-ins, celebrating small wins, and discussing areas of improvement can also make a difference.
Finally, tell your teams about the difference their work is making in the company.
When employees understand their direct impact, they are more likely to take ownership and hold themselves accountable.
This way, their morale will improve, and they will work for continuous growth.
Corina Tham
Finance & Sales Director, CheapForexVPS
Corina Tham
Fostering accountability in the workplace begins with defining clear responsibilities and demonstrating them in action.
I think it’s vital to build a culture where team members grasp their duties and feel encouraged to take charge of their work. Consistent feedback sessions and transparent conversations have worked well for me to track progress and resolve obstacles early on.
I’ve also noticed that celebrating individual achievements reinforces a sense of duty, as people are naturally motivated to keep performing well. When errors occur, I promote discussions centered on growth and solutions rather than assigning blame.
Trust is equally crucial—showing confidence in your team inspires them to respond with accountability.
At its core, it’s about creating an atmosphere where everyone feels appreciated and driven to deliver their best.
Dr. Victoria Grinman
Psychotherapist, Leadership Advisor
Dr. Victoria Grinman
From my work with teams navigating growth and change, I’ve found that blame rarely stems from malice; it’s often a protective reflex in environments where psychological safety is low and perfection is prized over process.
To counter this, I guide leaders to:
Dr. Felix Lucian Happich
CEO & Founder, Formation Consultant
Dr. Felix Lucian Happich
Any business owner will tell you that mistakes are inevitable in running an enterprise. Success will depend on how one reacts to it. To encourage accountability in the workplace, focus on the process rather than the person to blame.
Simon Sinek, author of Start with Why, has said that leaders who shift blame to employees can erode trust and create a culture of fear. He also said that accountability starts from the leaders. Instead of asking who made the mistake, true accountability focuses on why things went wrong.
Concrete ways that this can be achieved include setting up a clear system where expectations and roles are clearly defined. There should also be a regular set of feedback mechanisms that makes use of measurable and realistic goals. Clarity can help a business owner spot issues more easily.
Finally, ensure that there is a culture of responsibility in the company. Open communication and productive feedback loops should be in place. An example of this is regular check-ins and performance reviews.
Jocelyn Greenky
Founder, Sider Road
Jocelyn Greenky
When you’re seeking to improve accountability, it pays to be more cut and dried than you would be in another aspect of your business and employee relations.
Here’s my advice, stop the blame game dead in its tracks by sticking to facts: whose job was it to get a particular task done? What was the hangup? Stay business-like and non emotional.
Create, on your own, an SOP (standard operating procedure) document to ensure transparency moving forward and this may require a digital checklist.
Shifting blame is a CLASSIC tactic of manipulators – there are many in our work environments – I call this being an offensive player. Some people are brilliant at this because most colleagues are not prepared for this type of aggression.
Good bosses know a bully when they see one. Addressing micro or macro aggressions face to face will go a long way to culling bad habits in your staff and boosting company morale.
Brian Futral
Founder & Head of Content, The Marketing Heaven
Brain Futral
Kill the Hero Culture: The fastest way to poison accountability is to idolize the firefighter who swoops in to fix everything at the last minute. That mindset creates blame silos. Instead, we reward consistency, not crisis control. When someone messes up but reports it early, they’re praised louder than the person who hides it until it’s unfixable.
You want to make accountability less about punishment and more about process alignment. I run post-error celebrations. It sounds weird, but it works. We dissect mistakes over donuts. When people know they won’t be shamed, they get honest fast.
Accountability by Design: We also engineered responsibility into our workflows. Not “you own this task” nonsense, but “you own this metric.” If a campaign tanks, no one’s hiding behind a task list they’re answering to performance data they agreed to own.
Most folks don’t avoid responsibility because they’re lazy; they avoid it because they think it’ll blow back unfairly. Fix that, and accountability becomes self-reinforcing.
The AI arms race brewing globally will leave behind organizations that can’t self-correct quickly. Accountability isn’t a buzzword. It’s a competitive edge.
In my shop, you’re not ready for leadership if you can’t say what went wrong and what you’ll do differently next time. And that clarity builds trust like nothing else.
Margaret Rogers
It really starts with making sure there is alignment and a shared understanding of what someone’s role is accountable for, the outcomes that they drive, and principles of behavior. For experienced people, they will be better equipped to define how they get to the outcomes they are responsible for, while those early in their career might need more directing.
Quantitative and qualitative feedback loops are critical here for a person to be able to adapt what they are doing, especially if what they are doing is not working. It’s also why it’s critical to have a team that is committed to each others’ success, is willing to talk about our blind spots with candor and respect, and be open to taking in the feedback from others. When you have a team that can communicate this way, you offer the psychological safety required to avoid the need for blame-shifting all together.
As for the rationalizing or redirecting that often comes with blame-shifting, it’s important that these difficult conversations stay focused on what was in their control and what was within their ability to influence. As a leader, you have to provide some level of grace while still being able to hold others to the expectations they agreed to when they took the job.
The HR Spotlight team thanks these industry leaders for offering their expertise and experience and sharing these insights.
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