• Fri, 10 July 2026
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Team Dynamics part IV

..and so, we talked about trust, conflict, commitment, so what comes next is the Avoidance of Accountability… If you think about it, and if you read previous articles, you could conclude that the absence of trust, lack of conflict, and fear of commitment would lead to the team not feeling responsible, so they will not hold one another accountable for the decision-making or the outcome.

Regarding whether you can hold your team members accountable and easily challenge them on standards, the most common response was „I would do it with friends, but not with colleagues“. That is, ladies and gentlemen, in one sentence, the answer to all four of our stages – 1. I do not have the trust to do it to my colleagues without being judged, criticized, rejected, ashamed… 2. I do not challenge or raise issues or concerns again because of being criticized, judged, etc.. or I tried to challenge, I did not feel heard/supported, so I gave up. 3. And I will not commit to what I do not believe in, so I want direction, not support and guidance to maturity for which I or the team 4. Because there is no psychological safety, I will never comment on anyone behaving differently, so we will tolerate all behaviors in the team. And then accountability is the job of a manager because there is no peer-to-peer pressure.

 

How avoidance of accountability looks like:

  • Unaddressed missed commitments: Deadlines slip without follow-up or any kind of consequence
  • Soft feedback or none at all: Peers avoid calling out each other on poor performance and underdelivery
  • Manager overload: Leader ends up being a babysitter, policeman, or kindergarten teacher, which leads to micromanaging
  • Low standards lead to mediocre results: average delivery gets normalized
  • Blame shifting: everyone turns to explanations and finger-pointing instead of owning outcomes

Why this happens:

 

  1. Weak commitment: if the decisions were not discussed, challenged, clarified, and acknowledged, there is no buy-in from the members; they will not feel responsible for the execution of the decision either
  2. Fear of interpersonal risk: without trust and psychological safety, challenging anyone feels like a personal attack, so people avoid conflicts to prevent social fallout
  3. Unclear standards or roles: if expectations, metrics, and ownership are not explicit, it makes it very easy to evade responsibility
  4. Lack of boundaries and consequences: when the team has no clarity on what happens after repeated failures, accountability is pointless

 

Why it matters

  • Sustains performance standards: a team that holds each team member accountable in the same way and to the same standards has higher quality, delivery, service, and production performance
  • Enables scalable leadership: Peer accountability reduces the need for managerial interference and oversight
  • Creates fairness: when everyone enforces standards in the same way, people perceive the system as fair and just, equal for all
  • Protects results: collective ownership reduces single points of failure and increases follow-through

How it should look

  • Peer-to-peer feedback is direct and constructive, focused on behaviors, systems, and processes, not identities
  • Failure is discussed and confronted constructively; there is no blaming or finger pointing, reflective
  • Consequences and mitigation paths are known and understood from the help of the escalation process
  • Agreed metrics and deadlines are exact and transparent
  • Commitments are public with clear owners, responsibilities, and timelines

 

How to build it

  1. Tighten the processes – Clarify decisions, ownership, roles, responsibilities
  2. Make commitments visible and transparent – everyone has a single point of checking this, like a visual board
  3. Set clear standards – define quality thresholds, technical standards, acceptance criteria, definition of done
  4. Normalize Peer-to-Peer feedback – encourage short, clear feedback, and on time, with practices on how to do it more effectively
  5. Create regular checkpoints to track delivery – ceremonies/events/meetings, when we have daily/weekly/monthly syncs, retrospective/review, or any other reflective meeting, jour fixe, etc.
  6. Use a blame-less root cause mindset – ask 2 questions: what in the system failed, who needs support, and hold people responsible while helping them improve
  7. Agree on Support and Consequences – define and agree on remedy paths and escalation steps, and be consistent with it
  8. Leverage pre and post mortems – identify what could have gone wrong and what has gone wrong
  9. Train for difficult and courageous conversations: practice clean language and open communication
  10. Measure accountability signal: pulse survey, age of tasks, delivery rate

Stay tuned for the last but not least stage of team dysfunctions, which is: Inattention to results, which will at the end show us how all the dysfunctions are connected and why they depend on one another in order to become a high performing team.

Picture of Milena Jankovic

Milena Jankovic

Milena Jankovic is Personal and Team coach, passionate about partnering with leaders, executives, teams and organizations to support them to adapt growth mindset, build open communication culture, maximize their personal and professional potential and become high performing.

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