Leadership & Accountability September 2024 National Treasury Management Agency

Accountability refers to the obligation and willingness to take account for our own actions, but as a leader we often have different layers of accountability besides our own. We are accountable for our teams, our organisation and our work. So how can a leader lead in ways that promote principles of accountability amongst their teams? 

This month we were joined by Pauline McKeown (CEO of Coolmine Therapeutic Community) and Dr. Orlaigh Quinn (former Secretary General of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment). 

We discussed accountability and asked some tough questions like: 

• • How important is accountability?  

• • How do we hold our teams accountable but in a psychologically safe way? 

• • What happens when leaders are not accountable in their roles? 

• • How do we hold ourselves accountable as leaders? 

We particularly loved the discussion around: 

• Accountability is about rewarding good behaviour as much as it is calling out poor behaviour 

• You need to have robust systems to hold people accountable 

• Good leadership is about being brave and being kind 

Thank you also to our hosts at NewERA and the National Treasury Management Agency for providing such a lovely space and hospitality for us for the event. We are very grateful for their support.