How to Hold Your Team Accountable Without Becoming the "Bad Guy"

Most founders I work with first show up confused about how to create accountability in a conscious culture.

They've worked in companies where accountability felt like blame and shame. Where missing a goal meant you were bad and wrong. Where the boss stood over you like some tyrannical widget-factory manager saying, "Do better. Work harder."

None of us want to create that culture.

So we throw the baby out with the bathwater. We avoid accountability altogether, hoping trust and good intentions will be enough.

But throwing out accountability throws out performance too.

The good news? There’s another way to create powerful accountability that brings out your team's best work without any of the blame and shame.

Why Accountability Feels Like Blame

Most companies do accountability from below the line – meaning they start with the premise that if goals weren't met, that's bad and wrong and a problem.

So accountability immediately becomes: "Okay, who's to blame?"

It feels like being the scolding teacher. Nobody likes it. You don't want to be the one dishing it out, and your team doesn't want to feel like the student who got in trouble.

The reason this happens? Most people lump the accounting together with the response.

Anytime someone didn't do what they said they would do, there's an automatic assumption that something negative needs to happen. Blame. Shame. Punishment.

This creates a lose-lose dynamic where people hide mistakes, get defensive, and learn nothing.

The Core Shift: Separate Accounting from Response

Here's the key insight: separate the accounting from the response.

The accounting process can be completely neutral – just the facts.

What did we say we would do? What actually happened?

Let's say your sales team committed to $4 million in quarterly revenue and hit $3.6 million. Those are just facts. No drama needed.

Or your engineering team said they'd launch a feature by a certain date, and they still have two weeks left in development. That's just what is.

When you can stay neutral in the accounting phase, you create space for a much more productive response.

The 90/9/1 Integrity Agreement

Before you can create accountability around specific goals, you need a shared agreement about what integrity even means.

Integrity isn't just keeping your word - it's honoring your word. That's a crucial distinction. Life happens. Priorities shift. You can't always keep every commitment. But you can honor your word by renegotiating when needed or cleaning up when you break agreements.

My favorite agreement to recommend is this:

• 90% of the time, you do what you say you'll do
• 9% of the time, as soon as you know you won't deliver, you renegotiate the agreement
• 1% of the time, you acknowledge your broken agreement and clean it up

When your team has this agreement, accountability becomes an act of service. You're supporting each other to stay in integrity, which is energizing.

What Makes a Clear Agreement

So how do you actually create those clear agreements?

A clear agreement has three parts: Who will do what by when?

So many meetings end with vague ideas. "Yeah, okay, we need to do this. We need to do that." But nobody's actually committed to anything specific.

End meetings by confirming: "Will you finalize the hiring plan by Friday at noon?" "Yes, I will."

That clarity makes accountability simple. It's way harder to hold people accountable for something you told them to do than for something they agreed to do.

How to Craft the Right Response

Once you've done the neutral accounting, the question becomes: What's the appropriate response?

And that answer is wildly context-dependent.

Maybe you hit 80% of goal but COVID happened. Or tariffs. Or you lost half your team. In that case, the response might be a raise and promotion for pulling off 80% with 60% of the people.

Or maybe this is the third time in a row someone missed an eminently achievable target. The response might be recognizing they're not the right person for the role.

But here's the nuance – you can make that decision without any blame. They're not a bad person. They're just not currently able to do this particular thing. That's a fact-based assessment, not a judgment.

The purpose of the response should always be learning and improvement, not assigning blame.

And here's where people get confused about responsibility: they think it means self-blame. But they're different.

When I say everyone should take 100% responsibility, I mean: look at how you created this outcome.

Both the leader and the team member. If someone missed their goal, I ask myself: How did I contribute? Did I fail to set clear expectations? Did I not provide enough resources? Did I see we were off-track and stay silent?

When everyone involved tries to see their part in creating the result, that maximizes learning. You're not making anyone bad or wrong – you're just getting curious about what happened so you can be more effective next cycle.

The Practical Pieces

Three things to implement:

1. Create the Integrity Agreement: Get your team to commit to the 90/9/1 rule. Make it explicit rather than assumed.

2. Make All Agreements Clear: Every agreement needs Who, What, and When. No more vague "let's get this done" statements.

3. Create Accountability Check-Ins: Set up specific structures where everyone knows there will be an accounting. Not to punish – just to track what we said we'd do versus what happened. Then craft the appropriate response focused on learning.

Why This Actually Works

When you remove the threat of blame, people stop hiding. They stop getting defensive.

They actually get curious about what went wrong because they want to get better.

And you're not the "bad guy" anymore. You're just supporting the team's shared commitment to integrity.

Accountability doesn't require you to be harsh. It's simply creating the conditions where everyone can do their best work and learn the most.

With love,

- Dave Kashen

P.S. The next Sun Valley Founders Retreat is January 21-25. Five days of deep inner work, skiing, and genuine connection with other founders. You'll leave with a profound sense of aliveness, possibility, and lifelong relationships. Learn more here >>​