Responsibility is fast becoming a lost art in the business worlds in which we exist today.

When managers take responsibility for creating valuable relationships with their people, there are many opportunities to be had.

But what is responsibility?

Whilst relationships between individuals requires attention on both sides, with managers and employees there is a drive more from the side most likely to benefit – and that is the management side in terms of the business value, whilst it is also in the interests of employees where there are benefits for them too (such as career progression and skills development, as examples).

It is really worth taking some time to understand what ‘accountability’ and responsibility’ are in this manager/employee context, so that a clear picture can be drawn to show what needs to be done.

There are two defining descriptions that need to be addressed here, ‘accountability’ and ‘responsibility’. Whilst these two words might seem to be very similar, there is a difference when managing employees is concerned.

Accountability is for someone – usually a manager in a business or organization – where ‘the buck stops’. As a manager you are the person ultimately ‘accountable’ for all sorts of required outcomes in your part of the organization.

Responsibility is one level lower, where as managers we delegate the ‘responsibility’ for an action to someone else, enabling them to be the person who delivers that part of an overall ‘accountability’.

We are ‘accountable’ for the delivery of something and we delegate parts of this to others who are ‘responsible’ for the activities they need to take to complete their part of the overall ‘something’.

We, as managers, take on accountabilities that the organization requires us to deliver to provide the returns that they, their stockholders and any other stakeholders want and need to be successful. We, in turn, break down these ‘accountabilities’ and let others in our teams take on ‘responsibilities’ that they can deliver to contribute into the whole.

Being responsible for actions is a big learning curve for your people to experience and sometimes they will need help with that. It can be a daunting prospect. It can also be misunderstood, where they don’t recognize that your expectation of them is real and finite. So they may need a nudge to comprehend what that means, especially to start with.

When we are building relationships, whilst we might be accountable for this overall (not least because it’s in our interest to do so), there are responsibilities that can be attributed to both sides to make the relationships start, continue and where appropriate, end effectively.

Understanding the difference between ‘accountable and ‘responsible’ is the first step for many managers in this position and one that they will need to be clear about at the earliest moment.

Managers need help! When you manage others, it’s to ensure that you have the skills around you to deliver the bigger picture.

The results you need will not come from you alone, so you need the best relationships with your team members to achieve all you want to.

We all need support, whatever we do in life. We need it in our home lives; we need it when we enjoy our leisure; and we certainly need it in the workplace.

Whether we are a new-join employee at the bottom of the career ladder, or we are a super-senior executive, we need others to carry on in our lives as we want, to enjoy the experiences we need to make everything worthwhile.

When we have responsibilities in the workplace, we need others onboard at all times, because work outputs cannot be achieved alone.

One of the purposes of the relationships we build with our people is to enable them to better support what we are expected to achieve with our teams. the goals we are set as managers are not for our personal achievement alone. That’s why we have people in our teams.

Spending time creating these relationships shares who we are with our people, such that they kn ow that their contribution is valued. A contribution that can often be some element of the work that we, as their manager, fail to have the skills to deliver.

Our people should have the abilities to do the things we can’t and we provide them with the resources and space to do their own thing, as a contribution to the greater good of the team.

The best managers know this and step back from their own pride to nurture these talents. And they do this by spending time with their people, coaching, training, supporting and encouraging them to be their best.

Getting the relationships with your employees just right to get them creatively contributing as fully as possible is a great achievement for anyone who leads and managers others.

Investing in just a little time using some easy tactics to interact with them costs little (if anything) and makes a manager’s job both more interesting and easier.

Of course a manager needs to step back from the fire-fighting and crisis-solving activities they can so easily get bogged down with. When they take this visionary step, they can be assured of a return that is way beyond the effort they expand – and a return that continues on, with the minimum of maintenance.

Getting the support you need when you are a manager is a must-do. Getting your people to provide it with you is one of the major activities any manager needs to consider valuable.

By focusing on people, for small parts of the day by simply engaging in conversation, there are many benefits that accrue, not least having a willing band of people who are alongside you as you manage effectively to deliver the results needed – and beyond.

There are poor workplace relationships. There are good workplace relationships. Sometimes they are even great. But where does the responsibility lie for creating the best environment for the best work to be done…

There is no doubt that there are times when managers have to depend on the best relationships to get the results they want. As a consequence, there is a real need for a manager to take the lead in the way they interact with their people.

Managers who have any sense at all, will know the onus is on them to drive their own actions to set up relationships that work best – for everyone. The desire here must be such that a bonded team forms, generating creative solutions with the energy that trust and mutual co-operation and focus leads to.

By taking control of their own behaviors, good managers set the ball rolling to ensure that they generate the best relationships possible, to create fruitful opportunities for business, organization and team productivity.

If they don’t know how, they have the means in terms of resources and time to go find out what they need to know, to make sure they have the best of relationships with their people.

So that seems to be that then!

Not quite. You see the responsibilities of employees are vital too, because it takes two to make a great one-to-one relationship. Whilst the manager might well be making the effort, members of their team have a responsibility too.

Because there is value in it for them as well, by having great interactions with their boss, to get a workplace where they feel valued, are excited and interested by opportunities and where learning by doing – and taking risks – is encouraged.

Employees have the opportunity to meet – at least half way – any manager or supervisor who creates the environment to get the relationship off to a great start, by mirroring the behaviors they themselves experience. The supervisor or managers leads the way, which the pro-active employee heeds – and responds to accordingly.

Great relationships come from that mutuality of trust, respect, caring, support, encouragement, coaching and more. The shared resources that two sides use to form lasting and valuable relationships, to ensure success has a better than evens chance as the outcome.

The lead may come from the manager or team leader or supervisor and when developing valuable working relationships with an employee, their support and equal responsibility to take full part, is of critical importance too.

Let’s face it, managers need help too, so working with them as they strive to do invest in the right behaviors for their team, will only enhance the returns that everyone receives in the long-term.

We need to create effective relationships in our organizations to make sure we get the best from all of our people. Managers will always have the opportunity to interact with their people, yet sometimes, there are times to step back and see what might be getting in the way.

It’s inevitable.

We ‘get on’ well with some people better than others. Those who we seem to create a rapport with easily, are always most likely to be those we turn to when we want some form of interaction.

Our natural characteristics are formed through our lives and are such that we have peculiarities that create our own very personal natures.

When we are living our informal lives (away from the workplace), we acan afford to pick and choose who we spend our time with. Naturally, where we can, we like to enjoy the company we get most pleasure from, so, on that basis, we decide who to be with and when.

In the workplace, it isn’t so easy. Of course we can recruit people who we are more likely to get on well with – those who we have an immediate liking for – and that’s a natural way to be.

When we have people in our teams where we find they are quite different to us in some way or other, or they don’t resonate with us in some way, there is a natural tendency to be more distant with them, because there is less of that natural rapport.

This is all quite logical and can go a long way to explain why there are differences in our behaviors around some people rather than others.

When we manage others and we seek to build workplace relationships, we need to be a bit smarter than this.

Our natural tendencies are all well and good when we socialize outside work, but we need to have everyone on board when we are developing a team that will generate results for us.

It’s important therefore, when we manage and lead others, to have the capacity to stand back and be dispassionate about those we work closely with.

Taking the time to recognize the real value everyone brings to the party is vital – and that means there will be some in the team who you aren’t that similar to. Some whose character is less aligned to you than you are with others.

The natural prejudice you show to gather people around you who you get on well with is understandable and indeed is psychologically designed to protect you from harm. Guided by experiences you’ve had in your life at some time, you push away from some people who have similarities to those with whom you perhaps had a difficult experience.

In work, by acknowledging and working through such internal prejudices (which are often going unnoticed by you), you are likely draw into your team people (and develop those already there) who have much to offer, thus creating a whole new set of resources that you might otherwise have missed out on.

They won’t harm you. They will bring new perspectives into the team which, if you let them, will significantly add value.

By overcoming your personal prejudices and going out of your way to build useful relationships with individuals you might have spent less time with in the past, you are making your team much more effective and that is a vital component on the road to success.

When we delegate as managers, we create time and space for ourselves, to do more of what we alone can do best.

We add new opportunities to our people to develop their skills and evolve a much more capable workforce. What could be better…

The first thing to understand about delegation is that it simply does not happen on its own. As with any other kind of work that you have to complete, you will first need to learn how to manage a task properly yourself, so that when you do delegate it, the results will meet, if not exceed, your expectations.

There are a few essential steps that you will first of all need to understand, so as to be in a better position to delegate tasks effectively.

Communicating the activity outcomes clearly will ensure success. This means that you will need to start off by describing exactly what you expect the person to do, to specify when the job is to be completed and, of course, what kind of end results are necessary, on completion.

It is necessary for you to provide the context within which the work is to be performed. This in turn will mean that you will need to explain the reasons why you need the work done and its importance to the bigger picture of your workplace.

Finally, it’s worth sharing where there could be difficulties along the way and how these might be dealt with – if and when the complications arise.

It always pays to understand that you must be in agreement regarding the standards that you expect, in order to measure how successfully or otherwise the job has been completed. That said, obviously the standards that you require have to be achievable, as well as realistic.

Delegation – the free tool that gives you back your time and develops your people at the same time

What could be better than that?

Effective teams are the most effective and even the only way to make organizations work. Managers cannot deliver the whole job – it’s just not possible.

That said, teams need to have some ground rules to be effective too.

Team building is a vital component of anything you need to do in business, unless you are a one-man band cobbler or something, with no-one else working with you.

The team is vital to make what you want to happen, happen effectively and efficiently, all the time.

For most managers, there will be a bunch of people upon whom you depend to get the job done, because, as we’ve come across before, you cannot do it all yourself. Leveraging their own particular skills is the way to create successful outcomes for all you want.

So, you need a bunch of people who are going to gel; work well together; synergize and deliver outstanding results – right? A group of like-minded people who will contribute for the greater good of all, to outcomes that contribute to the needs of the team at organizational level.

They need to ensure that they support each other whilst using their own individual skills to use for the length of the business need or project. Benefiting from their own peculiar talents, a team will generate more successfully because of the debate and collaboration through their individualities.

What better way to build your team than on the job?

There is a space for going building rafts and bonding socially. Truth is, the real work is where your team pull together in achieving the goals you need to work on together.

To start up, it’s always worth creating some ground rules about the ways that you will work together. This will mean that you all agree on the boundaries you set between you all, so that what you do work on will be collaborative, and not fall foul of dispute, frustration and competition.

A great way to do this is to create a specific exercise for all what an operating charter is drawn up, with everyone contributing and, once agreed, signed up to. By setting aside time in the early phases of working together, you will be making an investment that will be well worth while for the team as a whole, as well as the results you achieve too.

By creating a way of working together, clearly stating goals and objectives as well as how you are going to go about it, you will stand a far greater chance of collaborative success for everyone, apportion activities and then be able to apply timelines that everyone signs up to.

Not to mention that there will be a team spirit and bonding engendered by the exercise too.

Positive actions come when people feel they are contributing well. Excellence of performance comes from knowing that we are recognized to be doing well.

With the right relationships with your people, you can make the most of this.

People feel good about themselves when they feel that they are achieving success. They like to know that the challenges they have accepted are progressing and they are thought well of.

Yet sometimes, for many of us, it’s hard to take that objective position where we know for ourselves just how we are doing. Praising ourselves is difficult indeed.

When we are responsible for others in our team, it’s part of our job to get the most from each one of them. A manager’s role is closely focused on our skills with our people and nothing else should get in the way of that.

By taking the time to use the relationships we have built with them to full effect, we can make sure that the feedback we give is positive and constructive for them, giving them a sense of well-being in the work they do.

These relationships cannot be created overnight. The trust that is required to ensure that what they hear you say is accepted at face-value, is an investment that doesn’t come all at once.

As you make the deposits in the emotional relationships that you have between you over time, there comes an understanding that makes what you say to them be trusted and have all the more impact as a consequence.

Once the ‘feelgood’ factor starts to show up for them, there is a power in the new-found confidence that emanates from them.

Every action has an enhanced level of belief; every opportunity to try on new opportunities is met with possibility; every time they see something risky, there is a confidence to try that comes from their absorbed understanding of what they are capable of.

Feeling good about ourselves offers a further value that extends outside the workplace too. When we know that we’re doing a good job, we take it home with us. We are happier in our other lives, because we have a new confidence.

The value of a manager taking the time to get to know us well enough, to spend time telling us how well we are doing is immeasurable, in all sorts of contexts.

For the manager, they build on potential being realized. We grow our people and squeeze out of them what’s tucked away inside, making much more – almost anything indeed – possible.

Feelgood is a unique product of great workplace relationships and a manager taking the time to tell their people – authentically – that they are doing well.

From this, much more becomes possible too.

There are many, many ways that a manager can empower those in their team. The value comes from enlightened individuals freed up to express themselves through the release of their potential.

And you are the one to do it.

Almost any situation where you let an individual express themselves freely, through the contribution they themselves make, is through helping them to be empowered.

Empowerment unleashes many opportunities for individuals to develop, grow and come to fruition, bring a host of new resources to the team, organization and the results they produce.

Here are some of the ways that you can offer the gift of empowerment to your people. Remember, you are limited only by your ability to be creative in what you offer your people as ways to build them up.

1.Delegation

If you’ve been keeping up with the lessons, you will know that delegation is one of the best ways to empower employees.

Through giving up tasks of your own to others, with support at first, you will build confidence; develop skills as well as free up your own time too.

2.Say No

When asked to do something that you know they could do just as well, finding ways to say ‘no’ and support them to be able to do the task will make them feel able to do more in the future.

3.Say Yes

As your people try more on and develop themselves, be prepared to take risks on them.  Whilst they will need to understand that you will be generous when things go wrong, that should not put you off saying ‘yes’ to them when they want to try something new.

4.Ignore Them!

A favorite tactic! When you work closely with people, ignore them sometimes when they get frustrated or get things wrong. Rushing to their assistance is often the least effective way for them to succeed for themselves.

5.Coach

By asking questions, hearing answers and facilitating their own ability to find solutions for themselves, you will go a long way to empower. Remember, empowerment is about them building confidence. Nothing does this more than when they are helped to find their own solutions.

6.Let Go of How

Now, when you do give them the freedom to do your stuff sometimes, you have to be able to let go of telling them everything about the way they are to reach the solution. By letting go of your own ‘how’ you give them the opportunity to find their own.

7.Praise and Thank

It’s sometimes difficult to have a sense of how you are doing, so it’s important for you to tell people that are doing well. By reinforcing their belief that they are being successful, you will encourage them, which is, after all, empowering in itself.

8.Seek Opportunities

And you can get creative with people to empower them! Take your role as one where you spend some time each day coming up with ideas to grow your people’s view of themselves. It’s a worthy activity for you – after all, your role is to manage and develop your people.

9.Help with Learning

Employees like to be challenged and may be reluctant to show that they don’t know the way to do things. If you can show them how they can learn, they will be encouraged to do more of it, opening the door to empower themselves.

10.Treat Mistakes/Failings Generously

Empowerment is all about building confidence – that’s its purpose, so when things don’t quite go to plan, it’s important not to ruin all the good work by reacting negatively when what’s needed is support and encouragement.

The gift of empowering others is one that is rich indeed, changing lives along the way for the good, you bring opportunities for new successes for your team too.

What could be a better win-win than that?

Relationship building is a vital core activity of anyone who manages or leads others, yet those being managed also have a responsibility to make the interactions work. So, why is understanding about responsibilities so important?

Understanding the relative responsibilities in relationship building in the workplace is important, so that suitable focus can be attached to each side, working towards consistently successful interactions.

Knowing that each side has a part to play and that this will involve deep consideration (especially where relationships have been strained in the past), helps to frame the mindset that will be important to create.

Responsibilities are not to be taken lightly. They are indeed a responsibility in themselves. Of being in a place where behaviors can create or destroy the outcomes that each side might want as well as appreciating that sometimes these may be different.

Holding responsibility is important, yet sometimes gets stuck behind a number of challenging and conflicting attitudes that can make the decisions about how to approach a relationship somewhat blurred.

For example, an individual may well have set ideas about what they want from their job. This needs to be aligned with what the job entails, the conditions within that job is offered and the rewards, some tangible, some not, that are provided.

A manager, on the other hand needs results for their area of responsibility and that is usually their overriding focus and can, on some occasions blinker the expectations and hopes of their team members.

Without understanding that the responsibility for a mutually beneficial relationship lies on both sides equally, it could be easy merely to push for only the respective needs of each side.

Yet, without taking the responsibility to realize that both sides want their needs met, neither side is likely to win. Indeed it is likely that antagonism and mistrust will take over and the relationship founders, which no-one wants and is quite value-less.

The philosophy of responsibility in relationship building is that it is an important ‘gift’ that each holds and this is to be used in a way that enshrines the values of both sides, whilst acknowledging that one side does not have any greater grip on their own outcomes than the other.

When we take up a responsibility, it is not to be taken lightly. Where this relates to the interactions we have with others, taking responsibility means that we have to know and understand what is important to them, as well as what’s in our own interests too.

Ultimately, the responsibility element of relationship building is a critical element of success, with each side being clear on what the best outcome will be, not just for themselves, but for everyone.

Are there special components that great managers need to have when they want the best from their teams? How many are there; what are they and how on earth can you implement them.

Or is it much simpler than that.

In the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London, England, there are many wonderful exhibits. None less so than the half a floor or so that is devoted to the Atlantic battles that took place during World War 2.

The exhibits are enhanced by explanations and multimedia that explain what happened, as well as the character of the nation that was able to withstand the threat and provide magnificent men and women who were able to succeed on the open seas of the North Atlantic.

One of the exhibits shows a small – and highly relevant, even today – extract from the famous wartime movie, “In Which We Serve”, starring (and written and directed by!) Noel Coward.

Upon taking up his command, he seeks advice from his new crew, what sort of ship would be needed for the forthcoming voyage.

One wag in the crowd pipes up, ‘A happy ship, Captain.’

…and quickly another, ‘An efficient ship, Sir.’

Coward repeats these two qualities back to them.

“A happy ship and an efficient ship. In my experience, you can’t have one without the other.”

Despite all of our modern naval (my apologies!) gazing, could it be that management is really that simple? Could it be that there is little else of importance than these two qualities?

Of course Coward is not discussing management today, yet he is idealizing the values that are required to make a successful voyage in very difficult circumstances.

Can you have a happy ship, without efficiency?

Well, if you try, my guess is that happiness evaporates as your people get annoyed and frustrated with the inefficiencies of others.

An efficient ship, without it being happy – is this possible? Well, maybe, for a while. As time goes on, the lack of happiness – which in itself is a symptom of a malaise – will lead to conflict. And that is no ingredient to have in the efficiency cake.

With efficiency and happiness, together, is this enough for a successful venture?

Well, in themselves, perhaps not – yet, when they are there, it’s more than likely that there is enough of a base for every other quality to drive success to be enabled too.

Being efficient and happy at the same time will surely underpin any other values that the team needs for success.

Truth is, where you have both of these in place, you are much more likely to reap positive rewards. Not least because whilst you are focusing on just two things, your life as a manager becomes that much more easy.