The Accountability-Authority Matrix

Several years ago, I sat and listened to an executive leader admonish a mid-level manager for failing to satisfactorily meet a set of Key Performance Indicators that he had absolutely zero control over.  To his credit, the mid-level manager tried to point out that he didn't have any operational responsibility or authority over these KPI's, which unfortunately only made the executive more angry.  It wasn't a good day, and it was an even worse demonstration of leadership.

I've thought a lot about that day, which prompted me to review the management literature on authority, responsibility, and accountability.  After consulting a number of sources, I came up with the following 2x2 table to explain some of the challenges that leaders and managers face when it comes to authority and accountability gradients.   

Using this 2x2 matrix, individuals who neither possess a lot of authority nor accountability are classified as followers.  I would argue that in order to be a good leader, you have to start by learning to be a good follower (see "Learn to follow, and then learn to lead...").  However, even followers need some degree of accountability.  Those individuals with a lot of accountability but no authority (such as the case in my story above) are not really leaders - nor are they managers.  These poor souls have been placed in an unenviable position of being "pseudo-managers."  Those individuals who possess a lot of authority with no accountability are, in my opinion, more like dictators.  These individuals essentially do as they please with very little oversight or accountability.  Finally, it is the individuals with a balance of both authority and accountability who are the leaders in this framework.

During my research, I also came across the well-known RACI model, a responsibility assignment matrix that is frequently used in project management.  It's essentially a simple spreadsheet or table that lists all of the key stakeholders on a particular project, with their role denoted by a single letter.  "R" stands for "Responsible" (the individual or group who is ultimately responsible for the completion of the project), "A" stands for "Accountable" (the individual - and it is typically a single individual - who makes sure that the "Responsible" individual or group actually completes the project, "C" stands for "Consulted" (the individual or group who provides input and/or feedback on the work being done for the project), and "I" stands for "Informed" (those individuals who need to be aware that the project is being conducted but who do not necessarily need to be consulted to complete the project).  I have found the RACI model to be a useful framework to tease out the finer points of accountability and authority in real-world leadership situations as well.

The important point here is to always make sure that the level of accountability and the level of authority are both appropriate to the situation and consistent with each other.  Unfortunately, as my anecdote at the beginning of the post shows, that is not always the case.