When you frame expectations as personal favors (‘I need this by Friday’), your team becomes accountable to you rather than to their job, and accountability falls apart. Lia’s fix is simple: remove ‘I’ and ‘me’ from how you set expectations and replace them with role-based language that connects the task to the job, the deadline, and the team’s results. This episode is especially useful for owners and leaders who keep hitting resistance on recurring tasks like status reports or deadlines.
This episode is part of the Accountability & Follow-Through series. Browse all episodes →
Mic drop moments
“The number one reason that you’re having to repeat yourself, that we’re all having to repeat ourselves as leaders, is that we are not holding people accountable to what we talk about.”
“…when you show up to that meeting as a team member and your stuff’s not updated, you don’t want to be that person. You don’t want to defend and explain it.”
“…we have to follow up. We don’t have to hound people. We don’t have to make it into this like huge issue.”
“All roads lead to accountability.”
Episode highlights
The real reason you are repeating yourself
It is not that your instructions were unclear. It is not that your team does not respect you. The gap, Lia argues, is that your team does not believe there will be follow-through. They have learned, over time, that asks are optional. Accountability is not punishment or blame. It is the ownership mindset, the point where someone is personally motivated to get something done. Until that clicks in, you will keep having the same conversation.
Why task tracking systems fall apart (and how to fix it)
Asana, ClickUp, Monday.com, JIRA: most teams align on a tool, use it for two weeks, and then watch it go stale while people drift back to Post-it notes. The fix is not to nag. It is to open the system in your meetings. Pull up the board. Look at it together. When the whole team is staring at the same screen, outdated tasks are immediately visible and no one wants to be the person who has not updated their work. You create a self-reinforcing system where social pressure does the reminding for you. If you cannot see project status and team capacity at a moment’s notice, Lia is direct: it is virtually impossible to run a team long-term.
Follow up. Every time.
This one is obvious. It is also the single most skipped step. When you ask for something and do not follow up, you are training your team that your asks are take-it-or-leave-it. You do not need to hound people. You need to be consistent: actions due by 9am get checked at the top of the meeting, every meeting. When follow-up does not happen, accountability fizzles. When it does happen reliably, your team learns that what you ask for matters. If something is chronically missing after consistent follow-up, that is when a direct feedback conversation enters the picture.
The most important move: communicate what is in it for them
People will not feel accountable to something they do not understand. If your team thinks a status report is surveillance, that is a communication failure, not a compliance problem. Lia flips it: the status report lets her recognize wins, spot where someone is stuck, and make sure their best work is on her radar at review time. Same logic applies to that cumbersome budget spreadsheet. Fill it out correctly and your headcount request gets approved cleanly. Skip it and your ask gets lost. When you explain the real reason behind a process, most reasonable people get on board. They may not love the process, but they understand it. That understanding is what creates genuine accountability.
The three moves, summarized
Stop repeating yourself by doing three things consistently. First, operate out of the system you are asking your team to use. Show up to meetings with the tool open and make it the place where work lives. Second, follow up on everything you ask for. No exceptions. Ask, follow up, ask, follow up. If something is still missing after consistent follow-up, address it directly. Third, always frame what is in it for your team. Context turns compliance into commitment. All three of these close the accountability gap that has you feeling like nothing ever sticks.
Why accountability is the root of almost every team problem
Lia calls accountability her favorite topic because she sees it as the single biggest issue in the workplace. Decisions get reopened. Projects drag. Top performers disengage and leave. All of it traces back to accountability gaps. Start there before you assume the problem is communication, strategy, or headcount. It is almost always accountability.
Related episodes in this cluster
- Ep 216: Why your team isn’t following through (and how to actually fix it). When your team keeps missing deadlines and nothing changes, you don’t have an accountability problem, you have a follow-up problem. Lia breaks down the four-step loop of setting expectations, checking in, addressing misses, and giving feedback so that real ownership replaces passive agreement. This episode is essential for founders, owners, and managers who are tired of having the same conversation every single week.
- Ep 183: How to build a culture of accountability without micromanaging. Accountability is not blame or punishment. It is ownership, and when team members feel like owners they show up proactively, hit deadlines, and stop reopening decisions. Lia walks through a three-part framework covering the ownership mindset shift, clear expectations with psychological safety, and continual learning from missed targets. This episode is essential for any leader watching deadlines slip and conversations repeat with no resolution.
- Ep 151: The most important step of accountability you are probably skipping. Most leaders set clear expectations and stop there, but accountability lives in the follow-through, not the ask. Lia’s move is to flip who owns the reporting: instead of handing team members their numbers, require them to present the report and bring a plan. This episode is essential for any owner or manager frustrated that people agree to things and then quietly let them slide.
- Ep 119: Why saying ‘I need’ is killing your team’s accountability (and what to say instead). When you frame expectations as personal favors (‘I need this by Friday’), your team becomes accountable to you rather than to their job, and accountability falls apart. Lia’s fix is simple: remove ‘I’ and ‘me’ from how you set expectations and replace them with role-based language that connects the task to the job, the deadline, and the team’s results. This episode is especially useful for owners and leaders who keep hitting resistance on recurring tasks like status reports or deadlines.
Want to go deeper?
The Unstoppable Team. How to build a team that runs without you in the room.
Full transcript (click to expand)
The number one reason that you’re having to repeat yourself, that we’re all having to repeat ourselves as leaders, is that we are not holding people accountable to what we talk about. Welcome to the Managing Made Simple podcast, where you get a masterclass in managing your team with ease in 15 minutes or less. I’m Leah Garvin, your host and team operations consultant. Through this show and my programs with small businesses and corporate teams, I condense a decade of experience driving team operations in some of the most influential companies in tech into strategies to save you time, money, and most of all, stress.
Doesn’t matter if you’re a business owner who realized that running a team isn’t as easy as you thought it would be. Are a new manager learning the ropes or a seasoned manager ready to up their game? Everyone is welcome to hang out with Managing Made Simple. From conflicts to feedback to delegating and more, we leave no stone unturned when it comes to what makes us love managing, kind of hate it, and everything in between. Let’s go.
Welcome back to the show. You know that feeling that we all get as leaders, managers, and as parents, if we are, that like, why do I have to keep repeating myself? I felt like I was super clear. I explained it. Why are we having this conversation again? You hear the pain in my voice. You think I’ve said that before? Oh, I have. Well, the reason and what we’re going to talk about today on the show, the number one reason that you’re having to repeat yourself, that we’re all having to repeat ourselves as leaders is that we are not holding people accountable to what we talk about.
And I know the word accountability, ooh, that comes with a lot of baggage, a lot of baggage. People think accountability means punishment or blame or consequence. And when I talk about it, I mean that people feel like personally invested, I often describe it as the ownership mindset, that people want to actually do this thing because like they’re motivated in and of themselves. That’s what accountability means. And the reason you’re repeating yourself, the reason people aren’t listening is because that hasn’t quite clicked in.
And so repeating ourselves, seeing things aren’t really happening as we thought they would, even if we’ve set really clear expectations, even if we went over a very, very clear plan, everybody was aligned, nobody had questions. The reason is then not about expectation setting, which is the first step. I’m always going to say that. And the reason is people don’t really think there’s going to be follow through. And it doesn’t mean they don’t believe in you as a leader.
So I don’t want you to worry like, oh my God, my team thinks, you know, I’m, they don’t take me seriously. They don’t have to do this. No. Okay. But there is a gap. And so I want to talk about a few things that I do to create more accountability so that people start to follow this thing that we’ve established. Now I’m going to use a few examples. First and foremost is with task tracking systems. And I share this one because this is something that I did in across many different jobs was figuring out what is the right way for us to track work, to see that bird’s eye view.
What is the system that we should use? How does it integrate with other teams? I did this within the design team at Apple, really drawing connection between the work the design team and the engineering teams are doing. I did the same thing at Microsoft and the design team. I did this at Google. So this is something that we always have to figure out. How do we, how do we get everybody tracking their work in the same place, in the same way?
Well, I think if any of us have tried to implement a task tracking system or use something like a ClickUp or Asana or Monday.com or, you know, whatever, JIRA or whatever it looks like in your team, there’s often a very differing levels of use. And a lot of times at first, you know, people don’t want to do it. They want to do it the way they were doing it before. When they think it’s a big tax, it’s a lot of overhead, so they’re not really invested in it.
And stuff gets out of date really, really quickly. Okay. Now I want to stop right here and say, if you don’t have any mechanism for tracking work where you cannot get a bird’s eye view, you cannot see what I’ve said is the two critical things, status of projects and overall team capacity. If you can’t see that at a moment’s notice, it is virtually impossible for you to run a business long-term because how the heck are we supposed to do that?
We don’t know where things are at. So if you don’t have a mechanism for that, I want you to pause the show, send me an email at hello at leadyourconvert.com and let’s figure this out for you because I’m telling you, figuring that out, answering those two questions, status and capacity is going to alleviate like 90% of your stress and sleepless nights about where the heck is the status of everything. Okay. So do that. Okay. And if you’re back with me, good.
Okay. Because we got to solve that first and foremost. What happens a lot of times is we align on a system, okay, we’re all going to use Asana and everybody starts putting in some tasks in there a week, two weeks go by. They’re not updating the status. The tasks are out of date. Someone’s like, oh, I don’t even use that. I’m still using my Post-its and the whole thing goes out the window. That’s what usually happens.
Now, if you’re working in a corporate company or something like that, where there’s some reporting that comes out of it, maybe that doesn’t always happen, but you will potentially struggle with level of detail being consistent. And, you know, are you getting the information you actually need to be able to make informed decisions? Now, how do we create a sense of accountability to this? How do we not have to repeat ourselves over and over? Remember to update your tasks by Friday at 4 p.m.
Make sure at the end of the week, repeating and repeating and repeating. How do we avoid that? We start to show the system in our meetings. We start to open up that Asana board. We’re looking at monday.com. We have JIRA open and we talk about tasks and we talk about works, we talk about plans. We are looking at the tool. We are building muscle memory that this is the place we talk about work. We do this up.
It’s very obvious that stuff is updated or not. We’re all looking at the same thing. And when you show up to that meeting as a team member and your stuff’s not updated, you don’t want to be that person. You don’t want to defend and explain it. So you start to create a self-reinforcing system because everybody wants to come to that meeting and show it. And over time, it really weeds out the people that are just like dropping the ball and not doing it.
And there’s some social pressure there. That’s really, really valuable. Okay. So that’s my first tip is with something like task tracking, things like that. I’m trying to utilize a new system and getting people on board and using it routinely, um, to not have to repeat ourselves around that. We want to be showing the system, showing the tool and operating out of that. Now the second thing in any situation where you have, you know, rolled out some kind of process or system or way of working, maybe you have, you’re introducing meaning and agendas and notes a certain way, or, um, you know, I don’t know, whatever it is, it can be simple.
It can be complicated. This one is simple. This one is obvious. And I’m going to say it anyway, you have to follow up on that thing. If folks have to get actions done before the next meeting and report on them, like let’s say you have a noon, a weekly team meeting and you say, actions have to be updated and in this document by 9am and there’s not actions in there and folks get to the meeting and no one has done anything that starts to chip away.
Why would I feel accountable that nobody else is doing it? Okay. So the second thing of why, where you don’t have to start repeating yourself is by following up. Folks don’t have actions in, you know, they have to report on it at the beginning of the meeting. Um, at the beginning, we always check the action, right? Because that is how we do it. When stuff is not followed up on, that’s where it starts to fizzle away.
And I see this happen all the time because we get busy, we have a lot of stuff to talk about or, you know, some people didn’t update their actions or whatever. When we don’t follow up, our team members don’t follow up. Not everyone’s just to be personally motivated to do it. So it’s just like with looking at and kind of creating the social pressure. We have to be following up on the things that we ask of people.
Like it is so obvious, but it is so like the biggest thing that I see in companies, big or small with new managers to folks all the way up to C-suite level is we ask for something and we get busy, we don’t follow up. And again, over time we are training our teams that, eh, when I say something, it’s like take it or leave it, do it or not. So following up probably should have been the second thing I said, I bet it should have been the first thing I said, because it is truly the most important thing.
We have to follow up. We don’t have to hound people. We don’t have to make it into this like huge issue, but hey, actions got to be in by this time. Notes have to be done. The deck has to be sent to the client 24 hours before, pre-reads got to be out. We follow up and we don’t see it. Okay. And then maybe we see it over time. We pair that with some direct feedback. Hey, this is the expectation.
This hasn’t been happening. Let’s talk about it. Right. We can pair that. But the follow-up is part of the process. Okay. Do you want some hands-on support for all of the topics I talk about on this show? Like a team expert who has worked within tech giants like Apple and Google, as well as small businesses on hand to help you delegate and get out of the weeds, handle tough conversations with team members, plan your hiring strategy, and get your teams to help bring in more revenue?
Then it’s time to sign up for my Team Whisperer Consulting Sprint. For 90 days, you have me in your back pocket to help you navigate any and every issue happening on your team. DM me the word SPRINT on Instagram or email me at hello at leahgarvin.com and let’s build your unstoppable team. Now the third thing, and maybe this one should have been the first one because this is actually the most important. So if you’ve listened to the end, you got the good stuff right here.
If we want people to feel personally accountable, we have to make it worth their while, right? I don’t want to be owning something that I don’t really understand, okay? I don’t want to be taking responsibility for something that I’m not even sure what success looks like, okay? So when we want people to feel accountable, which prevents us from having to repeat ourselves because they’re taking that proactive action, we want them to have that ownership mindset, we’ve got to communicate what’s in it for them.
And a way that I describe this often is talking about something like as simple as a status report. This kind of thing is so contentious in the workplace, like, Oh, I don’t want you monitoring me or like, why do I need to do this? Do you think I’m not doing a job? Employees come up with the most ridiculous explanations for why they think a status report is a punishment. Okay. I’ve heard, I’ve said this on the show, this feels like process for process sake.
Okay. That’s where I, one of the times I first heard that was talking with an engineering manager about their inability to get people to fill out a status report. That was a failing of that manager to communicate why we have a status report. So when we want our team members to do something to feel accountable, we have to say, Oh, well, here’s what’s in it for you. Here’s why this is important. The status report. Okay. Me seeing what you got done in a given week.
This allows me to recognize your wins, allows me to see the way that you’re focusing your time to make sure that you’re on the right projects. It helps me see where you’re getting stuck so I can support you. It makes sure that, Hey, when it comes to performance of your time, I’ve got on my radar, the stuff that you’ve landed, the awesome stuff you’ve been doing, hello, all of that is in it for me. So if we are struggling to have people kind of catch on to something and it is an opportunity to communicate what is in it for them and we’re not tricking them.
It’s not me manipulating them. It’s actually we, when we have something going on, it should have a reason. It’s benefiting the team, the company. Let’s take, for example, you know, filling out, um, I know some, some companies, some, some places we’ve all worked, have like a really detailed, annoying budgeting spreadsheet process to get headcount or to be able to hire people. And it feels like a really big tax. You have to fill it out a certain way with this justification, blah, blah, blah.
And a lot of people drag their feet doing that. Well, if the people that are deciding who gets more headcount, if they need that report figured out that way, if they need that report, I’m sorry, filled out in that way, then we are going to fill it out that way because we want to have the highest chance that our requests for more staffing gets approved seamlessly. We’re good to go. We have more people to offload some of the works that none of us are burning out so that we can actually bring more creative perspectives on the team.
Filling that budget spreadsheet in that way benefits all of us because we don’t get missed. Our asks aren’t lost in the shuffle. We make it easy for people to say yes to us. You see how I reframe that? So really, I don’t see, I have yet to have seen, I have worked in some corporate companies, okay, many, many years. I have yet to have seen a process that is completely arbitrary. I’m telling you. It’s not just because I work on process stuff.
It’s because when it is explained well, and when there’s some oversight in simplifying it, then yeah, okay, it makes sense. Maybe it’s cumbersome. Maybe we don’t like doing it. Okay. Maybe we feel like there’s a better way, but we’re not like, oh, there’s no possible reason this would make sense. Okay. And we feel like, yeah, I guess this makes sense. That’s when we feel accountable to it. Okay. So like I said, when we want to not have to repeat ourselves, we don’t want to have to be saying the same things over and over wondering, like, I thought I was clear.
Why am I not getting the results I want? We’ve got to do those different things. We have to be using that system that we’re asking people to use. Working out of it, right? I gave the example of the task tracking system. We then, we got to follow up. If we’ve asked for something, follow up. Ask, follow up. Ask, follow up. No action that it’s a feedback conversation. And show, again, you’re not hounding people. You are showing, I have integrity to when I ask for something, like I’m going to come back and ask for it because it was important.
I didn’t just do it for the sake of it. And then third, and most important, always framing what is in it for your team. What is in it for you? Why are we having this process? What’s the context? Because that gives people that sense of, okay, I get it. I buy in now. That’s going to create that personal accountability. All right. And as you know, you hear the passion in my voice. Accountability is my favorite topic because it is, I see it to be the single biggest issue in the workplace.
Mic drop. Literally, that is what I see to be the biggest issue. I always start there. I always start with every team. Let’s look at where there’s accountability gaps because that’s what has you repeating yourself all the time. That’s what has people not really following through. That’s what creates folks that are just working through the to-do list and then leaving because they don’t really care. That is the gap. Why decisions are reopened. Why things take so long.
It’s always accountability. All roads lead to accountability. So if this is something you’re like, ah, she’s onto something, but I don’t really want it. I don’t really know. I want her to kind of audit my team and help me figure it out. Then send me an email. Hello at leahgarber.com because this is something that we can solve for you. We can give you that lack of clarity of like, I don’t really know what it is. Like we can shift that into, I know exactly what I need to do to get the most out of my team.
And then not only will you not be repeating yourself, you’ll be saving that 20 hours a month that I have helped so many businesses save that you can be reinvesting in your business. All right. Hello at leahgarber.com. Look forward to hearing from you. Talk soon. That’s all I have for today. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Managing Made Simple podcast, where my goal is to demystify the job of people management so that together we can make the workplace somewhere everyone can thrive.
With that said, let’s spread the word. If you love this episode, please pass it along to someone who might benefit from it. See you next time.
Questions this episode answers
Why do I keep having to repeat myself to my team?
The number one reason you're repeating yourself is that you're not following through on what you ask for. When you set an expectation but don't circle back to check on it, you're training your team that your requests are optional. It's not that they don't respect you. It's that they've learned over time there's no real follow-through. Every time you ask for something and let it slide, you make it easier for the next ask to slide too. The fix is consistent follow-up, not nagging, just showing that what you asked for actually mattered.
How do I get my team to actually use a project tracking tool like Asana or ClickUp?
Stop reminding people to update the tool in Slack or email and start running your meetings directly inside the tool. Open the board, pull up the tasks, and make it the place where all work conversation happens. When the whole team is staring at the same screen and someone's tasks are out of date, they feel it. Nobody wants to be the person who shows up unprepared. That social pressure creates a self-reinforcing habit over time, so you stop being the one chasing updates and the system starts doing that work for you.
How do I get buy-in on a new process without having to constantly push people to follow it?
Tell your team what's in it for them, specifically and honestly. People resist processes when they don't understand the reason behind them. A status report feels like surveillance until you explain that it helps you catch wins to recognize, spot where someone is stuck so you can help, and keep their contributions visible at performance review time. When people understand how a process benefits them directly, they stop seeing it as overhead and start seeing it as worth their time. That shift from compliance to genuine buy-in is what creates real accountability.
What's the difference between accountability and punishment at work?
Accountability is not about consequences or blame. It's about people feeling personally invested in the outcome, what Lia calls the ownership mindset. Someone who feels accountable doesn't just complete a task because they were told to. They do it because they understand why it matters and how it connects to something they care about. When accountability is missing, people work through a to-do list and disengage. Building it means combining clear follow-through, visible systems, and honest communication about why the work matters to everyone on the team.
What should I do when a team member keeps missing deadlines even after I've explained the expectation?
First, make sure you're actually following up consistently. If you've set a deadline and let it pass without checking in, that signals the deadline was flexible. When you do follow up and the pattern continues, pair that follow-up with a direct feedback conversation. Name the expectation, name what hasn't been happening, and talk it through. Before jumping to feedback though, also ask whether you've clearly explained why the deadline matters. If the team member doesn't understand what's at stake, they may not feel personally invested in meeting it, and that's a communication gap to close first.