Accountability Makes You Better

Mark Cole:
Hey, welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Podcast. This podcast is committed to adding value to you so you’ll multiply value to others. My name is Mark Cole, and today I’m joined by Tracy Morrow. As John really teaches us this right here. Every person is undisciplined in some area of their life. Did you catch that? I’m not talking about your podcast, neighbor. I’m talking about you. I’m talking about me.

Mark Cole:
Every one of us have an area that we’re undisciplined. That’s why John’s lesson today is so important, because accountability makes you better. In fact, the area of undisciplined behavior or undisciplined thinking or undisciplined attitude in your life is the very area that we want to speak into today to make you better, because that’s what accountability will do. John’s going to teach the lesson. Traci and I will come back and we will give you some thoughts, some application that will make you better in your life and your leadership. If you would like to download the free bonus resource for this episode or even watch this episode on YouTube, you can go to MaxwellPodcast.com/Accountable. Grab a pen, think of some area in your life that you need accountability and listen in as John Maxwell teaches this lesson.

John Maxwell:
If you want to improve your life, you have to be accountable to somebody. Accountability is the key to improvement. And so the lesson is why accountability matters. Well, the reason accountability matters is accountability makes us better. In fact, here’s the way it works. Accountability makes everyone better. That’s a fact. I’ve never known of a situation where accountability made a person worse.

John Maxwell:
Accountability is bent to our progress into our improvement. Now, here’s what happens when we become accountable for where we are, what we’re accomplishing, what we’re doing. It makes us better. And then what happens when we get better? When accountability makes us better, then everything else gets better. And that’s what I love. Here’s what I know. This is a fact. I do better myself.

John Maxwell:
When people help me do better, I just do. I am so indebted to so many people in my life that have just helped improve my life. So I’m going to give you a statement now. It’s just pure gold. My name’s John. I’m your friend. I drip gold, you take gold. You’re all gold collectors, aren’t you? Commitment with accountability closes the gap between intention and results.

John Maxwell:
That’s a fact. Commitment with accountability closes the gap. What’s the gap? The gap is between good intentions and good actions. If you’re a good intentioned person, but you’re not a good action person, what you need is that bridge, which is accountability that gets you from one side to the other. Accountability is that bridge. It connects you, it, it turns you into a goal setter and a goal getter. You see, accountability is really what I call goal managing. It’s your willingness to manage the goal.

John Maxwell:
And that’s so true. So we have to be accountable. First of all, there’s a personal accountability. We have to be accountable to ourselves. But then there’s also team accountability. That’s expectations we have for each other. It’s the John Wooden question, how can I make my team better? Well, how he makes his team better is by helping them to become accountable. To help them to understand that there has to be a sense of awareness of what we’re to do and how we’re to do it.

John Maxwell:
That we’re not only to meet expectations, but we’re to exceed expectations. Now let me just say this to you. Every person is undisciplined in some area of their life. In the area that I am undisciplined in, that’s the area that I need to be accountable for. You don’t need to hold me accountable for working hard. You don’t need to ask if I’m going to write another book. You know, if you just want to know, just get up at 4 o’ clock in the morning. I’m all alone in my room, working, writing, thinking, creating, praying, developing, growing.

John Maxwell:
But I do need your help. I need to be accountable for my health. I do. Why? Because I don’t seem to have the ability to keep it on track very long. I have the ability to get on track and then I have the ability to see an exit that says, oh my gosh, this is too good. I’ll come back, I’ll come back, but it’s just too good. Now. Accountability is huge for you.

John Maxwell:
It’s accountability. It’s huge for me. I know this. I will not do well in areas of my weakness unless I’m held accountable for it. And then there’s leadership accountability. And the leadership accountability is where I’m accountable to you as a leader, but it’s also a leadership accountability where I allow you to help me to be accountable also. You see, if you’re leading in people, you have to give them permission to come into your life and hold you accountable. Because honestly they won’t if you don’t say, I want you to do that.

John Maxwell:
You just almost have to have a vulnerability and openness. Open door policy. Say you can come into my life. There are two words. Just write down and let me tie them together for you for a moment. The first word is inspect. The the second word is expect. They belong together.

John Maxwell:
They don’t do near as well when they’re separated. But as a leader, I have to inspect. I have to see how you’re doing. If I inspect, I’m not talking about being controlling. I’m certainly not talking about being petty and wanting my way on everything. But if I am inspecting your progress, which is part of accountability, when you inspect people for the right reasons, you get respect from the people because you set a bar for them. You set a measuring line. So when you inspect, you get respect.

John Maxwell:
When you expect you get results. My belief in you gives me the results, but my inspection of you gives you respect for me. That I’m not just going to hope that it happens. We’re going to help you make it happen. I would encourage you to, I don’t know, select I don’t know, three people, five people max, and ask them, am I, you know, ask them questions like when I say I’ll do something, do I do it? It’s a great question. And let them talk to you. Let them talk to you. What I discovered is if you give permission for people to be honest with you, it helps them in being honest with you.

John Maxwell:
To be honest with you. That’s a hard thing for me to accomplish. Not because I don’t want it, but you know, when you’re kind of put on a pedestal or whatever and people look up to you, it’s very hard for them to ask you the hard questions. It’s very hard for them and the only way they will is for me to say, hey, it’s okay. You can ask the question. Ask the question. I think people that are accountable, they have a real passion to develop and really grow themselves. And that accountability is really what stretches you.

John Maxwell:
That’s what I want for my life. That’s what I want for your life.

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Mark Cole:
Hey, welcome back everybody. I hope that just even as John was teaching and we’re going to go a little bit deeper into this, Traci and IBut I hope as John was teaching, you really did think of some areas, some places that with a little bit of accountability, you can get that improvement that we’re promising. It’s Thomas Paine who said a team of people holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody. I think Thomas Paine was right. He understood this idea that in a team, in a group of people, this idea of accountability is the difference maker for so many of us. And so welcome again to the podcast, but welcome to an arena to where we believe accountability is the difference maker. Traci, I’m super glad you’re here.

Traci Morrow:
Yes, I am too. Kind of.

Mark Cole:
Yeah, exactly.

Traci Morrow:
No, for real, I am happy to be here. This is a great topic. I think it’s a topic about humility. It’s a topic about getting honest with yourself and inviting other people into your journey. And I believe that maybe accountability might be a new experience for some people. I think maybe even if you don’t have, I would venture to say that maybe if you have any kind of, any kind of faith background, then maybe accountability is something that was sort of modeled to you or taught to you. I hope it was modeled to you. But it might be new for some leaders, maybe leaving them feeling that this is exposing themselves in a way that they may not want to be exposed.

Traci Morrow:
So hopefully diving into this and fleshing it out a little bit more, maybe personally, will help them feel the power of this for their leadership. Mark, is this something that you have always had in your life, accountability, like an inner one to three people that you have always had in your life?

Mark Cole:
No, I learned it after. After seeing the destruction, the devastation that a lack of accountability could have to one’s life. So for, for the. I was so impacted and so influenced with leadership thinking all of my life. My parents were 40 when I was born, so there was a level of maturity, a level of success. So I walked into an environment. You know, a lot of kids, they bear the weight of all the mistakes we make as 20 and 30 year olds and we watch our parents make it and there’s a humility and there’s a vulnerability and there’s a visible, ah, riot.

John Maxwell:
Yeah.

Mark Cole:
But there’s this visible, very tangible journey towards success that many kids watch in their parents. Well, my parents were very successful. By the time I was born, they were doing some really good things. So that made my experience as a young kid Very mature. There was an establishment by being the baby of five and having older parents that a lot of people don’t have that experience. What that did for me, though, is it allowed me to set my expectations of greater success sooner. And what that also allowed me to do is put pressure on myself to not make mistakes that most kids make and that most early leaders make. I created, therefore, a very private life to my struggles.

Mark Cole:
We all have them. I started the podcast off today very different. I said, john says, every person is undisciplined in some area of their life. Yes, I’m talking even to you, perfectionist. You are undisciplined somewhere. I’m talking to all you anal retentive people. Yes, you’re undisciplined in some area. Identify it and then get accountability into it.

Mark Cole:
Because, Traci, to your point, for 20 years of leadership for me, I for the most part, was absent of the concept of accountability. When everything in my world crashed and burned and I realized that I was bigger on the outside than I was on the inside, I. And then I was given the opportunity to start over and begin leading again. I decided it was going to be with accountability as the primary driver to my leadership. I want to be accountable. I want a place where I can live out the undisciplined areas of my life in community without judgment, with unconditional love, but with an expectation that I could, should, and will do better. And that’s what accountability has done for me.

Traci Morrow:
I think as a leader who is starting over, like you just described, somebody who’s younger or somebody who is a more established leader who’s maybe just had a loss like you described and is starting over. It maybe feels like a reset where you’re like, okay, I’m starting over. I’m going to do it differently this time. But let’s talk about, let’s talk to the leaders who are not starting over. They’re. They’re hearing this lesson and they have some measure of success, maybe are even highly successful and are thinking that feels very vulnerable to me. I’m not starting over, but I’m far enough in. And I’m realizing this is a very convicting message to me.

Traci Morrow:
This is a lesson. How do I choose somebody? Let’s talk to those leaders. How do they now, in their little isolated bubble, who maybe have some undisciplined things that they. How do they choose somebody for accountability? This is a very different lesson. Yeah, I love this.

Mark Cole:
Let me say this. I’m getting ready to sound like your parent for all of you. In fact, it’s so funny because we have incredibly successful people listen to this podcast. They come up to me all over the world and say, hey, I love the podcast. I love when you and Tracy do this. I love this. I love when John said that they love the podcast. Very successful people that run much larger organizations than me.

Mark Cole:
But for a minute, I’m going to be your mom or your dad, and I’m going to tell you this. Your leadership is only as good as your inner circle, period. Now, Mr. Leader, that’s leading much more than me. Allow me to be your parent for a minute, give me a little bit of grace, and I’m going to go back to your parents when they said, show me your friends, and I’m going to show you your decisions. Show me who you hang out with, and I’m going to show you the trajectory of life that you’re on. You are the sum total as it relates to relational issues, as to the people that you hang out with. That’s why your parents always wanted your friends to come to their house to check them out, to be watching you.

Mark Cole:
That’s what my parents certainly did. That’s what I do to my kids and my grandkids. I want their friends to come over and come over and swim with us. I sound like the cool parents, right? No, I’m the CIA parent. I want to know who my kids are hanging out with.

Traci Morrow:
Exactly.

Mark Cole:
Well, Mr. And Mrs. Leader, that’s out there doing an incredible job. I love your P and L, I love your results. I love your growth trajectory. I love all that. But to see your sustainability, I can relate that directly back to how accountable you are to an inner circle. So who is holding you accountable to the person you want to be? Who’s holding you accountable to the character you want to live? Who’s the person holding you accountable to the foundational components that make you who you are.

Mark Cole:
And when I ask that question, often of leaders that says, hey, tell me a little bit about your inner circle, the ones that give me the blank stare and say, what are you talking about? I immediately go on and say, you probably already have. But you need to get immediately three to five people that serve as your inner circle that you hold yourself accountable to. And they need to know who you want to be a person outside of work. They need to know the person you want to be inside the work. They need to be able to identify the places that there are gaps. Gaps. And they need to know your mission, your vision, your sense of fulfillment, your success, definition and then they need to hold you to that, and you need to be having weekly, monthly, regularly scheduled meetings with your inner circle. One of the things I do, Traci, I’m pretty public about this, especially during the latter part of the year or the first part of a new year.

Mark Cole:
I have what I call my growth plan, my life planning kind of discipline. And when I do that, the first thing that I do is I take all of my yearly plans. And the first person I show is my wife. She’s the chairman. She’s the chairman of my personal advisory council. And I go, stephanie, what am I missing? This is where I want to grow. What do you think I’m missing? Where am I off? I. Then right after that, I go take it to Kimberly, another person in my inner circle.

Mark Cole:
I take it to John Maxwell, another person in my inner circle. I bring them into the conversation because I want to know what I’m missing. And I trust their perspective on some of these things, even more so than my own. That’s because accountability makes us better. Who’s your inner circle? Who’s your accountability group that is so powerful?

Traci Morrow:
Have you found that this, um, is with the leaders that you mentor? Is this something that you touch on with them? And second of all, have you found that this is something that’s difficult for people? Yeah, in a high position?

Mark Cole:
I do. I think it is difficult for people to do two things. One, to hold themselves accountable to a group of people that many of which don’t have the same level of responsibility that they have. How do I hold myself accountable to somebody that can’t understand a mile in my shoes? How do I hold one of my people that I just talked about is Kimberly Wetzel, my executive partner? How do I hold myself accountable to the paycheck that I signed that’s supposed to get me where I’m supposed to go? It’s a very unusual thing that has to constantly be cultivated, has to constantly be reset, but it also has to be constantly, as John says, committed to. He says commitment with accountability closes the gap between intention and results. That’s in your notes. If you download your notes, which I highly recommend, you’ve got to make a commitment to the accountability group, to the inner circle. It’s a commitment that says, hey, I commit to this process.

Mark Cole:
I commit to this group even when I don’t want it, even when I don’t want to be held accountable. Because all of us get into a season that our leadership wants us to move beyond accountability. And usually it’s in the area where we’re undisciplined that we want to use our authority as a leader to overcome the voice of the accountability partner.

Traci Morrow:
Now, I know that in the very right off the bat, I jumped in and went kind of personal because there are two sides to accountability. There is the accountability of your goals and your professional life, but there’s also hand in hand, your. Your personal life, your. Your inner woman, your inner man that is a little bit more personal. And so would you say that there are the same people who hold you or. Or is it a different crowd of people that hold you accountable or that you hold people accountable? Because I’m sure that you are in people’s inner circle as well, Mark, that hold you, your personal life and your professional. Is that one in the same? Just before we jump into professional goals, would you say that’s the same?

Mark Cole:
It’s not usually one in the same. Usually you have some people that keeps you really accountable in a business standpoint and people that. But I do have a couple of people that actually are in both areas because I don’t want to be incongruent. Oftentimes when I don’t give my business people a chance to speak into my personal life or I don’t allow my personal people to speak into my business life, I create incongruencies. I create this duplicity of a human being. I’ve got this work Persona and I’ve got this personal Persona. And without giving people, the same person, access to both, or without giving the work group an access or entry point into your personal group, I find that duplicity is so easy in a leader’s life. That’s why John, when John was asked to write the book, there’s no such thing as business ethics, and he said, I can’t do that.

Mark Cole:
Yeah, there’s no such thing as business ethics. He said, I can write a book that there’s no such thing as ethics, but you either have ethics at home and work, or you don’t have ethics. It’s not. You can’t have ethics over here and ethics over here. It’s just there’s no such thing as business ethics, and so there’s only ethics. It’s the same thing. There’s no such thing as accountability in my personal life, but not accountability in my business life. It’s one of the same.

Mark Cole:
You are where you are. Be you.

Traci Morrow:
Yeah. Yes. Oh, that’s a mic drop moment. I can remember years back, John had a mentoring group called the Executive Circle, and he brought in CEOs of all these different incredible companies and we were allowed to. We could ask him a question or two. And I asked the same question. I was writing my marriage book at the time, and I asked the same question of each of these CEOs, and that was, if you could advise any of us who are. Have all different kinds of businesses, what is the one thing that you did or wish you could do to protect your marriage and your family time? And the answers were so fascinating as they went raw.

Traci Morrow:
And some of them said, like, I did not do a good job of that, or this is what I did. And I thought that was just so interesting to get to hear because many of them probably didn’t have an accountability. Then them who said, I didn’t do a great job, they got all the awards for their business, but they didn’t. They kind of missed the other. And so let’s move into. I. I just love that you have this. I love that this is something that John does.

Traci Morrow:
I just appre. I appreciate that so much about you guys. What about offering accountability to people? Like, are you somebody who offers to be somebody’s accountability? Is this something where you’ve had people to say, hey, Mark, I can. I’m willing to be that person for you in this area. Is that something that people wait till for somebody to ask them if they could be an accountability? Or do you invite people in? If this is so new to somebody, they may not know how it works.

Mark Cole:
Yeah, I, as a person that wants to be accountable, I invite people in to be accountable with me. And I never enter into being an accountability with someone else unless they ask me to be in. Because I think, I think that. Here’s my opinion, this is my opinion. It’s maybe a personality thing. It could be a wounded person from living so long without accountability. So I’m very aware of. I could be seeing this a little differently than some of our podcast listeners.

Mark Cole:
I believe that accountability only works if I commit to accountability. If somebody comes in and says, I’m going to hold you accountable, I go, like heck you are. Who let you be the God status of going to come in here and hold me accountable? And again, that might be a personality thing, but somebody that comes in and says, I’m going to hold you accountable, and I didn’t invite them in. I laugh because I’m like, you’ll hold me accountable if I let you hold me accountable. It’s like the teenager, I’m going to hold you accountable. No, they’re going to just find another way to beat your accountability system. And so adults are the same way I think accountability only works if the person that is going to be held accountable invites the accountability mechanism and sets the accountability mechanism. And so yeah, it’s always an invitation for me to invite somebody into accountability with me and I only consider if I am giving an invitation to hold somebody else accountable.

Mark Cole:
I’m very careful, Traci, on becoming somebody else’s accountability partner. Here’s why I think with the invitation or the agreement I should say of becoming somebody’s accountability partner, I believe that comes with a high degree of responsibility and a high intentionality to stay engaged when the other person person don’t want you engaged. Because again, why are we getting accountability? Why are we saying accountability makes you better? It’s John’s underlying statement that says every person is undisciplined in some area or if you’re like me, some areas of their life. Therefore the accountability is only going to be effective when it is least wanted.

Traci Morrow:
So let me ask you something a little personal. What would you say if you, if one, if something comes to mind as this lesson was playing out as we’ve had all these discussions, what would you say you’ve accomplished that you can point directly to having accountability where someone was inspecting like John said and setting, setting the inspect and the expectations for you that you otherwise might not have accomplished.

Mark Cole:
I am such a driven person because I have been John Maxwell’s second man for so long and because I have been leading in a servant leadership type environment. My type A got an opinion about everything and everybody and it’s my way or the highway. Almost a dictatorial type leadership tendency would be missed by many until you get really close to me or until you’re invited into accountability. So the thing that I would tell you that accountability has made the biggest difference for me is keeping me a humble second chair servant leadership style leader. Because that is not my natural tendency.

Traci Morrow:
Interesting, interesting. And is that because. So you have a group of people who you’ve invited in explain what that looks like a little bit.

Mark Cole:
Yeah. So when they feel like I’m starting to act entitled, when I’m starting to act like a driver, when I’m starting to use my hammer because I’m not getting it done the way I want to get it done, I’ve got all kind of signs, grab the ears, hold the nose, kick under the table. I’ve got people that really grab me when my dominant type A driving leadership comes out because I have a tendency, I’m so strong headed, so strong willed, so opinionated that often that doesn’t keep me humble and learning in environments that I need to stay humble and learning in.

Traci Morrow:
Would you say that the behaviors that they’re grabbing their nose, grabbing their ear, kicking you under the table is stopping you from is actually a reflection of how you feel? How do you feel?

Mark Cole:
I think it’s a reflection of how I will allow my undisciplined self to be too hard of a leader and not honoring of the people that I want to lead.

Traci Morrow:
Interesting. Thank you for sharing that. I think that’s freeing to hear because I think so many people see your kindness and your gentleness and think like, no, that’s not. That’s not him. That’s certainly me, but not him. Okay, let’s close on this last one. Do you have any advice for people who are looking to set up accountability systems for their teams?

Mark Cole:
Yeah. You know, if you’re given a relationship that you trust, doesn’t even have to be that you respect them in the area that you’re needing accountability, but you have been given the gift of a trusted relationship, I would really challenge you to identify the area or areas in your life that you feel are impeding your path to success. And I would invite that trusted relationship in with or without their expertise, with or without their sense of confidence that they can hold you accountable to something. I would invite them in and just begin trying accountability. Because once you invite them in, once you get the ground rules set, now you begin working toward perfecting that. I wasn’t good at first. In fact, I was terrible at first. But I was determined at first because I had already spent 10 years growing in success as a leader, only to have it crash and burn in 10 days.

Mark Cole:
And when you go through a situation to where everything you’ve built for 10 years can be destroyed in 10 days, it gives you a passion to put accountability mechanisms in place that doesn’t allow that same trajectory to happen. Without that, you don’t have that 10 days of destruction. On 10 years of building, I still will tell you, you’ve got to get a commitment. You’ve got to get a place to where you hunger for accountability more than you resist accountability. And when you get to that place to where it tips, because maybe my story inspires you or you have your own story, you will begin to test, fail, learn, improve, and re enter to become good at accountability. And I’m pretty good at it today. I had a session this morning with one of the people that’s accountable to me. It’s so funny that we’re having this day.

Mark Cole:
I had an hour and 15 minute session today of where I had lost my way in being accountable in a certain area in my life. And this person called me on it and it took them an hour of the hour and 15 to show me that they were right. But because I was committed to accountability here, I stuck with it until they could show me that they were right, that I had lost the disciplines of keeping myself committed to accountability in this area.

Traci Morrow:
Wow.

Mark Cole:
Wow.

Traci Morrow:
That’s an on. That’s an honest. And what a day to have that conversation and then have to teach it.

Mark Cole:
Yeah, exactly.

Traci Morrow:
On the next day. What an exclamation point on this lesson.

Mark Cole:
I do agree. Hey, I want to challenge you today to just continue to invest in yourself and grow in yourself. There’s a book that I am highly passionate about called Developing the Leader within youn and Jake. I would like to put that book in our show notes and I’d like to include that book today. I read that book and every two to three years just to remind myself that I want to be bigger on the inside than I am the outside. I’m accountable to that. And because that’s one of the areas that I really, really am passionate about, I want to make sure to get you that book, give you access to that book. Those of you that have not read it or don’t have it, get it.

Mark Cole:
Those of you that have it, get the book. For somebody else that you would like to see them get accountability more in their life on the person, the leader, they want to be on the inside. So we’ll make that available to you. It’ll be in the show notes. We have an episode that I want to reference to you today. It’s called A Leader’s Greatest Enemy. And in that podcast episode, I remember it, the greatest enemy is ourself. That’s why we want accountability.

Mark Cole:
And I want to put that show in our notes as well, for you to go back and reference. Jj, listen to the podcast, Become a leader Communicator. And this is what JJ said, how prepared is too prepared to also have authenticity. And JJ said, for example, when you spend time with friends, you don’t prepare to have conversations or interactions. So how is that different from being authentic when preparing to speak to an audience, a business meeting or a podcast? And jj, I’ve been asking for these questions. In fact, I talked with John Maxwell last night before recording this and said, john, I’m going to challenge our podcast listeners to start asking questions and you and I are going to do a podcast on a consistent basis of just answering our podcast listeners and viewers questions. He got super excited about it. And here we are today, jj, with you asking the question how prepared is too prepared to also have authenticity? I believe that preparation is only for impact, not for entertainment.

Mark Cole:
I believe that preparation is to be able to share with people, not impress people. And oftentimes I’ve watched people use preparation to impress people rather than to impact people. And if you’re preparing to impress, I think you’re over the line of authenticity. But if you’re preparing to impact an audience, I believe you can be prepared and still be very authentic. I, for one, have been taught by John that says read a crowd to communicate rather than to communicate to read a crowd. And oftentimes we get up and with all of our preparation, we want to influence the crowd to get where the speaker is rather than go out to get the speaker to where the audience is. And too much preparation is the speaker trying to get the audience to where he or she wants them to be rather than getting down to where they are. And it creates this communication gap of ineffectiveness.

Mark Cole:
So, jj, what I would tell you is one, check your motive. Are you preparing to impress the audience or to impress upon the audience how they can be better? Are you trying to communicate and connect so that you can. People can say, wow, how great is that speaker? Are you trying to communicate where the audience can say, wow, how great am I? Any communicator that is trying to prepare to be impressive rather than to prepare so that they can help the audience be impressed with themselves is not being authentic. Because the only reason you and I communicate from an audience or in a boardroom is for the betterment of the people that we prepared for, not to impress them how good we are. So, jj, keep asking the questions, buddy, because I love the questions and I love jj, you and all of our podcast listeners. We do this because we believe everyone deserves to be led well sat.