When your team fails, who’s accountable?
If you said “they are”, we need to talk.
I see this confusion constantly in contact centres. Leaders think they’re empowering their teams by making them “accountable” for outcomes. They believe delegation means handing off accountability along with responsibility.
It doesn’t.
You can only delegate responsibility. Accountability stays with you.
The distinction sounds semantic until you realise it shapes everything about how your team performs, how much they trust you, and whether they’ll actually take ownership of their work.
What Should Leaders Understand About Accountability?
Accountability means being answerable for outcomes. Responsibility means executing specific tasks.
Here’s the critical bit: you remain accountable for your team’s results even when you delegate responsibility for the work itself. When you tell an agent they’re “accountable” for customer satisfaction scores, you’re actually creating confusion. They’re responsible for following processes, applying training, and treating customers well. You’re accountable for whether those processes work, whether training was adequate, and whether the environment enables good performance. The difference matters because it determines who carries the weight of failure.
Now, to be clear: agents are accountable for their conduct, adherence to standards, and quality of execution. When someone repeatedly ignores training, treats customers poorly, or violates policy, that’s on them.
But when good agents struggle despite genuine effort?
That’s typically a systems issue.
The boundary matters. Agents own their behaviour and adherence. You own whether the system enables success.
Consider what happens when you get this wrong. Gallup finds that engaged teams deliver 21% higher profitability, and here’s the kicker: managers account for 70% of the variance in team engagement. If engagement is low, that’s not a reflection on team resilience. It’s a mirror for leadership conditions.
Yes, this research spans industries, not just contact centres. The causality is correlational, not proven for your specific operation. But the pattern is consistent enough to warrant attention.
How Do I Create a Supportive Accountability Culture?
Start with clarity about who owns what.
Borrow from project management here. RACI frameworks distinguish between who’s Responsible (does the work), Accountable (ultimately answerable), Consulted, and Informed. Apply this thinking to contact centre roles where agents often know their targets but not where their responsibility ends and your accountability begins. Your agents are responsible for executing interactions according to standards. You’re accountable for whether those standards work, whether agents can meet them, and what happens when they can’t.
Communicate this explicitly.
In team meetings, be clear: “You’re responsible for following our call handling process. I’m accountable for making sure that process actually helps you succeed with customers. If it doesn’t work, that’s on me to fix.”
That clarity creates psychological safety.
But here’s where most leaders stumble.
They think accountability culture means holding people to account through metrics and consequences. That’s only half the equation, and it’s the less important half. Real accountability culture requires leaders to visibly own their accountability for team wellbeing, not just task completion. Research from the Institute of Customer Service reveals that 54% of employees believe the best route to improved customer service is through motivating and engaging staff. Yet fewer than half feel their CEO and board actually listen to customer-facing staff. That disconnect tells you everything about where accountability actually sits.
You cannot delegate that accountability.
It’s yours.
How Can I Foster Accountability Without Micromanaging?
Understand the difference between checking in and checking on.
Checking on means monitoring task completion. Checking in means caring about the person doing the work.
Both matter.
The ratio determines whether you’re supporting or suffocating.
Contact centres naturally skew towards checking on because metrics are constant and visible. Handle time, quality scores, customer satisfaction—all tracked, all measured, all creating pressure to monitor. If you only check on task progress, you’re micromanaging. You’re treating people as execution units rather than humans responsible for complex emotional labour. When you check in genuinely, you gather information that helps you fulfil your accountability for team wellbeing.
Check in regularly.
Ask how agents are coping with difficult calls. Notice when someone’s energy changes. Create space for people to admit when they’re struggling without fearing consequences.
Here’s the practical balance: check in on people, check on progress, but never confuse the two.
If an agent’s metrics drop, check in first. “I’ve noticed your handle time increasing. What’s happening for you?” That’s exploring whether you’re fulfilling your accountability to provide adequate support. Only after checking in should you check on execution. “Let’s review a few calls together and see where we can help you work more efficiently.” That’s addressing their responsibility for task execution.
The sequence matters because it signals what you actually care about.
Another critical element: make your own accountability visible.
When you make decisions, explain your reasoning. When things go wrong, acknowledge your accountability before addressing others’ responsibility. When agents raise concerns, show how you’re acting on your accountability to address systemic issues. Transparency about your accountability builds trust in your leadership.
If call volumes are overwhelming the team, don’t just tell agents to work faster. Say: “I’m accountable for managing our capacity. Here’s what I’m doing about scheduling, here’s where I’m pushing back on unrealistic expectations, and here’s what I need from you whilst we solve this.”
That’s leadership accountability in action.
You’re not dumping the problem on them. You’re owning the systemic issue whilst being clear about what remains their responsibility. This approach prevents micromanagement because you’re focused on your actual accountability rather than controlling their execution.
What This Means for Your Leadership
The accountability-responsibility distinction transforms how you lead.
When you’re clear that accountability stays with you, several things happen. You stop trying to hand off ownership of outcomes you’re ultimately answerable for. You focus your energy on systemic factors within your remit. You build psychological safety by being clear about boundaries.
Your team responds differently too.
When agents understand their responsibility without carrying false accountability, they own their work more fully. They raise issues instead of hiding them. They trust you to handle the things you’re actually accountable for. The result is better performance and better wellbeing simultaneously.
Contact centres create intense pressure. Metrics matter. Customer experience matters. Agent retention matters.
You cannot optimise all three by delegating accountability downwards and hoping people cope.
You optimise by accepting your accountability for creating an environment where responsible execution leads to success. That’s the leadership distinction that actually changes outcomes.
Stop trying to make your team accountable for things only you can fix. Start being visibly accountable for the conditions that enable them to be genuinely responsible.
The clarity will transform your team’s performance more than any metric or target ever could.
If this tension sounds familiar, or you’re rethinking your own accountability model, let’s talk. Contact us here: ndassociates.co.uk/contact