Selecting Your Accountability Partner

An accountability partner is someone who coaches you an helps keep you focused on and headed toward your goals as an intimate leader. The relationship uses the power of positive peer pressure to motivate and guide you. Peer pressure is a wonderful motivator and a great tool to help anyone along their transformation journey.

Social physiologists learned a long time ago that your success is multiplied when you:

1. Make a commitment
2. Share that commitment with someone
3. Ask for feedback
4. Invite someone to hold you accountable to that commitment

How to Select Your Partner

The Accountability relationship is an intimate one, so your partner should be someone you trust, someone with whom you will be comfortable sharing your intimate, personal, day-to-day failures and successes. He or she should be someone you are willing to accept feedback from, someone you can be vulnerable with, and someone who spends sufficient time around you to provide what we call just-in-time feedback.

Finally, the person you choose must be willing to spend the time to observe and evaluate how you are doing and to answer your questions in regularly scheduled sessions. And flexible enough to give you just-in-time attention.

Should you choose someone like you with similar issues or someone who has already achieved the results you desire? Either way can work.

In the Same Boat. Select someone who is working on a similar challenge. For example, if you are working on your explosive outbursts, a good partner would be someone struggling with the same issue.

Been There, Done That. Select someone who has already reached your similar goals. Let’s say you struggle to speak up and get heard. An assertive person might be able to help you develop these skills they find easy to practice.

Accountability Partnership Questions

1. Who is your accountability partner?
2. What are the top skills, actions, and behaviors you want to work on
3. How are you going to work together

The most important thing is to select someone now. Don’t overthink this process. Better to start working with someone right away than to wait for the perfect partner. The dance doesn’t last forever and the best dance cards fill up fast.

Consider developing your leadership skills alongside other leaders at our next CoachQuest Leader-as-Coach Workshop.

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