ac⋅count⋅a⋅bil'⋅i⋅ty – n 1. the state of being accountable, liable, or answerable.

As a business owner, you learn quickly that being in control is a double-edged sword: you get to do what you want and what you believe is right, but you rarely have someone who is able to hold you to it.

Many business owners do something about it. They join a peer roundtable, hire a business coach, create an advisory board, or find mentors. They avoid the "it's lonely at the top" syndrome by connecting with others to whom they must report on a regular basis.

In recent months, I've discovered that some business owners go even further. They take accountability very seriously and, therefore, pursue it through more unconventional means:

• Leadership - one business owner said he holds himself accountable through "discipline, flexibility and collaboration via tracking, reporting, and managing" with his team.

• Transparency - at a recent conference session I moderated about open culture and transparency, one business owner said sharing his financials, compensation, business challenges, and true personality with employees made him feel more accountable than anything else.

• Mentoring - another business owner, who enjoys mentoring first-time entrepreneurs, holds herself accountable by sharing her own challenges while mentoring them. Not only does this get the protege thinking about his/her own future challenges, but the business owner has found that her proteges often follow-up to see how the owner's challenges turned out. It's a win-win learning experience.

• Teaching - a business owner-turned-professor I recently met said he enjoys teaching entrepreneurship because it "holds me accountable to walk the talk. When I say something in class about what entrepreneurs do, or should do, I realize that my students are likely to ask me whether I do it myself."

How do you hold yourself accountable? If you don't, what are you going to do about it? And what are you waiting for?

Posted by Raman Chadha, Executive Director & Clinical Professor

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