It’s pretty common to hear leaders talk about the importance of owning a result or outcome.  Ownership creates accountability and accountability drives results. Yet sometimes, even when we own the outcome, it’s still hard to get things done, especially when getting things done requires the contribution or effort of others. This often occurs because while the leader maintains ownership of the outcome, he or she relinquishes ownership of the expectations required to achieve the outcome.

Owning the expectations means setting the standards for the questions of who, what, where, when, and how the outcome is to be accomplished.  Note that this says “sets the STANDARDS”.  Owning expectations isn’t about micromanaging.  It’s about creating clarity about results.

Leaders give away expectations in three ways:

•    Letting others set the expectation
•    Not reinforcing the expectation
•    Taking ownership of other people’s responsibilities

Letting others set the expectation

Suppose that you are responsible for increasing sales in your division.  You own that outcome.  However, you may have to rely on your marketing department for assistance in creating and executing a new campaign. 

In your first meeting, two scenarios may occur. 

Scenario 1:  The marketing department walks you through their process and requirements and provides you with a timeline for when and how they’ll roll out the campaign.

Scenario 2:  You explain to the marketing department when you need the campaign delivered, the interim milestones you’d like to see, and the overall outcome you are trying to achieve.

This might sound like an issue of semantics.  In reality, you are likely to address both scenarios during the course of the meeting.  However, the subtle (or not so subtle) way that the conversation plays out ultimately establishes whose expectations take precedent, whose must be adjusted, and ultimately, how success gets defined.

In first scenario, the marketing department has taken ownership of the expectations.  In this case, the expectation is that you are a supporter (rather than a consumer) of their process.  As a result, the criteria for determining what success and progress looks like are driven by their process, not your need.  In other words, you adjust your expectations of what you’ll get and when you’ll get it to align with how they define their process.

In the second scenario, you own the expectations and the process supports you.  In this case, the marketing department might have to change their understanding and plan for to execute the process in order to meet your needs.

Not reinforcing the expectation

Suppose you’ve asked one of your direct reports to recommend a new security vendor and have given him four weeks to accomplish the task.  At the end of two weeks, the individual explains that the selection process was more complex than intended but they are working hard to meet the deadline.

Do you say, “Keep up the good work” or do you remind the individual of the expectation and importance of the deadline?”  This is your first chance to reinforce the expectation.  Sometimes in an attempt to be supportive, we soften up on the expectations.

At the end of four weeks, he delivers a list of ten vendors, reminds you how much more complex the task was than originally thought and promises to have the recommendation by the end of the week. 

Relieved that he’s made some progress, you say, “Good job but we really need to have that recommendation by the end of the week.”  You’ve just given away the expectation. 

Reinforcing expectations isn’t about punishment or reprimands.  Perhaps the task really was more complex than anticipated and you are ok with the extension. You might not penalize the person for the delay but it’s still important to remind the individual of the original expectation.  Otherwise, in the future he or she might believe that it’s acceptable to change the deadline at his or her discretion.  You can still be supportive while reinforcing the expectation by saying something like, “I understand that this was more complex than you thought.  However, we are going to be behind because we are delaying the decision.  In the future, if you are running into problems, we’ll need to strategize on how to get back on track to meet the deadline.” 

This example was a bit exaggerated to make the point.  However, often it’s more subtle.  Getting 98% of a solution under tough conditions is such a relief that the missing 2% gets ignored.  In some contexts the 98% might be sufficient.  But in others, that last 2% might be the difference between success and failure.  The point is to communicate that picking and choosing which expectations are ok to ignore is not acceptable.

Taking ownership of other people’s responsibilities

The final way that leaders give away the expectation is by shifting responsibility to themselves.  Ken Blanchard talks about this in his book, “The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey”:

Let’s say I am walking down the hall when I encounter one of my people, who says, “Good morning boss.  Can I see you for a minute? We have a problem.” . . . I stand there in the hallway listening while he explains the problem in some detail . . . When I glance at my watch, what seemed like five minutes has actually been thirty.

The discussion has made me late for where I was headed . . . So I say, “This is a very important problem, but I don’t have any more time to discuss it right now.  Let me think about it and I’ll get back to you.”

Then, in a day or two, the manager follows up with the leader asking whether the leader has an answer yet. The leader is now accountable to the manager rather than the other way around.

In this case, the leader does need to be involved. However, it’s the manager job to determine how to get the right people together, in one place, at one time, to discuss and hash out the problem rather than simply passing off the task in the hallway.  The leader should be a participant in the process of formulating a solution, not the driver.

At other times, shifting responsibility can be less obvious.  I was working with one leader who was frustrated that his team wasn’t delivering fast enough.  One of his concerns was that he wasn’t providing them what they needed in a timely fashion. He said that he communicated this concern to the manager of the project sharing some of the “blame” for the project not being completed fast enough.

I stopped him.  If he wasn’t giving the team what they needed, that was his fault.  However, the fact that he didn’t know whether he was or wasn’t providing enough information was the manager’s fault.  The person running the project is expected to let others know what is needed, hold those people accountable for their contribution and follow up with them.  By sharing responsibility for not knowing, the leader shifted the expectation of monitoring and following up on team performance (in this case on the leader’s performance) from the manager to himself. 

Any time that you take on responsibility for something that someone else should be doing, you also shift the expectation from them to you.

Owning outcomes is only half the story.  Owning expectations is equally important.  When you allow others to set the expectations on who, what, where, when and how things will get done, you’ve effectively turned over the success of the outcome.

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm.  He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.