The Synergistic Power of Accountability and Forgiveness
- Antonina Potanina
- Mar 3
- 3 min read
© Benjamin B. Dunford, Ph.D.
An early career experience taught me to appreciate the powerful combination of accountability and forgiveness.
I was hired by a mentor to prepare and deliver a case discussion for an important client in hopes of securing a long-term business partnership. I was young, and the firm was in an unfamiliar industry. I put undue effort into background research in a short amount of time in hopes that elaborate industry examples would help the client better understand critical concepts. To borrow from a diving analogy, I had chosen an overly difficult dive, too complex to execute well in the time allotted. In my ambition to impress, I overlooked an important detail in my delivery which caused confusion to the client. It was an honest, but critical mistake. I knew immediately that I had disappointed my mentor and failed my client audition.
I fully expected my mentor to tell me that my services would no longer be needed. Instead, he invested significant time to offer specific feedback on what I had done well and what I had not done well. He helped me understand the difference between difficulty and execution and the need to align my time choices with client priorities. He issued constructive consequences for my mistake. Together we created a remedial action plan for how I would retool my approach to case development in the future. It was a lot of work over time, but made all the difference. He then surprised me by offering me a second opportunity to work for a different client.
In short, my mentor held me accountable for my mistakes, but also forgave me. That was a pivotal moment in my consulting career because it helped me see that
accountability and forgiveness are not opposites, but closely interconnected and in fact, synergistic.
Unfortunately in today’s world, too many erroneously view accountability and forgiveness as opposite ends of a continuum. Many assume that leaders can either provide accountability or forgiveness, but not both. This is simply not true. In fact, I have consistently found evidence that employee perceptions of accountability and forgiveness are independent.
My analysis of data in multiple firms shows an average correlation of .11, meaning that employees who feel held to greater levels of accountability by their bosses are more likely to also feel they are forgiven by their bosses to a greater extent. Those observations have led me to build on previous models to
think about accountability and forgiveness as two foundational concepts in leadership.
Consider the diagram below which I introduce as the Accountability Forgiveness Matrix. Plotting accountability on the X-axis and forgiveness on the Y-axis leads to 5 leadership styles. These are not personality traits. Rather, they are malleable but enduring styles that represent one’s approach to influencing others.
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Accountability Forgiveness Matrix
Abstention is an approach characterized by low levels of both accountability and forgiveness.
Permissiveness is an approach defined by low levels of accountability coupled with high levels of forgiveness.
Severity is the opposite; marked by high levels of accountability with low levels of forgiveness.
Compromise reflects moderate levels of both.
Harmony demonstrates high forgiveness and high accountability in behavior toward followers.
employees perform best when both accountability and forgiveness are high
My simple prediction is that employees perform best when both accountability and forgiveness are high. They perform worse when one or the other (or both) is (are) not present or low in magnitude. I tested these ideas in a sample of 390 professionals working for a medium sized US health system. The health system gave me permission to collect survey data and archival employee performance data which I analyzed using a cubic regression model.
The Synergistic Power of
Accountability and Forgiveness
I found fascinating results. As predicted, employees who perceived both high accountability and high forgiveness (Harmony) in their bosses (on a scale of 1-5) had the highest job performance, in the 4.5-5.0 range (on a scale of 1 to 5). Interestingly the worst performers were employees who had the highest accountability but the lowest forgiveness (Severity), with average performance scores of only 2.5 out of 5.0. The next worst performers were those who felt high forgiveness but low accountability (Permissiveness), with average scores of about 3.0 out of 5. Finally, I found that employees with Abstention and Compromise styled bosses were consistently in the mediocre performance score range (below 4.0/5.0).
Where do you fall on this matrix?
Ask your employees and direct reports for feedback. Your self-perceptions may be significantly different than their perceptions. There is great synergistic power in combining high levels of accountability and forgiveness. Be that leader!
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