Accountability is leadership in government

Accountability is a key principle in business. According to business dictionary.com, the definition of accountability is: “The obligation of an individual or organization to account for its activities, accept responsibility for them, and to disclose the results in a transparent manner. It also includes the responsibility for money or other entrusted property.”

A 2016 Forbes article, Why Accountability is Critical for Achieving Winning Results, summed up accountability and equated it with the vitality of any organization. “It may seem obvious, but accountability is probably the single most important element fueling truly successful organizations.”

Local governments here in Sarasota could learn well from this business principle. Many governments locally are in an accountability crisis. Whether it be a contract with the executive of the government, holding a vendor accountable for results for large amounts of taxpayer dollars, or holding staff accountable for legacy problems, we have some major problems here in Sarasota County.

What the elected officials who are overseeing these crisis moments don’t realize is that these are the legacy moments of their careers in public office. The moments that will define their leadership historically. The moments that we will look back on and remember the most.

Are they dealing with the issue head on in a transparent way and stopping the bleeding of taxpayer money? Or have they become part of the problem due to complacency?

Sometimes, accountability in government can be difficult when faced with the prospect of having to spend more time and effort on an issue when you are dealing with so many other things on the government plate.

But there comes a point in time in a local government problem, where once the problem has emerged and the government does nothing publicly to bring confidence back to the stakeholders, that it becomes a crisis. Once it reaches that crisis level, the problem then shifts from being an executive, vendor, or staff problem, to a crisis in leadership at the elected official level.

This is the moment when the elected official who chooses to turn their head and pretend like all is well or, even worse, provides only lip service and no action, then takes ownership of the problem. We have lots of elected officials owning problems they did not create because they are not transparently and actively solving them.

The Argus Foundation hosted Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran at our final Meet the Minds luncheon of the year this month. He brought with him a message of accountability and how it has helped lift the Florida public school system from the bottom of the 50 states to now fourth in the nation for K-12 students.

These are dramatic results that came with accountability and aggressive action on the part of the leadership of our state. Corcoran, cited Governor Jeb Bush’s vision and now Governor DeSantis’s continued leadership to make sure we focus on the stakeholders and not the institution itself.

Education became Gov. Bush’s legacy in the state of Florida. It’s early, but I suspect Gov. DeSantis will also share in that. It is due to active, aggressive action to hold government accountable that these men will have great legacies. It was difficult, time consuming, and not without controversy, but they will be looked upon as leaders and not followers of status quo.

Who are our local elected leaders of accountability today? How are they making sure that we improve, move forward, and become better than what we are now?

My favorite leadership book currently is “Start with Why” by Simon Sinek. In a 2010 Ted Talk, Sinek defined “why” as your purpose. He said, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”

Local elected officials need to convey, through action, that accountability is their “why”. Empty promises of future action some day or statements that everything is fine, conveys that their “why” is complacency, and the business community sees it.

To the local elected officials involved in the many accountability crises we are experiencing today, what will be your legacy, what is your “why”?

Christine Robinson is executive director of the Argus Foundation and was on the Sarasota County Commission from 2010 to 2016. Contact her at christine@argusfoundation.org.