Accountability Ranks Dead Last Among Seven Core Leadership Competencies

The #1 leadership skill tanking employee engagement

Welcome back to Cornering the Job Market. Today’s workforce news and headlines include a new survey of corporate America’s top HR leaders who reveal where AI adoption is actually happening inside their companies and where it’s stalling. And another major Wall Street player announced a new round of job cuts that go beyond their regular annual performance reviews. We’ll get into all of that. But first, there’s new research that puts a number on something most of us have felt at work but couldn’t quite prove. Gallup just published findings from its quarterly workforce study, which surveyed more than 23,000 employed U.S. adults.

They asked leaders to rate themselves across seven core leadership competencies: building relationships, developing people, leading change, thinking critically, communicating clearly, inspiring others, and creating accountability. Okay, so this is their own self-assessment. Out of all seven, one ranked dead last very clearly, and that’s creating accountability. Fewer than half of the leaders in the survey say they’re outstanding or exceptional at holding everyone responsible for delivering exceptional performance. Their managers are even more pessimistic. For six of the seven competencies, managers’ ratings of their leaders trail the leaders’ self-ratings by at least 20 percentage points. That’s huge. Leaders think they’re doing much better than their people believe they are.

Now, here’s where this connects directly to the workforce. Gallup found that managers who say their leaders are exceptional at accountability are three times more likely to be engaged at work. 51% engaged versus just 17% for those whose leaders fell short. That’s a giant gap driven by a single competency. And Gallup ties it to a broader trend they’ve been tracking. Employee engagement has been declining in the US and globally, and one of the elements that has dropped the most is clarity of expectations, which is directly connected to accountability. So I’ve watched this play out for a long time now, where companies struggle with underperforming teams, and when you dig into it, the problem almost always is that they hired the wrong people.

Nobody defined what exceptional performance looks like, and when that happens, there’s no way to hold anyone to a standard, or at least not a clear one, once they’re in the role. So it always starts with communication. That’s what this is all about. Communicate up front, set clear expectations, and then you can hold someone to it. But if you don’t do that up front, well, there’s nothing to hold anyone to, and that’s what this survey is essentially telling us. Now, accountability sounds like a corporate buzzword until you see the three times engagement difference, then it becomes what should be a really practical thing that a leader can fix. So start now. If you’re in that situation, make sure that whatever your expectations are, that they’re clearly communicated. And it sounds easy, but when you see a survey like this, it just shows how often it just doesn’t happen. So leaders are clearly struggling with accountability. That’s the takeaway from this new Gallup survey.

What 91% of top CHROs are losing sleep over

Now let’s switch gears to look at what HR leaders at the biggest companies in America say is keeping them up at night. And this is from the CHRO association. They surveyed chief human resources officers at major U.S. corporations. When asked to name their top five immediate concerns, 91% selected AI and workplace digitization. The next closest issue was executive development, and then nothing else cracked more than 50%. So AI concern is massive among HR leaders. There’s no denying that at this point. And where they’re actually deploying AI, about 30% claim successful implementations there, followed by HR service delivery at 17% and learning and development at 14%. So recruiting is clearly ground zero for AI adoption inside HR departments.

And if you’re a job seeker, that matters. AI is screening your resume and in many cases scoring your responses before a human ever sees your application. Now, some people see that as a negative, right? AI resumes being screened by AI. But I will tell you that this is a big boost for job seekers. It’s a big bonus because it allows your resume to be seen. And here’s the deal if resumes aren’t a good fit, or if the candidate who applies is not a good fit, they’ll be screened out quickly. And there’s a lot of that. And that’s what prevents human recruiters and hiring managers from spending more time with actually qualified candidates because of the flood of unqualified candidates that come in. And that’s not to say they’re bad people, they’re bad candidates overall.

But with the one-click application process, if you listen to me at all, you know that I this is such a big hot button for me. It just means there’s no effort needed to apply to a job. And so the result of that is just recruiters are flooded with unqualified candidates. And when I say unqualified, I mean their experience isn’t even close to aligning with the job description. And it makes it very hard for recruiters to pick out qualified resumes if they have to look at a bunch of bad ones. So AI is helping with that to a significant degree. And I will tell you that’s a very, very positive thing. And I know this firsthand. We’re using it. We’re using an AI screener, and it will reply to the candidates who appear unqualified to let them know why and give them an opportunity to respond.

So there’s no bias, there’s no discrimination from all this. It is a huge plus to the recruiting industry and will prevent candidates and applicants from ever waiting and wondering. So big bonus there, but that’s but that’s what’s happening. So I guess my message there is if you’re a job seeker, just apply to jobs where you’re actually a good fit for, and you should be able to stand out and don’t spend your time on jobs where you’re not, because that AI screener will kick you out of the process very quickly. Now, there’s a gap in the survey that jumped out at me. 47% of the CHROs say they haven’t established clear productivity measurements for AI. Well, it sounds like what we just talked about, doesn’t it? Setting not setting clear expectations up front.

Nearly half of corporate America’s HR leaders who took this survey are deploying the technology without a reliable way to know if it’s paying off. Only 19% have tied AI metrics to actual business outcomes. So you’re running forward with this, and this is a big change for all of us in how AI is becoming so prevalent in the workplace. And to do it without a plan, to do it without an expected outcome is, well, that’s a bad idea. And the number one barrier to scaling AI in HR is it uh is employee resistance and fear of job loss. That came in the highest. Um no surprise there either. I mean, employees aren’t dumb. They they can see how efficient AI can be in certain areas, and well, if you add up the numbers at some point, a lot of companies are realizing they can do more with less.

Now, a lot of people will say, and rightfully so, that AI is creating new opportunities and new jobs, and that’s true too. So for the employees who are concerned, and I think everyone should be concerned to a significant degree, make sure that you’re using it to your advantage. Be on the front of that adoption curve, whatever it looks like at your company. One CHRO at a Fortune 100 healthcare company who was surveyed said that one of the biggest challenges is severe job loss among employees whose roles may be affected. That just confirms that it’s rational to be concerned about this. Um, workers can read the room. One more number from this survey I want to share that supports everything we’ve talked about is that 46% of the CHROs said frontline workers have the widest gap in AI readiness because they lack access to the tools.

So if you’re in a frontline role, the gap between you and AI ready employees is growing and your employers aren’t really doing anything about it. They’re not able to close that gap. So the last thing I’ll say on this, and if it sounds redundant, it’s probably worth it because we know so many employees aren’t taking advantage of AI yet. But take control of your own career, of your own destiny. Don’t wait for anyone to save you. And the best part of this is that it’s free. As long as you have internet access, you can learn how to use AI tools on your own. Be someone to bring ideas forward at your organization. At all costs, if your company is adopting it, figure out a way to get into the mix. Um, it’s it’s just so critical right now. It really, really is. 

Goldman Sachs surprise cuts

One more story is that Goldman Sachs is planning to cut a small number of underperforming staff in April, according to Reuters. They didn’t give a specific number, and cuts at Goldman Sachs aren’t unusual. They’re one of the strictest when it comes to performance reviews and eliminating staff that falls below a certain level. But what’s interesting about this story and why it’s notable is that this isn’t part of their regular review process. They’re doing this outside of it.

And it follows a cut that just happened at Morgan Stanley that we’ve already talked about. So that’s interesting, right? I we don’t know what it’s tied to, but it’s probably not a stretch to say that AI continues to advance, the tools continue to be used, and here’s a company deciding to go outside of their normal process and make additional cuts. So what AI is doing is making it so the margin for underperformance at a company like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, probably anywhere, the margin for underperformance is shrinking. And there’s it’s just worth paying attention to. I’m doing this podcast now, is to make sure that no one’s surprised by it, right? There’s there’s all the data shows that this is what’s happening.

And yes, there are a lot of naysayers who say that AI is not becoming you know something that’s going to take a lot of jobs. Who knows? But don’t risk it. That’s that’s the message. Take advantage of learning it and using it to elevate your work, whatever it is you do. So that is it for today. Those are our headlines.

Fun fact of the day

But here’s a fun fact before we go. The term headhunter, if you’re familiar with that, it comes from actual tribal practices. That’s how it originated, but it was adopted by recruiters in the 1950s. It would use in a very different way to go out and find people you hunt heads. And if you grew up watching the Brady Bunch like I did, and you remember the episode where they were afraid of the headhunters in Hawaii, um, I think it was the Brady Bunch or was that Gilligan’s Island. Wow, those those maybe I got that wrong. But let’s just say I thought headhunters were going to be a much bigger problem in my life than they turned out to be uh when I was 10 years old watching that.

So that’s a fun fact for today. I don’t use the term headhunter much. I never have. Um I’m obviously well familiar with the term, but it’s and it just seems dated. I don’t I just don’t think it’s something anyone calls recruiters anymore, at least not with any regularity. So that is it. I will say goodbye on that note. Thanks for listening. Please like and subscribe, and I look forward to talking with you next week.