Why Every Business Owner Must Take Accountability Seriously

Accountability is one quality we all should possess, as it plays a vital role in shaping our lives, careers, and businesses in the right direction. When people see you're accountable, they tend to trust you because they know you'll admit your mistake and not try to push blame. It also helps people to trust you to be ready to take responsibility for your actions, decisions, and the outcome that follows them. Basically, when you're an accountable individual, people tend to trust you because they'll see you as someone with integrity that's reliable and responsible. Unfortunately not everyone possesses these qualities, and below I'll be reflecting on my experience with an unaccountable artisan.

A couple of days ago I wrote about my experience with a close friend who happened to be an artisan, a fashion designer to be precise. I patronized him mainly because he was my lifelong friend despite the fact that he stayed kilometers away from me, but he didn't appreciate my commitment to our friendship and desire to grow his business because through the years he kept on showing me he can't be trusted or held accountable for his actions nor words, and I can't help but be disappointed by the continuous show of his unseriousness.

I won't be dwelling more on our encounters or what led to this since I've written about that before. What I would be talking about in this article is mainly the dangers of not being accountable as a business owner or individual and what impacts such can have on not just your business but your relationship with people as well. Take, for instance, this particular friend of mine who had exhibited these same habits during our days in the university even before he became a fashion designer, and I believe he should have changed now that he's in this business, but I'm obviously wrong.

Seeing how he is, I knew not giving him the gig would raise eyebrows among our other friends, and so I needed tangible evidence to not only prove he's not fit to be given the gig but also an excuse to give it to someone I can trust because I know they're very much accountable. So to prove a point, I gave this friend of mine a cloth to sew for me around November last year, and despite how urgent I said it was, he didn't deliver until later this year in April. Despite that delay, I gave him another job that same April and told him it was urgent one more time, but still he ghosted me after getting paid and didn't deliver until August.

Seeing he has fallen into my trap, I now have the leverage to do what I like with the multiple clothing gigs I've lined up for later this year. But still I tried to confront him for his unaccountability and poor job delivery, but he just ghosted me. However, later he found out I've got lots of jobs I have to do, and then he came back trying to convince me to give him the job, and I told him point blank that I won't make such a mistake again, that he had his chance and blew it.

So that's what leads me to the dangers of not being accountable as a business owner and they're as listed below:

• Loss of trust: when you show your clients you can't be trusted to stand by your words, they'll leave, because trust is like egg, ones broken, it hard to regain.

• Damage relationship: such goes on to damage your relationship with your clients, just as seen in my situation.

• Poor reputation and loss of credibility: when you show you can't be accountable, people tend to trust you less and theses affect your business and relationships, take for instance when talking with another friend about my encounters with my artisans friend, he also feared being disappointed and said he won't patronise him.

There are still several downsides to these, such as stigmatization and lack of growth, poor reputation, and personal guilt and regret, among many others, and that's why we as business owners and individuals must make sure we're accountable in everything we do, be it in our words, actions, or inactions.

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All photos are mine.

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