Accountability is about taking ownership of the mistakes you make. It can be very hard for you to admit that a change or decision you made created an issue or caused an application to crash. Errors happen all the time but the faster you admit to your own fault the faster you can fix it. In the long-run, both you and your team will be better off.

Hiding your mistake will come back to bite you. In some cases, it might get you fired. It also won’t help your colleagues understand what went wrong and avoid making the same mistake. Besides, you will be the one to benefit from your mistake the most. Leaving the mistake in the cave won’t help you learn anything.

When you know that an issue is yours, raise your hand or let your colleagues know as soon as possible because in most cases your issue will cause other issues. For example, you have an issue on the back-end that is connected to a UI component. By you not saying anything the UI component will not work and more issues will arise. Make sure to give your team a thorough explanation of what went wrong and what you will do to fix it. This is very important because they need to be able to trust that the mistake you made won’t happen again. Also, take the time to teach your colleagues how to avoid similar mistakes which will save you time and resources.

When you know you are not responsible, please be mindful of what you say. It can cause conflict which will delay solving the problem. Make sure to focus on the problem instead of who made the problem. No one wants to be blasted in front of everyone.