The best cultures are built on a simple truth: we win together, or not at all. In the highest-performing teams, there are no passengers.
Collective accountability does not happen by accident. It is built intentionally by leadership teams who model it, protect it, and weave it into how an organization operates. McKinsey’s Organizational Health Index shows companies in the top quartile of organizational health, which includes factors like accountability, direction, and leadership, deliver nearly three times the shareholder returns of those in the bottom quartile.
When accountability is shared, decisions are made closer to the work by the people with the most context and the best information. In disruptive markets (as we seemingly often find ourselves), that proximity matters. Speed often outweighs perfection, and organizations that distribute ownership avoid the bottlenecks that slow everyone else down. When employees feel accountable for outcomes, not just tasks, they act sooner, adapt faster, and turn uncertainty into opportunity.
A Netflix Original
Netflix offers a clear example of how shared accountability can be embedded across an organization. From its earliest days, leadership articulated “freedom and responsibility” as a core value in the company’s Culture Deck, shifting decision-making authority to those closest to the work. Founder Reed Hastings championed the principle “context, not control,” ensuring employees had the information and trust needed to act without waiting for approvals. Netflix puts this into practice with its “Informed Captain” model, where a single person within the team takes clear ownership of a decision, but in doing so actively engage colleagues and relevant experts to shape their thinking. This way, the team shares accountability for the quality of input, while the captain ensures the decision moves forward without being slowed by committees.
This approach allowed Netflix to move quickly when markets shifted, like its rapid pivot from DVD rentals to streaming, to creating original content, and remains on the transformative edge (now utilizing AI effect integration). Notably, this high-accountability environment has not come at the expense of employee morale. Netflix holds a 4.2 out of 5 rating on Glassdoor with 84% of employees recommending the company to a friend, and it earns an A+ culture score on Comparably. Radical transparency, accountability and high standards have built a culture that meets disruption with speed, creativity, and decisive action.
The Cultural Companions
While shared accountability is powerful, it is sustained by what can be called its “cultural companions.” These are the conditions that make it possible for people to take ownership and act decisively.
- Psychological safety ensures people can speak truth without fear of reprisal. In fact, Google’s Project Aristotle identified psychological safety as the single most important factor in high-performing teams. Groups with strong psychological safety were more likely to engage in productive discussions, share ideas openly, and innovate, which ultimately led to better results.
- Transparency keeps everyone informed of goals, progress, and performance data. Howard Schultz, former CEO of Starbucks, wrote in Onward that leaders should “listen with empathy and over-communicate with transparency,” using authentic experiences to inspire trust. This kind of openness strengthens alignment and ensures teams feel connected to both their goals and the responsibility of achieving them.
- Empowerment allows decisions to be made at the point of action rather than waiting for top-down approval. Shared language shifts thinking from “I” and “mine” to “we” and “our.” Curiously, amid the heightened emphasis on individual identity in recent years, an excessive focus on personal or subgroup distinctions can erode collaboration and accountability. As the Wall Street Journal has observed, when identity initiatives place more emphasis on symbolic markers than on talent and contribution, they risk undermining trust and performance. The commentary suggests that organizations are stronger when merit, shared purpose, and collective outcomes remain at the center of how people work together.
From Barriers to Breakthroughs
Even in high-performing cultures, barriers to shared accountability can persist.
- The first is blame culture. When the instinct is to find fault, team members focus on self-preservation over problem-solving. This erodes the trust required for accountability to be shared. Leaders can overcome this by modeling constructive responses to mistakes, shifting the conversation from “who” to “how,” and recognizing teams for resolving issues collaboratively.
- The second is misaligned incentives. When rewards are based solely on individual performance, there is a natural tendency to prioritize personal targets even at the expense of team outcomes. This reinforces silos and weakens collaboration. Under Satya Nadella, Microsoft eliminated stack ranking, which rewarded internal competition, and replaced it with a system that emphasized collaboration, learning, and growth. By realigning rewards with cultural values, Microsoft rebuilt trust, re-energized innovation, and fueled a dramatic resurgence in performance and market value.
- The third is ambiguity in roles. Without clear decision rights and accountabilities, there is hesitation to act, confusion over ownership, and the risk of duplicated effort. Deloitte found that organizations with clear decision rights had 23% more revenue growth over 3 years compared to those without. Clear responsibilities, documented performance expectations, and regular alignment conversations give team members the confidence to act, and the clarity to know when to involve others.
The most durable organizations run on distributed ownership, clear commitments, and mutual accountability for results. When those elements are in place, teams move with speed, adapt to disruption, and sustain performance through growth and change. That kind of culture becomes an advantage competitors cannot easily replicate, and it is strengthened when leaders are confident their teams can navigate critical decisions with the same clarity and conviction whether they are in the room or not.
