Accountability Means Responsibility
The “A” in IDEA stands for “accountability,” which has been added to inclusion, diversity, and equity to promote personal responsibility in making IDEA happen. For leaders, that can mean developing, implementing, and tracking the progress of the Lab’s IDEA goals to ensure that change is taking place. We aim to make improvements at the institutional, area, division, and team levels. For individual contributors, IDEA aims to promote personal investment among each of us to help make the Lab more inclusive, diverse, and equitable in our day-to-day roles, perhaps by speaking up or becoming an active bystander. We all have a role to play in IDEA. Inclusion, diversity, and equity are everyone’s responsibility.
➔ Request: As you prepare to lead future discussions on accountability with your team, ask yourself these questions:
- In meetings, are you talking about IDEA in order to show your team that you have a personal connection and investment?
- In hiring or promotions, are you considering attributes of inclusive leadership as part of your criteria?
- How are you engaging with your own supervisor or manager to create alignment on measurable IDEA goals?
- In developing your team members, what are some efforts you can consider to help bridge the gap between awareness –> behaviors –> and operationalizing the Lab’s IDEA efforts?
How Can Accountability Make You and Your Team Stronger?
Lady Idos, Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer, explains how IDEA’s letter “A” — accountability — can make your team stronger.
Bill Collins on Accountability at Berkeley Lab
Bill Collins, Director of the Lab’s Climate & Ecosystem Sciences Division and Director of the Environmental Resilience Accelerator, describes what it looks like when leaders are accountable for IDEA.
Supervisor Resources
LinkedIn Learning: Accountability Leadership for Berkeley Lab
- How Culture Affects Change – 56 minutes
- How Do We Bridge the “Anxiety Gap” at Work? – 12 minutes
- 3 Ways To Be A Better Ally in the Workplace – 9 minutes
- Harness Diversity to Ensure Long-Term Growth – 6 minutes (Part of Diversity: The Best Resource for Achieving Business Goals course)
- Diversity and Inclusion: Strategy – 3 minutes (Part of Certification Prep: SHRM-CP course)
- Embed Diversity and Inclusion Into the Strategy and Culture – 4 minutes (Part of Inclusive Leadership course)
- Bystander Training: From Bystander to Upstander – 41 minutes
Good Reads
- 5 Things We Learned About Creating a Successful Workplace Diversity Program – Harvard Business Review, 2018
- The Diversity and Inclusion Revolution: Eight Powerful Truths – Deloitte Review, 2018
- The Mistake Companies Make When They Use Data to Plan Diversity Efforts – Harvard Business Review, 2019
- Reducing the Impact of Bias in the STEM Workforce – Office of Science and Technology Policy
- Diverse STEM Workforce Needed to Preserve U.S. Competitiveness – American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2019
- What’s Holding Women Back in Science and Technology Industries – Harvard Business Review, 2014