The Longest Four-Letter Word - Thoughts from Kevin

This is the last and fourth in a series of episodes about four-letter words. But don’t worry – this and all the other episodes carry a G rating. You can watch the other episodes here. As the title of this post says, I am talking about the longest four-letter word. So technically, it’s not a four-letter word. But since this series is about “dirty” words, and we often think of dirty words as four-letter words, we are including it in this series. The longest four-letter word is accountable. And I’m considering it a four-letter word here because most of the time when we hear it, it’s associated with things going wrong. And as a leader, it’s up to us to change this bad association/assumption and help empower our team instead. But this won’t happen overnight. We’ve heard this word used negatively for a long time and if we’re going to change its connotation, we must change the way we use it. You must not only use it when things are going badly, you must not only use it with the word “hold” in front of it. Not I’m going to hold you accountable, but rather I’m going to help you be accountable. I’m going to help you take ownership. I’m going to help you be empowered. Changing it and using it carefully. Changing it and using it differently. Tweet it out: Accountability isn’t a dirty word – though some act like it is. Being accountable is simply taking ownership and responsibility. When we talk about it all the time – and not just when things go badly – people won’t think accountable is a dirty word after all. @KevinEikenberry In this episode: Subscribe to the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.