Why do so many of us have such negative experiences with leadership? Why do our organizations have so many mediocre leaders? Why do so many of us work on terrible teams? why do we spend our careers in organizations with uninspiring and even dreadful cultures? More importantly, why do we put up with all of this?

You deserve better. We all deserve better. However, changing things means that you will need to be a better and more accountable leader. We will all need to be better and more accountable leaders. Why? Just look at the daily headlines or the newsfeeds on your smartphone. What do you see? Far too many stories of prominent leaders embroiled in scandal, corruption, sexual harassment, demonstrating unacceptable and even unethical behavior. Whether they are corporate CEOs, politicians, or other prominent figures, there are many disgraceful examples of leadership. These stories happen so often that we don’t even notice anymore. We have become conditioned to accept this as the norm. Well, it’s not—and we need to hold all leaders to a higher standard of behavior. You need to hold yourself to a higher standard of behavior.

Our experience with teams isn’t much better. Research shows that only three in 10 employees believe that their co-workers are committed to doing quality work.¹ Most employees do the bare minimum to get by. We need to improve the quality and accountability of teams.

While business leaders talk about the importance of corporate culture, the sad reality is that very few of them have created compelling ones. research estimates that only 15 percent of companies have the culture they need to succeed.² If an organization can’t build an inspiring culture, it will not be able to attract and retain the best talent in their industry or drive sustained business results.

We must do better, and this book will show you how.

Twenty-Five Countries and 80 Cities—the Story Is the Same

I spend a lot of time talking to people about leadership. I’ve traveled to 25 countries and about 80 cities in the last few years. In that time, I conducted hundreds of presentations, speeches, and media interviews. I’ve met with senior executives, boards, leaders at all levels, and employees. During my travels, I have also had the incredible experience of touching down in a city or country that was in the middle of a significant leadership story.

For example, on one business trip, I landed in São Paulo on a sunny Sunday morning. Little did I know that on that day, an estimated five million Brazilians would take to the streets to protest their corrupt political and corporate leaders. On another business trip, I arrived in the United Kingdom a few weeks after the initial Brexit vote. People were still bewildered by what had happened and were concerned about their future. I traveled to Madrid when the country was dealing with a crisis in government. Spaniards were at their wits’ end with the lack of leadership shown by their politicians. I traveled to many cities in the United States during the 2016 presidential election. Many Americans kept asking, “How did we get here?” After the election, many I spoke to asked, “Now what are we going to do?” As worried as people were, I’m sure no one could have predicted the kind of leadership style that President Trump would unleash on the world. Since he’s been in office, everyone has had a front-row seat to see how he leads every day. A day doesn’t pass when someone asks me to comment on U.S. President Donald Trump’s leadership—everyone is trying to make sense of his divisive and confrontational approach to leading the world’s most powerful country.

On another business trip, I was in the city of San Juan to see Puerto Ricans in the streets protesting the corruption in their government. The country was in turmoil. I then witnessed the celebrations when their governor stepped down in response to the protests. In all my discussions, as people reflected on these leadership stories, many were left wondering: “Is this what it means to be a leader?”

I arrived in New Zealand shortly after the tragic massacre of innocent people in Christchurch. We all witnessed the inspirational leadership of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern as she led her country through its grief. I was struck by how her leadership resonated with so many people around the world. Many proclaimed that she was an example of the kind of leader we need in the future—one who can bring integrity, resolve, and compassion to her leadership role and do it when it mattered most. Unfortunately, examples like Prime Minister Ardern are the exception. There have been far more stories of bad, inept, and uninspiring leadership.

I encountered other compelling leadership stories when I traveled to Chile, Germany, Italy, Panamá, Singapore, Australia, and other countries. Something interesting also happened during those trips. When people found out I was Canadian, many said how lucky I was to have Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as my political leader. It was immediately clear to me that he had made his mark on the world stage in his early days as prime minister. I was also really struck by these comments. When I asked why they thought Canadians were lucky to have him as their leader, the answer was unanimous: “Well, because he’s so good looking!” Then I would respond, “What does that have to do with being a good leader?” It’s important to note that when he was first elected as Canada’s prime minister, he was an inspiration to many. But over time, he was involved in several scandals that left many questioning his judgment and integrity as a leader. He was fortunate to be re-elected as prime minister in the fall of 2019, but this time with only a minority government. Canadians sent him a message: They were expecting more from him as a leader. If he chooses, he now has a second chance to redefine how he leads in a way that restores the faith and hope that so many Canadians had in him when he first took office in 2015.

During all these trips, I was on the ground speaking to regular people like you and me. I was there to talk about leadership accountability. It was a good thing because, given the events taking place in real time in their countries, it was the only topic people wanted to discuss. Most of the time, I felt more like a foreign correspondent for the BBC or CNN than a leadership adviser. I heard a lot about people’s frustrations and disappointment with their leaders, their teams, and the cultures of their organizations. I also sensed their yearning for something better and more inspirational. It is clear to me that we are all desperate for exceptional leadership in our world and our organizations.

Is Anyone Happy?

What I have learned from all these experiences is that people are fed up. They are tired of being led by mediocre leaders, working on terrible teams, or being part of organizations with uninspiring cultures. Listening to people repeatedly vent and complain about their frustrations, I find myself asking: Is anyone happy? Are you happy?

Of course, some of us have had the good fortune to be led by great leaders. Some of us have been part of terrific teams and organizations with compelling cultures. Over my career, I have been lucky to be led by some great leaders. I have been part of some fantastic teams. I have also been in companies with inspiring cultures. Here’s what these experiences have taught me. When you work for a great leader, you feel like you are at your best. When you are on a fantastic team, you feel safe and confident because everyone has your back. When you are part of an organization with an inspiring culture, you feel a powerful sense of unity and share a collective purpose. If you are lucky enough to experience all three, then your work brings you joy and meaning. It’s fun, exciting, and even life-affirming.

I’ve also learned that these great experiences can ruin you forever. What I mean is that once you’ve seen what great is like, it’s hard to put up with the bad, the mediocre, and the uninspiring. You’ve experienced good or even great, so you know that something better is indeed possible. At the same time, I’ve seen the price people have paid by working with a dreadful manager, being on a terrible team, or part of an organization with a toxic culture. Some of these people have never had a great experience in their professional lives. They do not even know that something better is possible. As a result, whenever I have found myself in situations that were downright awful, I worked hard to try to change them. And if I couldn’t, I left the organization. Why? Simply because I have come to learn that life is too short to spend it being miserable at work.

This Is My Life’s Work

I have spent close to three decades in my career helping leaders, teams, and organizations aspire to become the best they can be. It all began when I was 27 years old and decided to start my own business. I left a large public-sector organization that did important work—it helped some of the neediest and most marginalized people in society get their lives back on track. We provided financial assistance, career development support, and access to retraining programs. The purpose of the organization was inspiring to me. Despite this, I quickly learned that the organization’s culture was drab and dreadful. In my time there, I saw Zinta, a senior manager, die of lung cancer, a disease she believed was a result of the stress she endured spending her career in a highly toxic work environment.³ This was devastating to me as Zinta was my mentor. At the time, I questioned whether her exposure to that toxic culture did indeed impact her health. Today, we know that it most likely did. In his book Dying for a Paycheck, Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer summarizes considerable research showing how toxic workplaces directly undermine people’s health and well-being.⁴ In the end, that experience with my mentor Zinta changed my life. It forced me to think hard about my career and my life’s work. Over time, I discovered my passion and mission: to work with people who aspired for more from their work. I wanted to work with individuals who wanted to be exceptional leaders, lead great teams, and create inspiring cultures.

At first, I provided career counseling services to private clients who were managers and senior managers in large organizations. They told me about the challenges they faced navigating their careers. I learned firsthand the impact that lousy leaders and mediocre managers have on employees—how they undermine confidence, create stress, and erode passion and engagement.

My clients also brought me into their companies. I ran seminars for employees, managers, and senior executives to help them deal with the volume of change taking place. At that time, organizational change was a hot topic (much like it is today). In parallel to running my consulting business, I also completed two graduate degrees. I conducted research on change and leadership. When I finished my doctoral degree, I felt it was time to go back into an organization and apply everything I had learned in graduate school. I did that by joining a start-up pharmaceutical company with an amazing culture. I learned firsthand what it takes to build one, but also learned what happens when you do not focus on sustaining it over the long term.

A few years later, I returned to the world of consulting. I was part of a firm called Knightsbridge Human Capital Solutions, headquartered in Toronto. My experience allowed me to work with some fantastic clients and colleagues. I led the leadership practice within the firm. At a personal level, I worked hard to try to be a good leader, to build a great team, and to contribute to creating an inspiring culture across our organization. Our formula for success was simple: Hire amazing people dedicated to their clients, create valuable thought leadership and solutions, and establish a strong culture. We did just that and became a dominant brand in our industry.

Then in 2015, The Adecco Group and LHH (a world-leading provider of talent development and transition services) acquired Knightsbridge. A new opportunity emerged for me. Now I was part of a global Fortune 500 company, and I was given a role with clear marching orders: Take the success formula that my team and I had implemented at Knightsbridge and export it globally. We did, and due to the commitment of many exceptional colleagues, we helped leaders around the world become more accountable to drive the success of their organizations.

My career came full circle when I decided it was time to start my own company again, which I did in January 2019. I felt I needed to focus 100 percent of my energy to my life's work and mission. In many ways, I have the same sense of purpose and zeal that I had when I was 27 years old. All the experiences over my career have given me a unique perspective on leadership which I gained by consulting to C-Suite leaders, designing and delivering award winning leadership programs for my clients, conducting research, and in leading successful businesses. As I look at the leadership landscape today and over the next decade, it’s clear that leadership matters more than it ever has. We need stronger leadership throughout our world. But exactly what kind of leadership do we need?

It’s About Leadership Accountability

What my work with clients has taught me is that if you want to improve as a leader, a team, or a company, the quickest and most enduring way to do this is by focusing on leadership accountability. When you do, it immediately puts you on a different trajectory.

In my book The Leadership Contract,⁵ I define leadership accountability as the ability of individuals in leadership roles to step up and demonstrate personal ownership for their roles, be deliberate and decisive in the way they lead, and bring a sense of urgency, courage, and resilience to the position. They must not only demonstrate this accountability at a personal level, but they must also ensure it exists within their teams and with other leaders across their organization. They need to help inspire others to step up, take ownership, and deliver results. However, what I have discovered is that we have many people in leadership roles who simply are not accountable. They are more committed to the technical aspects of their roles—whether they are accountants, engineers, sales professionals, analysts, marketers, or investment bankers, to name a few. They do not bring the same level of personal commitment to the leadership aspects of their roles. I have come to learn many do not even define themselves as leaders, even though they have a leadership role within their company. They essentially treat leadership as a part-time job—something they do in addition to being technical experts.

I came to realize that our organizations are filled with thousands of part-time leaders. One of the primary reasons this has happened is because a lot of people get into leadership roles by accident. They excel at something technical, and organizations go to these individuals and promote them into leadership roles. The underlying assumption is that strong technical performance would translate into strong leadership performance. Sometimes that is true; but we’ve learned in practice that most of the time it isn’t. As a result, many companies have significant leadership accountability gaps. They have people in leadership roles who simply are not stepping up or leading in a way that their company expects.

My clients asked me to help them find a way forward to resolve this problem. In my book, I positioned the critical idea of a leadership contract that stipulates those in leadership roles must understand they are held to a higher standard of behavior. This idea of a leadership contract has always existed, but we have never made it explicit with leaders. In fact, many people who are in leadership roles have treated the leadership contract like an online contract—you know, the one that comes up on your laptop or tablet with all the terms and conditions. When it does, most of us simply scroll down to the bottom of the screen and click “agree” without reading a single word. You know you are bound to something; you are not quite sure what that is. This analogy has resonated with a lot of leaders I work with. They acknowledge that they haven’t been deliberate in considering what they signed up for when they took on a leadership role. Now, given the challenges that leaders will face today and over the next decade, it’s critical that this idea of a leadership contract becomes explicit and that leaders appreciate what they actually signed up for in their roles.

In 2013, when the first edition of The Leadership Contract was released, these ideas immediately resonated in the marketplace. No matter where I went, or whom I talked to, I repeatedly heard the same thing: “This is what we’ve been missing. We need people in leadership roles to understand what it means to be a leader. They need to understand that they’ve signed up for something important, and we need them to step up and be accountable.” “They can’t simply be committed to only the technical parts of their roles; they need to fully commit to being accountable leaders.” Those who read my book described it as a mindset book about leadership because it helps leaders understand how they need to think about their roles and what they must pay attention to every single day.

I believe this idea of leadership accountability resonated because I’ve come to appreciate that as humans, we expect more of people in leadership roles. We hope that they will step up and lead, create exceptional organizations, and even make the world a better place. When they succeed, we praise them, admire them, and even want to emulate them. However, when they fail to step up in a crisis, misbehave, or are simply mediocre, we feel a sense of disappointment, despair, and even disgust.

As a leader, you need to understand that you signed a leadership contract and that it comes with four terms and conditions (see Figure I.1). Let’s explore them now.

Accountability Breeds Accountability—The Ripple Effect

Take some time to reflect on the four terms of the leadership contract. To what extent are you a truly accountable leader? Is your team as accountable as it can be? Does your organization have a culture that inspires others to step up and deliver results? If you are honest with yourself, like most leaders I work with, you will come to realize that there is an opportunity for you to be more accountable in your current role. That’s one lesson I learned in my own leadership roles. As accountable as I thought I may have been, if I were honest with myself, I could see more ways to step up and be even more accountable. Here’s something else I learned along the way: You can’t ask anyone else to be accountable if you are not accountable yourself. You must lead by example. Why? Because accountability breeds accountability. Let me repeat that: Accountability breeds accountability.

If you set the right tone, most everyone will follow. It’s like a ripple effect that can happen in a still pond. I’m sure you have experienced it. Once you touch the water with your finger or throw a pebble in it, you watch the ripples take form and expand throughout the entire pond. That’s how accountability works in organizations. If you step up, and others see you setting an example of accountability, you create a positive ripple effect that inspires and encourages others to also step up and be accountable.

However, a ripple effect can work the other way as well—mediocrity breeds mediocrity. When mediocrity ripples throughout an organization, then you have a problem. I believe we have too many people in leadership roles who seem to be fine with being just okay—average or mediocre at best. No human endeavor of any significance has ever been achieved with mediocrity. Extraordinary results—whether from an athlete, an artist, a surgeon, a manager, a teacher, or a CEO—are never achieved through mediocrity.

You have a choice. What will it be for you? Accountability or mediocrity? What ripple effect are you creating in your organization?

The Dual Response to Build & Scale Leadership Accountability

To me, accountability is the bedrock of truly great leadership. In The Leadership Contract, I suggested that a dual response is required to make it happen in an organization (see Figure I.2). First, as a leader, you must step up and be accountable at a personal level. Second, you must then build accountability across the organization as you work with your direct reports, teams, and peers. Let’s explore these ideas in more detail.

The Organizational Response

Your success will be accelerated and amplified if there is also an effective organizational response in place. By this, I mean you must go beyond yourself and strive to strengthen the leadership accountability across your entire organization. First, you must work hard to hold others accountable, build an accountable team, and help establish a strong community of leaders across your organization.

Second, as a CEO, senior executive, head of human resources, or board director, you must set the tone of strong leadership accountability for the rest of the organization. You must also put practices in place that will make leadership accountability a business priority in your organization. You must define clear leadership expectations, demonstrate resolve, and do the hard work that sustains momentum. You must also support leaders to act as a community and build a strong leadership culture.

In many ways, this book is part of what I call my Leadership accountability trilogy. The Leadership Contract (3rd ed.) presents the core ideas around leadership accountability. The Leadership Contract Field Guide provides 75 activities that you can use to put those ideas into action within your leadership role. This book explores what you must do as a leader to drive strong leadership accountability at an organizational level. The three books are designed to work together and provide an integrated approach for you to implement in your organization.

My Wish for You

You and I will need to increasingly rely on these ideas because the future will only continue to be more challenging. Case in point, when the printing of this book was in production, the COVID-19 virus was unleashed and upended our world.

It brought an unprecedented perfect storm of challenges, unlike anything most of us have seen in our lifetimes. The social, economic, and personal impact was devastating for many. Millions would be infected. Hundreds of thousands would die.

Now, if the global pandemic did not test our resolve enough, we also had to contend with other challenges such as the social unrest in response to the tragic death of George Floyd. Protests around the world brought to the forefront the critical need for us to address systemic racism in our organizations and our society.

As I reached out to support my clients during this time, many told me of their leadership struggles. Every client also asked me if the events of the global pandemic changed my views about leadership accountability. It was a great question. We were all seeing so many global leaders thrust into the spotlight as they tried to respond to the events in real-time.

As I typically do, I asked them to answer their question first before I answered. Every single client said the same thing: leadership accountability is even more critical in a crisis. They also shared that they were counting on the leaders and managers in their organizations to step up and be accountable.

These conversations once again confirmed for me the deep connection that exists between leadership and accountability. Furthermore, this connection becomes even stronger in the face of a crisis.

At these times, we instinctively look to our leaders to support us, provide hope and instill confidence in the future. But when leaders fail to do so, we become disappointed and even angry. Then the cries for accountability can be heard everywhere. We demand it.

So as you read this book, I'd ask you to reflect deeply on your leadership role. My sincere hope is that you will come away with a clear sense of what you must do to be a truly accountable leader – both at an individual and organizational level. I also hope that you become inspired, energized, and compelled to lead at a higher standard of behavior because your team needs you, your organization needs you, and our world needs you.

I encourage you to reach out to me on LinkedIn or visit www.drvincemolinaro.com. I also encourage you to download my Accountable Leaders App and join a community of leaders that are committed to leading to a higher standard of behavior and accountability.