Personal responsibility is the key to motivation and performance, according to Kristin Dethloff, trainer and coach at UBEGA GmbH. Helping employees learn how to act independent and learning how to put trust before control can make a big difference in a business’s success, said Dethloff, who spoke about this topic at a recent GTIA DACH Community Meeting in Berlin.
In the following interview, Dethloff explains why personal responsibility is an important skill and how companies can use it to increase motivation and performance.
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Why is personal responsibility so crucial for the motivation and performance of employees in companies?
Personal responsibility is a real performance factor, especially in IT system houses. Everyday work is characterised by time pressure and high complexity, and decisions often have to be made directly at the customer's site—without the team leader or management being available. Employees who know that they can and should make decisions act faster, more confidently and in a more customer-oriented manner. This increases both motivation and the quality of results.
Personal responsibility gives technicians the feeling that ‘I am needed—and I can make a difference.’ This is more motivating than any incentive. At the same time, it takes the pressure off managers: Fewer queries, fewer ‘Can you quickly ...?’ requests, more time for strategy instead of firefighting. Personal responsibility is therefore the basis for a system house to grow without management becoming a bottleneck.
What mistakes should managers avoid at all costs so that personal responsibility can actually grow within the team?
The most common mistake is a lack of clarity. If a technician does not know how far their decision-making authority extends or what result is expected, they will hesitate. The fear of doing something wrong often leads them to play it safe instead of acting on their own responsibility.
The second mistake is micromanagement and a lack of delegation. Many managers in IT system houses come from a technical background themselves and are often also technical experts. They believe they can do things faster or better, or they control every step. As a result, they unintentionally keep their colleagues small or insecure. The system house remains dependent on individual minds.
The third mistake: personal initiative is ignored or criticised (‘You should have asked first’). Without positive feedback, responsibility dies immediately.
What are the most common pitfalls that managers encounter when encouraging their employees to take personal initiative—and how can these be avoided?
Many managers hand over responsibility—but remain in control mentally. They continue to interfere in decisions or are always CC'd ‘just to be on the safe side.’ This creates uncertainty: ‘Am I allowed to decide, or does the boss ultimately decide?’ Clear decision-making boundaries help here, for example: ‘Sales staff are allowed to submit offers up to £5,000 themselves; above that, they involve the sales manager/managing director.’
Second pitfall: The expectation that personal responsibility will develop immediately. It is a skill that needs to be developed. This requires practice and trust. Managers should adapt their communication behaviour: Instead of answering every question or problem themselves immediately, they can ask back: "How would you solve this customer problem? What options do you suggest?" In this way, employees learn step by step which decisions they can make themselves and where they need support. And the manager recognises what is better to continue deciding themselves.
Third pitfall: Lack of feedback loops for joint development. When employees make decisions in new areas, they need regular reflection—not as a form of control, but as a form of joint learning.
Managers can avoid these pitfalls by providing clear scope for action, regular feedback and a genuine tolerance for mistakes. This promotes sustainable initiative. To do this, they need the courage to lead the way, patience for joint learning and employees who are interested and willing to learn.
How can managers put trust before control without losing sight of the big picture?
In my view, control is an illusion. This also applies to the system house business. Managers often believe they need to keep an eye on everything. But in everyday life, with tickets, disruptions, sales enquiries, employee appraisals and customer projects, many things happen simultaneously and in a decentralised manner. Controlling every step would not only be impossible, but also far too time-consuming.
What works much better, on the other hand, is transparency through clear goals, defined decision-making boundaries and fixed feedback loops. A sentence such as ‘You decide – we'll discuss the project status in three days’ creates security and orientation. When it is clear where the company, the customer or the project is heading and who makes decisions in which context, trust is created.
In addition, an overview can be created through evaluations in the ticket system, status boards for SLAs or Kanban boards in projects. Managers and employees remain informed about changes and progress without slowing down processes.
In my view, the basic principle is this: If I show my employees trust and underline this through my actions, they will usually justify it. If I treat people with mistrust, this is also reflected in their behaviour. Managers have to decide which side they want to be on.
Can you give a specific example from your practice where more personal responsibility has led to noticeably better results?
The desire for more personal responsibility often comes first from managers who ask, ‘Why don't the employees just do it?’ My answer sounds paradoxical: Such teams often need more leadership at first before they can act more independently.
I worked with a team whose management and team leaders demanded more personal responsibility. However, the team lacked the structural framework and, to varying degrees, the individual skills. It was only after several development steps that the team leader was able to strengthen his role so that he could establish the appropriate structures and develop the employees individually.
Acting independently rarely has an impact in a single situation or in directly measurable key figures. In my work with IT system houses, I only see the difference over a longer period of time: Teams that take responsibility work faster, more confidently and in a more customer-oriented manner. The effects are indirect: Fewer queries, fewer escalations, more stable customer relationships and higher satisfaction within the team.
All of this leads to better results and growth in the long term—in conjunction with leadership, structures and culture. Personal responsibility is not an isolated lever, but a development process.
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