Accountability in the Us Army

Category: Accountability, Military

Last Updated: 21 Mar 2023

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In the US Army, accountability is a key factor that everyone should be aware of. To be accountable means to be dependable. In order to be accountable, you must arrive on time to PT, formation, work, appointments, etc. It is mainly concentrated on three things: custody, care, and safekeeping. If you make it a point to be accountable 100 percent of the time, then there should be no worries of where you are, if you are in trouble, or if anything is wrong. Accountability is something that the Army does not take lightly. It should never be taken lightly due to the fact that it is a possibility your life could be at stake.

What is accountability? “Accountability is the obligation of an individual or organization to account for its activities, accept responsibility for them, and to disclose the results in a transparent manner. ” The DOD definition states that accountability is the obligation imposed by law or lawful order or regulation on an officer or other person for keeping accurate record of property, documents or funds. This may include the responsibility of money, property, documents, NVG's, clothes, a vehicle, TA-50, a field manual, medication, etc.

Not only is it considered that, it is also knowing that a soldiers physical and mental needs are taken into consideration so they are able to be more functional as a unit. It is taking responsibility for your actions. Meaning what you say and doing what you say. Why is accountability important to the Army? It is important to the Army because it allow people to know where you are. When you have accountability for everyone, it is easier to track down people when they are needed to do a certain task. Not only is accountability important for people, but it is also important for the safekeeping of documents, gear, weapons, etc.

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If someone or something is not accounted for, then there is a possibility that something serious could be wrong or something could have happened. This is the reason why the Army has accountability formations; so that everyone and everything is safe and accounted for. The Army wants to make sure their soldiers are safe at all times whether it be in the states or over seas which is why they do not take accountability lightly. As an enlisted soldier, it is my responsibility to keep track of all items that are issued to me.

An NCO on the other hand is responsible for making sure that soldiers and equipment. A lot of money is spent on military equipment, so the Army expects to know where it is at all times. Without accountability, things could turn into complete and utter chaos. There are many ways to establish accountability. Having everyone’s phone number is the main one. When you have everyone’s phone number, then you have a way of getting in contact with someone. Therefore, it makes accountability a lot easier than it would be if you did not have a way of keeping in contact.

Another way to establish accountability is the buddy system. When someone is assigned a buddy, then they are in charge of that certain person to make sure everything is going as planned and to keep track and make sure everything is ok. Accountability does not stop with the Army. It is essential in the civilian life also. When you have a job as a civilian, you are still expected to be on time for work whether it be when you first get there or after you take a lunch break, etc. In order to be successful in the civilian world, you have to be depended on to be accountable at work.

Personal Accountability

PERSONAL ACCOUNTABILITY Being accountable for yourself is important due to the fact that if you do not know where you are supposed to be, you won’t be able to perform your job and perform it well. In the military you are only required to do three things; be at the right place, be there at the right time, and be in the right uniform. But as a military Police officer, you are also required one more thing to do, which is, check the DA Form 6 every day for changes.

If you don’t check the DA Form 6, you won’t just be in the wrong place, you will also letting those around you down while you are late and having them wait on you. Also being accountable for yourself and letting others know where you are is important because if no body knows where you are and you get hurt or lost then it falls on your leadership that they aren’t doing their job. And you will be considered AWOL (absent with out leave) under article 86 in the UCMJ. Making changes on the DA Form 6 are not made on the lower level, but the higher chain of command can approve it.

You will be in the wrong if you jump the chain of command, so that is when you let your team leader know so they can push it up. If you are unsure if your team leader pushed it up, or if the change had ever gotten approved, check multiple times until you are satisfied that the top is tracking the change. When the chain of command is unaware of the changes, it falls on the soldiers that wanted to make the change. And if no one is tracking it, and you conduct the change, then that is a direct violation of a direct order and can have UCMJ consequences.

If one issue is that you cannot do it yourself, you can always ask your peers for help. There is no shame in accepting help from others who are willing to help. When you constantly show up late and are not at the appointed place of duty, you build yourself a negative legacy. People will eventually start seeing you as incompetent and that you won’t be able to perform any tasks you are given. In turn it could lower your moral and lower the moral of your peers.

The trust of you being able to conduct your job is vital in the military and for the unity of the unit. Ways on helping with being accountable for youself are; checking and rechecking, showing up on time, not bein too afraid to ask for help. Writing down your schedule is another way to help. But the military isn’t for some people and its not easy to adapt with the lifestyle and the way of living that comes with the burden of being a soldier. So take this as my way of letting you know that you can go ahead and process the chapter paperwork.

The Importance of Accountability and Responsibility

What is the importance of accountability and responsibility? Accountability and responsibility are two important values individuals can exercise in their daily lives, and workplace. They really go hand in hand with each other. By acting responsibly people will learn to trust that you will do what you say you agree to. It then in turn lets people feel like you can be counted on. When people are accountable to each other a bond of trust is built allowing for honest opinions and ideas. The sense of one being responsible puts trust in a relationship.

Accountability and responsibility allows people to exercise autonomy with the expectation that they will feel more invested in and, therefore, will perform better, more efficiently and more creatively. If you actively practice accountability and responsibility in such places like the workplace, or with friends you tend to feel more prideful and have ownership. This also builds trust and secures a bond. With my work experience in the military responsibility and accountability is greatly increased when you have a set order of rules to follow and abide by.

Being responsible in the US Army has got to be one of the utmost important in my opinion. The obligation for the proper, custody, care, and safekeeping of property or funds entrusted to the possession or supervision of an individual needs one to be held accountable. Accountability is being responsible or answerable for an action. By taking ownership of your actions and not make excuses makes you also more reliable. People have a hard time believing in you once they feel they have been lied to or cheated.

Gaining credit or accountability takes time and is hard work if the trust is broken. It is better to be honest and say what you mean. By giving your word make sure to follow through. This shows ownership. It also makes people show you being accountable to your word. The obligation you show to yourself or another is important in showing you are responsible and can handle situations. The importance of it is huge; it shows a high character trait and unselfishness by not just looking out for your own interest.

A solider must behave and be responsible in all scenarios they are in. even if it’s in uniform or without. It increases when soldiers believe that they have personal control over their mission performance, performing out of desire to do well instead of just following orders. A lot of studies show that when a person shows desire to have control over a job they try perform at a higher level. They even solve problems better. Accountability and responsibility play major roles in a person’s character and how they view to complete the mission.

They have a positive psychological disposition and feel confident physically. These two words Responsibility and accountability are two of the main factors in being a successful Soldier in today’s U. S. Army. You must be a responsible soldier if you want to make it through deployment alive. There are so many situations that can be handled incorrectly if you slack off and not care if the proper attention is given. A worse situation would be affecting the lives of other soldiers and putting them in harm’s way.

The Importance of Accountability

Accountability is the act of accepting ownership over action and their contribution to the organization. Leadership and staff can influence large and small group and empower them to meet the objectives for the organization. The purpose of this paper discusses accountability in health care industry, and employee accountability. How accountability applies to ethical consideration in leadership and management, check-and-balance process, and accountability affect working culture. Why is accountability important in the health care industry?

Concerning accountability, there are three levels to consider first, organizational accountability second, management accountability last, worker accountability. They share information to keep those who need to know. They set goals for themselves and people, and their team, and they explain how those goals measured. They monitor the goals and provide feedback. They consider potential outcome of their action, and decision. They take responsibility for their action as well as those people under them. They learn from their mistake, and help others learn from their.

Health care industry set specific mandates and requirements for financial reporting, which sets deadline for compliance and rules and requirement (Turk, 2012). The integrity in the accounting standard applies to government and business practices (Turk, 2012). Organizations need to take responsibility for their action. The key component is to continue monitoring goals and objective. The accountability begins at the top and encompasses each level of the organization. How is an employee’s accountability measured in the health care industry?

Employee accountability is the same as manager accountability, and the expectations should held accountable for meeting or not meeting these expectation. The biggest problem is communicating that why everyone understands the expectation of the company. The goals for the individual are used to measure success. The expectation includes attitude, work ethic, and skills, work habits this has to be understood so that the supervisor and employee have the same understanding (Turk, 2012). When expectation of the employee is met, the organization rewards him.

If they are not met the organization resolve the problem, or consequence come behind the mistake. Leadership need to have feedback sessions with their employee to let him know positive and negative outcome, and recognize him in front of his peers. The goals are to admit their mistake and learn from them. How does accountability apply to ethnical consideration in leadership and management? The United States health care system faces challenges in providing quality health care to diverse population (Napoles-Springer, 2005).

The effort to identify the culturally health care from the perspective of ethnically and diverse in detail to define cultural competence level of medical encounter are lacking the skills, and knowledge to identify the different cultural values and practices (Napoles-Springer, 2005). The measure could used to access how cultural competence of provider is associated with patient outcomes (Napoles-Springer, 2005). The cultural competence measure the quality of health care associated with patient outcome.

The ethnical responsibility carries certain degree of respect, cooperation, share knowledge, and teamwork. The problems arise with staff members and department, but building rapport with the department can improve the work experience, and the experience of patient treated through the health care industry. The employer ethnical responsibly are to orientation and training on new and existing equipment, empowered employees to be more productive, and happy with his job.

There should be a chain of command where staff member could resolve issues What does check-and-balances process look like in a successful organization? The check-and-balance process support employee ensures a transparent working environment, and keep ethical employee from manipulate and intimidate by others. The proper check-and-balance prevents individuals ignoring ethical guidelines, and deters bad behavior. An organization structuring a set of check-and-balance needs where problems develop and how they can fix it.

The process start with leaderships they must become aware and involved in the organization. The organization should have tight control and failure to follow policy and procedure will be deal with. Leadership must act ethically and insisting that the staff do the same. Leadership must be on guard for that area where ethical lapse occurs and provide the check-and-balance to prevent them. How does accountability affect an organization’s working culture?

Health care industry shares the fundamental commitment to enhance the quality of care for those needing health care service, and create effective health care delivery system (American College of Healthcare Executive, 2010). The goal is to create a workplace that attracts and keeps the best employee with the opportunity for personal and professional development, which includes education, specialty training, and access to career goal. Mutual respect and care create a work environment, which everyone believes valued and appreciated, and looking forward to go to work every day.

Communication is critical for a company set up regular meeting invite feedback. Encourage employee to contribute innovative and quality ideas. Coordinate and monitoring activity keep focus on goals and action. Provide accurate information to employee, and ensure that the action is consistent with the company objective and goals, and established deadline when task must be complete, and review task ongoing and in progress (American College of Healthcare Executive, 2010) How can you maintain a positive working culture and avoid a working culture of blame?

A positive workplace lead to increased in productivity, better employee morale, and the ability to keep skilled worker (McFarlin, 2012). First a clear vision or mission for the organization this defines the foundation of the organization. Second, hired positive employee an individual with friendly smile, upbeat personality, handles conflict, and interact with others. Third, establish an open-door-policy be accessible to the staff, have one-on-one meeting listen to feedback both positive and negative.

Fourth, communicate with the staff keep them inform on what is going on with the organization be honest with the staff about upcoming changes in the organization. Last recognized the staff accomplishment, and establish reward system for excellent performance, and thank an employee for a job well done. Encourage staff member to recruit potential employee. The employee will have a better feel of which he want to work with, and the goal is to promote a positive work environment (McFarlin, 2012). Conclusion

In conclusion this paper discusses accountability in health care industry, employee’s accountability, the ethical consideration in leadership, and management. The checks-and-balances process and the accountability work culture. Accountability must begin at the top and run through the organization. Accountability in health care industry must have good communication; defined goals at each level, monitoring feedback, consequences are part of the process. The responsibility of the organization holds staff accountability for the outcome of health care.

Why Accountability Is Important

Why Accountability Is Important It is important to note first, what accountability is. I will state why it is important as well as go over scenarios in dealing with accountability. Accountability means being liable to being called to account; answerable. A good military definition of the word would be and usually means to be liable for paperwork and or property, and personnel; usually of lesser grade and rank. When dealing with army leadership and duties; being a soldier and or a leader means being accountable for what you do or don’t do as well as implied duties and responsibilities.

As a leader, being one means to be accountable not only for one’s actions, but for the actions of the soldiers for which you are assigned. One is to be accountable for equipment that is assigned to one’s-self as well. The department of defense states and defines accountability to be an obligation imposed by law or lawful order or regulation on an officer or other person for keeping accurate record of property, documents, or funds. The person having this obligation may or may not have actual possession of the property, documents, or funds.

Accountability is concerned primarily with records, while responsibility is concerned primarily with custody, care, and safe-keeping. But again, let us not get the definitions confused. The term accountability differs from the term of responsibility. There is a big difference. There are reporting procedures and processes for recording and accounting for personnel and equipment. There are different types and ways of reporting within different sizes and types of elements of a command.

There are also ways in which one will report to one who is in a designated duty position and or of higher rank and grade within different elements of commands. The ways in which a soldier may report can be orally or written in order to account for property, equipment, and or personnel. Soldiers must always be accountable for their actions. For every action there is a reaction. Soldiers are to be held to accountable for their actions because they represent the United States of America within the states as well as overseas in other parts of the world.

Sometimes, we are the only source of information as to how people may think what our behavior is and how all other Americans may behave in their own country based off of even one soldier’s sole actions whether negative or positive. We must be accountable for what we do or don’t do. If we, as soldiers, are assigned a task that is to be completed, but we fail and do not get it accomplished, then we have to account and answer for it. If we lose a piece of equipment, it becomes lost or destroyed, we have to be held accountable for it and solve the problem to correct the situation however it may need to be corrected.

Mission readiness is the answer to why accountability is so important. We must accomplish the mission at all costs with the least amount of loss whether it be soldiers or equipment. Without all of the soldiers or equipment present the mission may not be able to be accomplished. Even if only one soldier or piece of equipment is not present the mission may not be fully capable of being accomplished as the lack of either one would be detrimental to the mission.

If a piece of equipment or a soldier is not on time at the start or finish of a mission, it may determine the outcome of the mission in regards to it being accomplished and a success or not. Either way, to be accountable for the pieces of equipment or the lack of soldiers present means providing an answer to someone else whom will have to be accountable for them to another. One will wish to know why a mission was not accomplished. A superior ranking individual will wish to know for sure. One who is accountable must have an answer.

If we are not held accountable for our actions then someone else takes the blame or we never except responsibility for them and may become a pattern. If this happens, then we cannot correct the problem that causes the accountability error from the start. This would be due to a cognitive lethargic display of thought processes and or apathy. If it is not the sole cause, but a contributing factor then other problems that affect a soldiers or leaders life may be the main causal factor in not being held accountable for their actions. Someone is always accountable and answerable to the next one in a chain of command.

When the answer is needed, an entire chain of command as to why and how a mission did not attain a status of successful or completed, it affects the entire chain of command and the army itself when you really think about it. One could debate about it in regards to the butterfly effect; or the chaos theory. The theory that one small move such as the flap of a butterfly wing or a car accident effects all of us on a world-wide level even though it may seem miniscule in nature. Leaders must be accountable for discipline, leadership, and training of the soldiers.

While soldiers are accountable for their actions, equipment, and sometimes when directed, the actions of others; so are leaders for their subordinates actions and so forth up the chain of command. This is all an example of accountability. If we did not have this accountability in process as a standard in the United States Army then we would not be the successful fighting force that we are today. Leaders are under the most stress as they are held accountable for more actions than their soldiers. They are also responsible for training and mentorship of soldiers.

They must lead and develop them to become better soldiers and future leaders themselves. Leaders have many duties and responsibilities that they must be accountable for. Keeping accountability of not only people, but equipment also helps cut down on waste. Fraud waste and abuse is a big deal in the army as there are rules and regulations to address these concerns within the army as it is written doctrine. Do you have any idea how much it would cost to replace all the equipment and people lost if leaders simply never noticed they were gone and constantly had to replace them?

One of the United States military's biggest concerns is to never leave a man behind, dead or alive. It is perhaps this knowledge that they will never be left which keeps many troops confident in their job. How hard would you fight if you knew that your life was expendable and should you go missing, you would be written off and forgotten? I know for myself that I would not fight very hard if nobody cared about me in general. Accountability is one of those ways to show subordinates that you do care about them. Others may look at it in a negative way.

They may say that, “Man, he is always on my case about where I am and this and that”, but this is a way to know that one is being cared for. Knowing where items and troops are keeps superiors able to know what can be accomplished and planned as far as missions and tasks. How could a plan be carried out to its full potential if the equipment type and capability and an account for soldiers is not known as well? It would be impossible to get an accurate account in order to plan with without knowledge of this information. Having an account of this information also keeps the army nformed of how many more or less soldiers are needed to accomplish a mission or task. There is paperwork to be processed to help keep accountability for all of the personnel and equipment within any given unit or command group. If property is lost damaged or stolen, one will be held accountable for those issues in regards to them as well. If there is an investigation on the soldier(s) or piece(s) of equipment, CID will be in charge and held accountable for the investigation. Everyone plays a part in accountability on some level, one way or the other.