Be Accountable for the Energy You Bring to the Team

In care and support environments, accountability is often discussed in relation to tasks, procedures and individual responsibilities. Staff are expected to follow agreed processes, complete documentation accurately, communicate effectively, respond appropriately to risk and provide consistent, high-quality support.

All of these expectations are important. However, accountability is not only about what we do; it is also about how we show up while we are doing it.

Every person brings a certain energy into a team. That energy is reflected in the way we respond to questions, receive feedback, manage frustration, speak about colleagues, react to change and behave when things do not go according to plan. Those behaviours can contribute to a calm, constructive and supportive workplace, or they can increase tension and make an already demanding environment more difficult for everyone.

In care and support settings, this matters because the emotional climate within the staff team does not remain contained within the staff room. Over time, the way people communicate and respond to one another can influence consistency, teamwork and ultimately the experience of the people being supported.

Being Accountable for Your Energy Does Not Mean Being Positive All the Time

The idea of being accountable for the energy you bring to the team should not be confused with expecting people to be cheerful, optimistic or agreeable at all times.

Care and support work can be demanding. Staff become tired, frustrated or disappointed. They may disagree with a decision, feel concerned about workload, or identify genuine issues relating to staffing, communication, expectations or practice.

Those feelings are not the problem. The important question is how those feelings are expressed.

A staff member can raise a serious concern while remaining respectful. They can disagree with a decision while contributing constructively to the discussion. They can be frustrated without allowing that frustration to spread unnecessarily through the team, and they can experience a difficult day without creating a difficult day for everyone around them.

This is an important part of professional accountability because, while we cannot always control how we feel, we can take responsibility for how we behave.

Energy Travels Through a Team

Team energy is rarely shaped by one dramatic event. More often, it is influenced by a series of small interactions that accumulate over time.

An eye roll during a meeting, a dismissive response to a colleague, an audible sigh when another person asks for help, or a negative comment made after a decision may appear insignificant in isolation. However, when these behaviours are repeated, they can begin to affect the atmosphere of the entire team.

People may become more cautious about asking questions, offering ideas or raising concerns. They may begin to avoid particular colleagues or delay difficult conversations. In some teams, staff start assessing who is in the room before deciding what they are comfortable saying.

At that point, the team may still be completing the work, but the quality of the teamwork has changed.

This is particularly important in care and support environments, where staff need to communicate, share information and respond calmly when circumstances become complex. The people we support rely on staff being able to work together effectively, particularly when there is pressure, uncertainty or disagreement.

Attitude Stops Being Personal When It Begins to Affect Other People

It is common to hear difficult behaviour explained away with comments such as, “That is just their personality,” or, “They are having a bad day.”

At times, those explanations may be completely reasonable. Everyone has difficult days, and not every change in mood requires a management response.

However, an attitude stops being entirely personal when it begins to affect the people around us.

Being accountable for the energy we bring to a team means recognising that our behaviour has an impact. It does not mean suppressing concerns, avoiding difficult conversations or pretending that everything is fine. Rather, it means taking responsibility for the way concerns are raised and for the effect our responses may have on others.

For example, there is a significant difference between saying:

“This change is ridiculous. Nobody ever thinks about how this affects us.”

and saying:

“I am concerned about how this change will work in practice. Can we talk through the impact on the team?”

The concern may be exactly the same, but the energy brought into the conversation is very different.

One response increases frustration and invites others into the negativity. The other opens the door to discussion, problem-solving and action.

That difference matters.

Staying Between the Flags

In our Between the Flags team workshop, we use a simple metaphor to help staff think about the attitudes and behaviours they bring to work.

Being Between the Flags does not mean that everyone agrees, that difficult conversations are avoided, or that people are expected to remain positive regardless of what is happening.

Instead, the flags represent the agreed behavioural boundaries that help a team remain respectful, constructive and accountable, even when the work becomes difficult.

A team might identify behaviours such as respectful communication, taking responsibility, raising concerns directly and constructively, offering support, following through on commitments and remaining solutions-focused as behaviours that sit between the flags.

By contrast, blame, gossip, eye-rolling, personal attacks, refusing to take responsibility or repeatedly spreading frustration through the team may sit beyond the flags.

The purpose of the metaphor is not to judge people. It gives teams a common language for talking about behaviour.

Rather than saying, “You have a bad attitude,” a team can ask:

“Is that response helping us stay between the flags?”

Or:

“Is this conversation helping us solve the problem, or are we moving beyond the flags?”

This language can make conversations about attitude and accountability more objective because the focus shifts away from personality and towards the impact of the behaviour.

Consider the Energy You Are Adding

One useful way to think about accountability is to ask what we are adding to a situation.

Imagine that a team is already under pressure. Staffing has been difficult, several unexpected issues have arisen during the shift and people are tired.

A colleague makes a mistake.

One staff member responds by saying:

“This always happens. Nobody here knows what they are doing.”

Another responds:

“Let’s work out what happened and what we need to do next.”

Both staff members may be equally frustrated. However, they are adding very different energy to the same situation.

The first response adds blame, generalisation and further frustration to an already difficult environment. The second does not ignore the problem, but it adds calmness, responsibility and a focus on the next step.

Being accountable for your energy is not about pretending the problem does not exist. It is about deciding what you are going to add to it.

Calm Teams Still Have Problems

A calm and accountable team should not be mistaken for a team without conflict, pressure or disagreement.

Strong teams still encounter difficult situations. They still make mistakes, disagree about decisions and experience periods of significant pressure.

The difference is often found in how they respond.

They are more likely to raise concerns directly rather than allowing frustration to circulate through the team. They can challenge an idea without attacking the person who raised it. They can give and receive feedback without immediately becoming defensive, and they are more likely to focus on what needs to happen next rather than becoming trapped in blame.

Most importantly, they recognise that everyone contributes to the environment in which the team works.

A calm workplace is not created solely by managers. It is created through hundreds of small choices made by staff every day: how they answer a question, how they respond to a mistake, what they say when a colleague leaves the room, how they react to feedback and what they contribute when pressure increases.

That is why accountability needs to extend beyond tasks and responsibilities.

It also includes the energy we contribute to the people around us.