Securian’s Vision for Healthy Accountability

“People don’t want to sign up to be a part of an ‘accountable culture’, because it gets people nervous and the perception is negative,” Beca Hagen stated. “By calling it healthy accountability, we’re creating it as an invitation for goodness.”

Those words were my favorite moment in the Good Leadership podcast interview with Becca Hagen, VP of Talent at Securian Financial. If you’ve been following along, you know the Good Leadership team is consumed with researching the secrets to healthy accountability in today’s highly flexible workforce. Becca was the third of four podcasts so far. You can listen to that episode here.  

Based in Minnesota, Securian has been providing insurance and retirement solutions for 140 years. Becca, with over 25 years in HR and a valued member of the Accountability Research Project steering team, shared her insights on creating a culture of healthy accountability in her organization.  

Names Have Power 

Becca highlighted a significant shift in perspective that’s becoming very clear throughout this project: rather than viewing accountability negatively, it needs to be promoted as a positive tenet of the culture, and the world “healthy” attached to accountability does just that.  

At Securian, this shift from “accountability” to “healthy accountability” will drive the company to achieve their strategic initiatives. Securian was one of the first companies to commit to being a part of the research because they saw the research and Conference as a way to drive better business performance.  

HR Driving the Culture 

Becca’s team has an important role to play in defining the culture required for better performance. Being a part of the steering team has ignited excitement in her to introduce healthy accountability into Securian’s culture. She’s starting to notice small changes within herself as she interacts with her teams and employees across the organization differently.  

“I did some introspection in the places I’ve been let down, and it may have been because I wasn’t clear enough,” Becca realized. “I didn’t give that concrete direction. It made me think, there’s nothing better than knowing exactly what’s expected of you.” 

And, it’s just as difficult for leaders to create that clarity of expectations as it is for employees to not know what they are accountable for. The magic happens when you invite your team into the conversions of, “the what, by who, and when?” to figure out what’s feasible together. And create a group-shared sense of healthy accountability.  

If you’re interested in conversations like this, stay tuned for more content and a final interview with a member of the steering team on the Good Leadership Podcast.