Question 1

What is the difference between responsibility and accountability?

Accepted Answer

Responsibility is the obligation to carry out a task and can be shared or handed to someone else. Accountability is being answerable for one's own decisions and actions, and it cannot simply be transferred away by delegating. When a task is delegated, accountability is shared: the delegator answers for whether the task was suitable to delegate and whether supervision was adequate, and the person accepting it answers for doing it competently.

Question 2

When is a directive leadership style appropriate?

Accepted Answer

When urgency and risk are high and there is no time for discussion, which in practice means emergencies. A pitchside collapse needs one person allocating roles clearly. The error is using it as a default in routine work, where it suppresses the expertise of a multidisciplinary team, reduces buy-in and breeds resentment. Style should shift with the situation.

Question 3

Why is telling a colleague they were disorganised weak feedback?

Accepted Answer

It describes the person rather than a behaviour, is not tied to an observable event, and offers nothing the person can act on. It also gives no chance for self-assessment and arrives as a verdict rather than a conversation. Effective feedback is specific, behavioural, timely and ends with an agreed action.

Question 4

What makes speaking up harder in sport than in the NHS?

Accepted Answer

Sports teams are small, so anonymity is limited; contracts are often short and insecure; and the person a practitioner needs to raise a concern about may control their employment. Formal structures such as Freedom to Speak Up guardians are rarely present. Agree escalation routes in advance, including an external one, record concerns and responses, and remember that professional obligations are not suspended by an employment relationship.

Team Leadership and MDT Working

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