Stop Managing. Start Leading.
Renae Oswald · RizeX Monthly Mastermind · May 2026 · Eastern Idaho
Most business owners say they want more accountable teams — but they’re looking in the wrong direction. Renae Oswald, president of New Level Leader, opened the room with a simple question: what would get better if everyone around you was more accountable? The answers came fast — less drama, more delegation, less micromanagement, more growth. Then she turned it around: the real work starts with the person asking the question.
What Renae Covered
The Accountability Cycle. Renae walked the room through a framework built on three interconnected elements: responsibility (a before-the-fact commitment to an outcome), empowerment (taking the action and risk required to deliver it), and accountability (a willingness after the fact to answer for results — without fault, blame, or guilt). Clarity sits at the center of all three. Most breakdowns, she argued, aren’t accountability problems — they’re clarity problems. Expectations weren’t stated. Agreements weren’t made. And then everyone’s surprised when things fall apart.
You Cannot Mandate Accountability. This was the line that landed hardest. No policy, no performance review, no ultimatum creates an accountable culture. The only path is modeling it yourself — and that means looking in the mirror first. Renae shared her own story: a major hospital-wide project at EIRMC that failed a Joint Commission survey, and her immediate instinct to blame everyone around her. It took a blunt mentor and a 15-point gap between her responsibility and accountability scores to show her how much she was contributing to the very outcomes she was frustrated by.
The 85% Threshold. Drawing on decades of data from her mentor Linda Galindo, Renae introduced a concrete target: organizations where the overall accountability mindset reaches 85% or higher consistently produce exceptional results, reduce drama, and — critically — stop needing to be managed. Leaders can actually lead instead of running around putting out fires.
Three Things to Start Today. Rather than overwhelming the room with an 18-item assessment, Renae zeroed in on three high-leverage behaviors: talk to people, not about them; no meetings after the meeting; and stop rescuing, fixing, and saving underperformers. That last one hit closest to home for the business owners in the room — especially those who built their companies from scratch and still find it easier to just do the work themselves than to hold someone else to it.
What the Room Walked Away With
Renae shared two concrete resources. The first is Linda Galindo’s book The 85% Solution, which goes deeper on the full framework. The second is the Accountability Circle — a free online community where Renae and Linda go live weekly covering these principles. The link in the QR code she shared gives access to the free side, which includes replays, tools, and a clear agreement template. She also left everyone with a self-assessment tool — 18 behaviors scored one to five — and encouraged people to start with just a couple rather than trying to fix everything at once.
A Moment That Landed
Renae closed with an image from the Metropolitan Museum of Art — an ancient Greek sculpture, usually seen as white marble, shown in its original painted form. Vivid, specific, completely different from what we assume. Her point: once you start seeing through an accountability lens, you can’t unsee it. Every team problem, every frustrated conversation, every fire you’re running to put out — you start asking, what part of this do I own? Not with guilt or shame, but with the recognition that what you control is the only place real change starts.
“You cannot mandate accountability. You can only demonstrate it.” — Renae Oswald
“When you work with people who are personally accountable, you don’t have to hold them accountable. They’re holding themselves.” — Renae Oswald
About Renae
Renae Oswald spent 27 years at Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center, rising through the ranks from staff nurse to director — and learning the hard way what accountability actually requires of a leader. She now runs New Level Leader, a consulting practice helping business owners and their teams close the gap between responsibility and results. Her approach is direct, her stories are real, and she gives out tissues when necessary.
Join Us Next Month
The RizeX Monthly Mastermind meets every month in Eastern Idaho — an intimate gathering of local business owners, entrepreneurs, and professionals committed to real growth. Every event features a speaker who’s in the trenches alongside you, plus time for meaningful conversation and connection.