How leaders accelerate their growth by taking ownership

The Buzz around Ownership

“You need to take more ownership!”

“I want candidates who volunteer. Raise their hand and show ownership when tough decisions  have to be made.”

“If you had taken ownership, this escalation wouldn’t have happened!”

These words are spoken so many times, in so many different ways in offices and workplaces around the world. Exasperated managers want their teams to take more ownership. And the teams?!! What about them? Do they really know what is ownership? Is it really possible to work harder, longer than they already are?

What most professionals don’t realize is that ownership is not just a buzzword that we throw around. Its not a job description or `must-have’ from teams. Ownership is an Attitude!

Professionals who display ownership, don’t need to put an act of taking ownership. They internalize it. It becomes part of their basic nature.

So what is Ownership? Why is it so difficult to practice?

Ownership at work means being responsible for the deliverables or assigned tasks. While this may seem fairly simple and straightforward, the corporate world is anything but that.

While it is true that we get paid to do a certain job and it is our duty to perform the tasks to the best of ability, real life always doesn’t work out that way. In the race to excel, sometimes shortcuts are taken. Corners are cut. Critical issues are side stepped or overlooked as they seem insignificant in the pursuit of the larger goal.  

When the project starts, everyone is aligned to the goal. The target is the same for all. Aspirations, dreams, goals, individual objectives are aligned with the common vision of the leader. As the project begins and takes shape, different variables, pulls and pressures kick in.

Even if you complete your work, theres no guarantee that your team will be able to be working with the same speed. Are you sure others have the same level of commitment as you? Politics, personals agendas sometimes score over common vision. Individual competence varies across team members. Some are more skilled than the others. Some have more technical knowledge than the others. Some come to work and approach the project having done their homework. These are people who upskill themselves in their own time and on their own money. Just so that the goal , the team goal is achieved.

However, there are others who don’t display the same will. It could be an issue of lack of confidence. Or it could be lack of attitude. What if teams just don’t care? What if the common goal doesn’t mean anything to them? Actions of others might affect your work and therein lies the difficulty in taking ownership.

If only a few people take ownership of their tasks, but there are weak links in the team who are not willing to show the same level of ownership, there will always be conflict. Team conflict, conflict in vision, achievement of goals, etc.

The fact is that : We are all connected!

And since we are connected none of us are working in isolation: the definition of ownership needs to be expanded.

So I propose that the new definition of Ownership is : Not just owning and completing your own tasks, but also being proactive in ensuring that the team and project as a whole is also doing the same.

In other words, its not just about you. Its also about where you are in the larger scheme of things in the group. Do you want to test this definition? Below is a case study. Please go through it and answer the questions at the end.

Case Study

Salil Kumar is a salesperson in a small medical supplies business. The company has 6 employees operating in 1 shop. Every employee has a lot of work but the owner Mr. Zaveri is a tough but fair MD. Every sale is celebrated with an impromptu party in the office consisting of snacks and tea. Gradually the business grows into a large pharmaceutical company based out of Mumbai. There are multiple offices and hundreds of employees.

Salil is now a sales manager. He has been working overtime to crack a deal with a group of hospitals. Day and night become one and it is days before Salil even sees his son. He even misses his wedding anniversary. Finally, he achieves success. The order is his! The big day arrives and Sail gives the good news to his boss, who quickly pats him on the back and leaves for London. Salil transfers the order to manufacturing who puts it into pipeline of orders. Salil, who has worked day and night for the order, now runs from pillar to pillar in the company trying to expedite the order, but the bureaucracy of a big organization is too much. Mr. Zaveri tries to expedite things on the phone, but to no avail.

The clients are getting very restless and the order is in danger of getting delayed. Salil is very frustrated. He has to send a small batch to the client for their approval but the dispatch department packs the courier box and forgets to send it for 5 days! The initial group of committed individuals which became a team is now again in danger of becoming a group.

No one is willing to take ownership or accountability. The team is not working together; rather it is a bunch of individual groups just focused on their own verticals.

1. What is the problem related to ownership that Salil is facing? 

2. How could his boss have supported him better? 

3. What can Salil do to ensure better ownership from the team? 

4. How can we make sure this problem does not occur again? 


What does ownership look like?

When we receive feedback from our managers and leaders about taking more ownership: In effect they are saying: Be more proactive, don’t wait for things to happen! Anticipate problems before they occur.

Working in a silo and meeting personal targets at the cost of the team is not the best way to show ownership.

In fact ownership would mean, thinking about the effects of ones actions on your stakeholders and responding accordingly.

Many of us feel that doing a good job is the know-all end-all of taking ownership.

However, that’s just part of the story. Of course, doing a good job individually is a given. Ever stakeholder expects that from us.  However, its important to understand that ownership is not just individual. Its visible as part of larger teamwork. Of effective cooperation and accountability.

Good ownerships is visible in the initiative the individuals take to do not just their own work but also ensure that the efforts of their teams are not wasted. As we saw in the case study above, Salil is frustrated with his teammates because they are not supporting him. Its his order. His work. His job. However, what the teams fail to understand that they are just parts of a whole. If one person delivers, the team benefits.

However, working in silos has caused us to become de-sensitized to the pain of others.

Individual brilliance causes ownership to remain contained.

Whereas good ownership is visible in the help that teams extend to each other. When someone is stuck, when something is delayed, when a deadline is getting nearer, that’s when the entire team takes it upon themselves to do the heavy lifting. Carrying collective weight of the team results in everyone getting inspired. It doesn’t matter which department you are in. The sales people feel they have busted their backs getting orders but manufacturing is slow. Manufacturing feels they have constraints that the sales people don’t understand.  It doesn’t matter. In the end, what we all need to realize is that irrespective of whether we are in HR, finance, accounts, delivery, quality, testing, marketing, support or any other vertical, the truth is that ownership needs to be demonstrated both at the individual as well as the organization level.

That’s when targets are met faster. Collective goals are met. Without prompting. Without nudging. Without reminders. In fact seamlessly, as part of a well-oiled machine.

Easy ways to demonstrate Ownership

Taking ownership means owning up to your responsibility when the need arises. Demonstrating ownership is not rocket science. It is something that can easily incorporated as part of one’s day to daily life, somewhat like a good best practice for work and life. A personal code of conduct that includes ownership would be possible by following these ideas:

1. Demonstrate Teamwork
2. Be Accountable
3. Be Honest & show Integrity
4. Take Ownership of your own life

1. Demonstrate Teamwork

Teamwork is not just an outcome of fun company picnics and offsites. Teamwork needs to be demonstrated every moment of one’s professional life. Even if we are working from home, in isolation, we are still part of a team. And therein lies the confusion. Many professionals, especially those new in the system feel: I didn’t choose to be in this team. This was thrust upon me. Why should I be forced to work alongside these people? If I am doing my job well, shouldn’t that be enough?

These are all legitimate thoughts and good leader is able to anticipate these thoughts and objections and tackle them. Some will be explicit objections but others will be implicit. A team member who refuses to adhere to deadlines, leaves emails unanswered, doesn’t not participate in meetings: these are all signs of declining levels of ownership. A dose is required from the team leader, wherein the concepts of ownership need to be reinforced and communicated.

How can a leader do that?

A. Lead by personal example

B. Demonstrate through others’ examples

C. Inspire action through incentives

Positive and negative reinforcement: Reward and punishment need top go hand in hand. It cannot be honey and sugar all the time. Good ownership requires a tough stand at times and a leader should be ready to take that stand.

• Be Accountable

Accountability is linked closely with taking ownership. In fact most times, they are used interchangeably. In fact accountability is a subset of taking ownership.

Accountability at its simplest means, that if you have been assigned a task, you will need to be responsible for its execution. No one else is going to be asked and questioned about the deliverables. In effect, you own the deliverables of that job.

To be accountable. , The manager inspires each team member by demonstrating that the onus of the tasks assigned to each lies with them itself. This gives the other team members a sense that they will not be victimized or cross questioned if that task is not executed as per agreed norms and standards.

Some steps for assigning accountability are:

A.  Set a clear, unambiguous expectations. 
There should be no confusion who will do what. There should be no confusion what you expect from the other person. The expectations should be clear to both parties. In the first instance, this should be done face to face, either in person or on video meeting.

B.  Agree to the expectation in writing. Then it should be followed up with an email or written agreement. In some teams, there is a team charter where the expectations fro each remember are outlined and agreed upon. This agreement needs to be in writing so that tit is transparent. Ideally, this needs to be published and accessible to all members of the team for full and complete transparency. A platform such as Google Docs can help with this.


C.  Follow up: It is important for the leader to follow with the team members as well periodically. This helps in keeping the accountability agreements top of the mind and serve as a reminder to the teams that the leadership is looking out for ownership. This is especially a good strategy for younger teams or those leading Millennial or Gen Z team members. In this case, follow-ups help in keeping everyone’s eyes on the target.

In case targets are not met, the leader must schedule meetings with the person concerned and find out if that person was aware of their accountability towards that particular task. It is important that any explanations by the team member need to be heard without judgment or bias. It is important to ask if they acknowledge that they did not meet the expectations. And if they understood that this amounts to breaking the agreement?

D.  Define the action steps:  Mediocre professionals pass the buck and do not want to take any responsibility. This ‘not-my-job’ attitude is not appreciated by anyone. A good team player not only takes ownership but also makes themselves accountable for the outcome of that task. Irrespective of success or failure, good team players makes sure that they are held accountable for realization of the team’s success. 
Taking accountability ensures that the Team leader knows they can rely upon you in times of trouble and will always remember and appreciate this about you. 


E.  Leaders recognize the concept of Risk & reward. While they recognize that decision-making gives great rewards and bonuses and success. At the same time, decisions that backfire can have grave consequences on their team as well as their own careers. While others shy away from taking tough decisions, Leaders take full responsibility for their actions and accept the results with equanimity. The buck stops with the leader

• Be Honest and Show Integrity

Taking ownership is showing integrity. Usually opportunities for demonstrating ownership come up when there is no audience. No one is looking. There is no one to appreciate, to give feedback, to give praise for a job well done. In those moments of isolation, it is important to understand that ownership is not just a show, nor is it a mask that we put in. It actually involves doing the right thing for the good of the team. The project even when no one is looking. This places a huge responsibility on the professionals who now needs to relook at their own motives and ask themselves? Is it worth it? Because in the answer to that question lies the key to taking ownership.

A person who feels it is not worth it to show ownership or do something if no one else notices or looks, then that person is not showing ownership. Any amount of meetings or praise or feedback or criticism will not affect hat person.

So a team lead then has to ensure that the team understands that ownership is a 24 x 7 x 365 job. It’s not a one-time trick they display in the hope of a better appraisal.

Integrity is interesting good teams, in good professionals and those with integrity will ensure that no task is left unfinished. No email is left answered. Whether it is in their job description or not, its besides the point.

• Take Ownership of your own life

Taking ownership translates into leading a better life according one’s personal value system. If initiative, pro-activeness is shown in the team’s benefit by completing tasks and moving things along, then this translates into a better code of conduct for life.

It’s easy to inspire and motivate others into action. Ownership attitude at work translates into completion of tasks and activities geared towards completion of life goals.

Being accountable for actions results in taking up and completing family responsibilities. And if there is any reason why this is not possible, then an open communication with one’s family ensures that there is no interruption in attainment of family goals as well.

Respect among family, friends and society comes with showing more ownership. Not turning a blind eye to societal issues but rather taking an active interest in the well being of personal stakeholders elevates one’s position in society. Being involved in local affairs and helping those involved results in reciprocal helping relationships. Being there with others in times of their need results in good karma.

Action Steps

Ownership is Trust. Trust that your stakeholders, whether in your personal or professional life are banking on you. Trusting that you will do a good job as per agreed parameters. Trust that the expectations set at the start of the relationship are going to be followed. Its important to remember that trust once broken is very difficult to repair. Hence the trust that underlines most ownership agreements needs to be sacrosanct.

Ownership is the highest form of initiative. It is proactive behavior where you do things without being told! Why because it’s the right thing to do! Ownership involves changing our thinking. It’s a paradigm shift . Lets practice ownership by changing our thought process:

• Our Work: not my company, not yours, Our work. Synergy, we are connected. No task is beneath you. You become visible for teamwork and you get known for the person who gets the job done.
• What goes around comes around- it will be you in the hot seat sometimes. Other times it will be others.
• Going beyond the call of duty-doing things no one else wants to do. But you know what….here lies the secret pathway to success. To tread where no one else has. Best way to get visibility recognition and growth.

Many times ownership means coming up with out of the box or creative solutions to someone in your team, who may struggling for an answer. It doesn’t have to be perfect solution. But just the fact that you tried to do something for someone to take the common agenda forward is by itself enough.

Remember

Taking ownership and being accountable are major factors in building trust. It’s important to understand that the trust that our stakeholders have placed in us depends upon the extent to which we demonstrate ownership at work and beyond. There is a chain of which we are an important part. Our actions are important. Some of those actions will be visible. Others not. Its upto us to believe that action is not just about getting credit. Because once we understand that it is Company First, all our personal agendas look trivial. And the ownership that we so desperately seek from our teams becomes a wonderful reality!

Taking ownership is not difficult. Its in your job description for sure. But beyond job descriptions and titles, what your stakeholders want to hear from you: Don’t worry…I got this! Take ownership and succeed!