In the previous article in this mini series on creating an ownership culture comment we first explored the leadership choice that is available in any situation:
- We can either take the path of victimhood entitlement and avoidance or
- We can take the path of leadership, ownership and action
What this means for us as leaders is that we can't blame our team for not stepping up to be owners, but instead must look at ourselves to see what we can do about the situation.
The last article we looked at the three levers available to leaders to create an ownership environment and inspiring vision power to deliver and creating clear consequences.
“But Richard,” you may ask, “doesn't this put all the pressure on me as the leader? What about people actually deciding to take ownership for themselves?”
I didn't wait around hoping that everything would be perfect before I stepped up and took ownership in my own business. And so why should I expect less from my own team?
You're right of course. The idea of ownership actually requires everybody to focus on what they personally can control:
- As a leader you can control the ownership environment that you create.
- As a team member you can take responsibility for your own personal ownership stance.
Indeed, that's exactly how our ownership accelerator program is structured.
I work with the leadership team on how to create an ownership environment AND I work with their direct reports on what it means to proactively adopt an ownership stance
To summarise, if your team aren’t taking ownership, strengthen the ownership culture. If your management isn’t creating that culture for you, be an owner and generate it for yourself!
Understanding the ownership stance
I’ll talk about the three components of an ownership stance in our next article.
For now, I want you to understand that as a leader, you have a responsibility to create an ownership environment for others AND you have a responsibility to embody the ownership stance for yourself.
Before I go ahead and explain the three elements of the ownership stance, I would love your thoughts on this.
Have a guess. What do you think those three elements are?
