“…Losing to a superior opponent while fighting with everything you’ve got, searching until the very last for a way to win, that my friends is ownership.”
— Daniel Flowers
I sat across the table from the senator’s chief of staff pretty sure I’d just nailed the interview. Fresh off a Congressional internship, I was in the zone. And since I’d never made much money giving guitar lessons and playing in rock bands, the $1,000-a-month salary seemed like a dream about to come true.
That’s when he looked over at me and said, “Son your hair is pretty long, not sure that is gonna represent us well.” Ready, I replied, “If I get the job, I’ll cut it sir.” Leaning in he said, “If you really wanted the job, you’d have cut it before you came.” Game over. Lesson learned.
There are few concepts in leadership tossed around so regularly, yet so thoroughly misunderstood than that of ownership. The idea that no matter where you are in your career, however pigeon-holed you might feel, you can display true leadership by taking full ownership of not just your own work, but the results of the entire organization, is a pill too hard, too complicated for most folks to swallow.
But like cutting your hair before the interview, you can take on the characteristics of a leader long before you serve formally in that role.
It takes a high degree of savvy to navigate the landscape of ownership, but developing an ability to work outside of your lane without making other people feel threatened is how leaders work. Only 1 in 10 workers will even try.
And only 1 in 10 of those who try will do it in a way that is authentic, non-threatening and truly empowering to the team. If you’re taking initiative and ownership of results for selfish reasons, your colleagues will undermine you. Count on it.
As the CEO of an organization, you are 100 percent responsible for every outcome of the enterprise. It’s a lonely place at times. And nothing speaks more to the heart of a leader than to see other people in the organization — subordinates — jumping into the work in the same way.
As CEO, I can’t see a person, project or department failing and say, “It isn’t my job to address it.” What could be more inspiring than to see others inside the organization expressing the same ownership over results before they are personally responsible for them? Again … it’s like cutting your hair before the interview.
Accountability is required only in the absence of personal responsibility. If you decide early that the well-being of the department, the team and the organization is your foremost concern, even more important than your own advancement, you’ve taken the first step.
And a lot of folks think they are doing this. But when results are failing, only the rare few choose to point at themselves and not their circumstances.
If you ever find yourself saying the following things, there is a good chance you’ve lapsed in your commitment to take real ownership for the organization:
- I wasn’t trained.
- No one told me it was my responsibility.
- I’m overwhelmed (maybe you are, deal with it).
- I’m waiting for ____.
Personal ownership is what decides the difference between excuses and extenuating circumstances. Think about it. Leaders must find a way to succeed. Excuses are merely a conveyance of what went wrong in the context of not taking personal responsibility for the results.
It’s like losing a wrestling match to a superior opponent and giving up the fight because you knew you were going to lose anyway. No one respects that. But losing to a superior opponent while fighting with everything you’ve got, searching until the very last for a way to win, that my friends is ownership.
It’s a relentless drive to press against the circumstances that lead to failure and looking inward at what you could contribute to the cause for the sake of the cause alone. Get in the game friends. ●
Daniel Flowers is president and CEO at Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank.
