Leaders and the 8 ages of man: 8

As a Leadership Coach with many years of experience working in various corporate environments, I have observed a common issue in most businesses – a lack of ownership.

While it may be easier to take ownership when you are a business owner or shareholder, I strongly believe that leaders should cultivate a sense of ownership among their teams.

A business where everyone takes ownership is vastly different from one that is ruled by autocratic leadership or mistrust.

People want to feel engaged in their work and believe that their contributions are significant. This is what we call meaning or significance, and it is something that individuals seek in their daily lives. Followers who cannot operate autonomously from time to time may feel like robots, simply carrying out instructions.

As a leader, you can facilitate autonomy in your team, which makes taking ownership possible.

Participation is a key driver for ownership, and I often wonder what leaders who sit in their offices and construct the company’s strategy think. How can people truly be committed to a strategy where there is no shared vision? And the foundation of a shared vision is always participation.

To operate on a shared vision, people must participate in constructing it. As a leader, you must facilitate and stimulate autonomy to allow your team to participate in building a shared vision. You should also be brave enough to allow your followers to make mistakes and coach them through the learning process.

So, as a question to ponder, in what stage of human development are you?