What’s up, good readers.
The first official edition of Leadership Ladder is kicking off with a primer on ownership and driving results. For leaders at any level, especially at bustling startups, these are probably the critical attributes you need to get ahead. You’ll leave with action steps and confidence that you can DELIVER. That’s my intention, anyway (and I welcome feedback).
If you’re following me on LinkedIn, you’ll notice that these posts mirror a lot of what I’m saying there. That’s no mistake. I’m summarizing everything here so it’s drilled into your beautiful heads + can exist here neatly forever for my subscribers. I hope you enjoy.
Why should you care about ownership
“You can’t make people listen to you. You can’t make them execute. That might be a temporary solution for a simple task. But to implement real change, to drive people to accomplish something truly complex or difficult or dangerous—you can’t make people do those things. You have to lead them.”
“Leaders must own everything in their world. There is no one else to blame.”
— Jocko Willink, Leif Babin - Extreme Ownership
Without ownership, blame is passed around, problems don’t get resolved, trust is lost, and an organization becomes dysfunctional.
If you take ownership, almost everything falls into place:
You are (self)empowered to dig deep on issues and find solutions
Ego is set aside in favor of unemotionally building a more effective team
Leaders create a culture of honesty and execution
Leaders build trust and respect with their team (up and down the chain of command)
Reports are empowered to take ownership themselves
Continuous improvement happens naturally at all levels
Everyone is invested in the success of the organization
Wins are celebrated together
Orgs with higher ownership are:
More agile
More motivated
More innovative
and have better retention
… because everyone, at every level, takes charge of results and success.
Can you see why this is the linchpin attribute for a leader?
Sure (I hear you say). Sounds great. But if it were easy, everyone would do it.
Why I care about ownership (and as a leader, so should you)
I’m pretty lucky, in many ways. One of the ways is that my mom brought me up with a strong sense of accountability. A “get sh*t done” mentality. This is useful.
Ok, sometimes this DIDN’T serve me well, because I’d be washing dishes in the canteen from the office party when I should have been building a model (and then stayed up late to get my work done). But usually, it meant that I was given a good deal of responsibility and generally got good results.
But: I was in a pretty toxic situation at one point in my career that was pretty transformative.
I worked for a company where no one took ownership.
Targets were ridiculously high and talent was very unevenly distributed across the organization, meaning that the high achievers tried to do everything themselves and were scared to delegate.
Management shifted blame for lack of performance to other departments or to their direct reports.
Now, being the type of person I am (”just do it”, with a side of imposter syndrome about my ability to do it), I was OK with just working harder and harder when things went wrong until things eventually turned around.
Until my boss started to talk to others about all the mistakes I was making. Here’s what happened.
The division and my department was really underperforming. My boss and I made a significant decision together. Then, I was called into a meeting with my boss’ boss and asked why I did what I did, because it seemed like a bad decision to the big boss.
“What?” I thought. This was a JOINT decision. You knew all about it. And we had a plan.
I’m not an angry person but I was angry.
Why wasn’t my boss taking responsibility - or at least explaining the rationale?
Man, after that, I just didn’t trust my boss again. And I felt like I always had to defend every decision I made.
I was miserable.
No surprises, I was in that role way too long (was not moving upwards but felt completely disempowered to leave).
It was only after I left that I realized that the culture at that org was just plain destructive. Took me a while to recover, actually.
The happy ending:
Since then, I’ve had many experiences of being given and shown ownership and trust. It’s built up my confidence and ability to deliver. Also, when I do make mistakes or when things aren’t going well, I’m not afraid.
Happy and motivated employees are productive employees.
HERE’S WHAT THIS ILLUSTRATES
Taking ownership creates trust and breeds motivation.
Undermining your team creates dissension and unhappiness even in hardworking team members.
And yes, sometimes, try as you might, you can’t take ownership for a toxic workplace culture
(BUT! You can let it inform your future leadership style and where you choose to go).
THE BIG HOW-TO
How can you boost your and your team’s ownership?
Acknowledge failure.
Sometimes we want to sugarcoat issues. Change the axes on the chart to make the trend look better. This is a mistake. When something’s going on, it’s liberating to admit it. It allows us to show that we’re both realists and on a journey of improvement. Everyone wants people like this in their team. The inverse is being that person who always says they’re delivering great results. It comes across as dishonest and lazy (imo).
When something goes wrong, take responsibility for your part in it - and for the solution.
Admit how you contributed to the issue, proactively come up with a strategy to overcome it, and take responsibility for implementing it.
Note that this has no bearing on your role in the organization. Every level of leader can and should do this.
Also, you should give your team the authority to make their own decisions decisions.
Speak up.
Don’t be afraid to talk about your failure. This encourages others to do the same, and builds trust and accountability. Get comfortable talking about where you’ve gone wrong with your team. It’ll make them feel safer to do the same (which you want).
Provide clear expectations and goals.
If your team is failing because they don’t understand the task, that’s YOUR problem. You need to set a clear strategy, make sure everyone understands it, and reinforce it consistently.
As I heard somewhere recently “if your team is rolling their eyes because they’ve heard you talking about the mission so many times, you’ve probably said it enough.”
Recognize individual contributions, but celebrate successes and failures as a team.
This will help everyone feel invested in the success of the organization.
In practice
Are you a high-ownership leader or a low-ownership leader in practice?
Leaders who fail to take ownership create a weak organization. They:
Are scared to admit mistakes (out of self-preservation or heightened ego… or both)
Prefer to work independently / hate delegation because they don’t trust their team
Blame others when things go wrong
Say “that’s not in my job description”
Allow anger to cloud their decisions
Skirt around performance issues
Put off making tough decisions
Micromanage their team
Say “it’s not my fault”
Hate losing
Be honest with yourself. How many of these attributes do you show?
Admitting where you can improve is the best place to start.
(Coming up with this list was a reality check for me, too. Improvements to be made).
On the other hand…
“It takes much more energy to continue to highlight the mistakes of others than it does to correct your own”- Neca C.Smith
High-ownership leaders create high-ownership teams. They:
Share information
Communicate openly
Allow mistakes (but don’t encourage them)
Understand the full scope of the things they manage
Observe their team and make thoughtful interventions
Take responsibility for results and when things go wrong
Make simple and actionable-oriented plans to achieve goals
But also empower their teams to make decisions and take control
Give constructive (read: non-personality related and actionable) feedback
Have a strong “why” and use this to build a shared purpose. They drill this into their team.
Make an effort to exhibit these attributes and I promise you’ll have more motivated and aligned teams.
Ownership is nothing if we’re not driving results
The truth: If you’re not delivering results in your job, nothing else matters.
We don’t talk about this.
We talk about personal branding, posturing, politicking (perhaps you call them by different names).
Those things are important, but only if and once you’re delivering.
If you’re not driving results:
⛔ You’ll be stressed
⛔ You’ll feel demotivated
⛔ No one cares about your progression
⛔ (Or your personal brand for that matter)
⛔ You’ll think you have to micromanage your team
⛔ All conversations will be centered around your lack of delivery
⛔ You won’t have solid results to motivate for you getting that shiny new job
If you’re taking ownership (and I hope you are), you should naturally be owning your results. But in practice it’s easy to get sucked into the shit around the results instead of just delivering. That’s why delivery goes hand in hand with ownership.
Taking ownership and driving results is the first thing you should be focusing on as a leader. If you do this, you truly will be unstoppable: everything else comes as a result of those two key actions.
10 ways to deliver results
Get clear on leadership goals
Understand exactly what the company is trying to deliver. Understand what the board and investors are looking at. Get clear on how your role supports those goals and what the targets and expectations are. If you’re not clear on anything, ask. I promise, not everyone does this - it makes you look proactive, not ignorant.
Form your own strategy
Analyze where you are vs the targets now. Come up with a strategy and implementation plan with clear deliverable on how to deliver those metrics. Don’t sweat the small stuff - focus on how you can take action this week.
Think like your boss
The best employees are ones that make their leaders jobs easier. Think about your managers goals and how you can support them. Work that into your plan and I promise you’ll have a more aligned path forward.
Ask for feedback
You’ve set a plan. Talk about it. Ask where others think your strengths are and where you’re falling short. Ask if you’ve missed any details. This has the double-benefit of creating accountability.
Take a hard look at your schedule
How much time do you have to spend on these tasks? Do you have the energy to get to them? How can you create time to make sure you’re making sufficient progress every week? It’s your job to manage your schedule. Be rigorous.
Look after yourself
If you don’t have the energy to work on the important tasks because you’re in meetings all day (or because you stayed up watching Netflix all night and didn’t get your morning run in and chose that burger over a salad for lunch) - be honest. The most productive emploees are healthy and happy ones.
Do the hard things first
As they say, eat that frog. The things that drive results are usually the tough things. They take a lot of mental energy and usually stretch you beyond your comfort zone. That’s why energy management is so crucial. Schedule time for these things and be tough on yourself with getting them done. The only thing harder than working on the difficult projects is the tough conversation with leadership when you’re not delivering.
Check your priorities
If you’re constantly firefighting, you’ll never have time to get to important-but-not-urgent tasks like setting strategy, reviewing KPIs, and planning how to develop and build your team.
Finish.
People love people who are reliable. A hallmark of reliability is the ability to own a task and metric and get it done when you said you were going to (or communicate when you’re running off track). Checking things off your list is a great feeling. What can you check off this week? Make sure it’s something that’s driving a key metric.
Review yourself
We get better through reflection and incremental change. If you’re not spending time thinking through your goals and reviewing the systems you’re using to support those, you’re going to get off track. I schedule a weekly review on Fridays to think through what’s working (and not), and a brainstorm on Mondays to review big goals and small tasks for the coming years, quarters, and week. This saves a ton of time in the long run.
Look, if this were easy, we’d all be raising unicorns.
It’s not easy, but with a thoughtful approach and the right systems, you can make it simpler.
Don’t get confused with the nebulous “adding value”
Value in a company can be added by doing a lot of things:
→ Hiring
→ Leading your team
→ Coaching your peers
→ Being a helpful teammate
→ Owning the company wiki
→ Helping your coworkers deliver projects
→ …and driving your own results.
Companies wouldn’t operate if we didn’t chip in with these things.
But you know what the most important thing will always be? Revenue and profit.
Operators and leaders at a company always need to be clear exactly how their role contributes to those metrics.
If those metrics aren’t getting hit, that should be the FIRST thing you look at.
Even leaders need to wear an operator hat when the rubber hits the road.
Driving the results you own that support these goals is the best value you can add.
If that means analyzing and changing pricing, updating merchandising, having those important sales calls, talking to clients - well, you gotta do what you gotta do.
I’m all for adding value. I thrive in an environment where I can help the whole organization thrive. I love building and supporting a team. It’s the most fun and rewarding part of my job.
But first, deliver the results.
Set up your environment
There are a couple key ways that your environment may not support achieving results (and some ways to fix that)
❌The org isn’t set up for success: Targets too high, teams don’t have the right talent or focus to meet them.
✅ Have a serious discussion about the organization’s ability to meet the set goals with the current set up. Bring data to this discussion: How have you tried to do this already, and where exactly is it failing? What are your specific suggestions to fix it? If you’re suggesting bringing targets down, how will you make up the numbers elsewhere or later? What support do you need?
❌ Not aligning your outputs with the broader goals: You’re constantly busy but still not getting results.
✅ Make a list of tasks. In one column, write what metric that task is supporting (revenue, customer success, employee satisfaction). In two other columns, rank the tasks for how urgent they are (do they need to get done NOW) and how important they are (are they CRITICAL for the long term achievement of those metrics). Take a hard look at how much of your time you’re spending on firefighting and responding. I like to literally schedule time for that, but only AFTER I’ve gotten to the important tasks that drive key metrics, for example, making key longer-term marketing decisions to drive revenue.
❌ You’re not optimizing for your energy levels: When you need to focus, you’re burnt out.
✅ Take a critical eye to your daily schedule and personal rhythms. Figure out when you do the best focused work and block out an hour or 2 to work on a critical project. Be honest and unapologetic if you need to cancel meetings to get this done, at least for the next week. I do this before my meetings start now, but in a past job, I used to do it for 2 hours in the evenings after my meetings were finished. Figure out what works best for your schedule and lifestyle. You have to be rigorous here.
❌ Not actively getting support: You’re feeling out of your depth. You’re out of the loop on critical issues. You’re overwhelmed.
✅ No one is going to help you unless you ask. People also love being able to use their expertise and skills to help others - you’re not being a burden, you’re giving someone else the opportunity to add value.
Identify the person who is best placed to support you and shoot them a message with a SPECIFIC (this is key) ask about what you need and why it’s important for your and the business goals.
e.g. Our shipments are going out late and as a result, customers are cancelling their orders in droves, which is affecting my key metric, revenue. Set up a TB with the head of fulfilment to discuss what’s going wrong and how to solve the problem.
🔑 PRO-TIP: Those weekly reviews I mentioned above are great for troubleshooting the above.
It’s easy to get into a rut or routine with your tasks, wake up one day and realize you’re just not making progress. Take time to sharpen the saw.
Habits of Deliverers
I’ve been around some brilliant deliverers over my career. Here’s what they had in common:
They deeply understand and push the metrics and drivers that are important to the organization
If the company is focusing on growing topline revenue, they’ve analyzed exactly what that means (e.g. getting bigger orders from customers → improving selection → sourcing better products from suppliers). That’s what they focus on first and last thing in the day.
They focus on the people that matter
Their bosses, key client leads, and senior leadership. All of these deliverers had an amazing propensity to tune out the noise.
That’s not to say they didn’t help other teams or act like a human. They just got their stuff done first and made sure they were prioritizing the conversations that mattered for key results.
They don’t sweat the small stuff.
While I was fixing formatting on my slides, they were doing deep analysis, refining their strategy and practicing their presentation.
They are expert communicators
A problem isn’t solved until everyone believes it is. Clear, swift communication and confrontation of any issues should be a priority for you.
I’ve consultant to companies where I analyzed the deliverers and the laggards at all levels.
I’m an operator responsible for delivering results in my own role (and there have definitely been times when I’ve not delivered).
I’ve been a people manager for the past 8 years, and have learnt a lot from observing and supporting people in driving their own results.
No one delivers 100% of the time (without challenge, we never grow). But the best deliverers have a systematic approach to driving results that pulls them back even after a tough week, month, Quarter.
There’s a lot you can learn from breaking down what people do to get results. How can you deliver better results today?
More resources on ownership
Extreme Ownership - Jocko Willink and Leif Babin https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0739PYQSS
→ A Navy SEAL Officer’s manifesto about taking ownership. Don’t be put off by the battlefield lingo; this is really a business book and there are lots of good examples inside.
Great breakdown of the above book: https://humanskills.blog/extreme-ownership/
How to Create Ownership Mentality https://www.softkraft.co/how-to-create-ownership-mentality/
More reasons, attributes, and questions to create ownership https://grindstonecapital.co.uk/how-build-culture-ownership-accountability/
You’re only as good as the people who support you. Your people are only as good as you are.
Fin.
Thanks for reading.
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