On Ownership

What does it mean to own something? Most leaders answer that question incorrectly. We hear ownership and think control. "I own it, so I decide." I choose the method. I set the path. But that's not how teams work.

To own something is to be responsible for the outcome, not control every turn. The outcome is yours, but the method belongs to the team. The owner listens, integrates, adapts and removes obstacles to keep the outcome on track.

That's why ownership is better understood as stewardship.

Stewardship is the responsibility to care for something entrusted to you - not as personal property, but on behalf of the wider system it belongs to.

You can own a beehive, but you cannot own a bee. You care for the hive, protect it, and are responsible for its health. You can't tell a bee which flower to pollinate or restrict it to just the fields that you own. Your responsibility is to create the conditions for the hive to thrive.

Similarly, you can own a customer relationship, but you cannot own a customer. They have agency, choices, and the ability to leave. Your responsibility is to create the conditions for a long, happy customer relationship.

The same is true inside a team or an organisation. You can own an outcome, but you cannot own every decision, every person, or every step along the way.

That is the work of stewardship: staying responsible for the outcome while working through people, constraints, tradeoffs and changing conditions that you cannot control.

The point is not to give up the idea of ownership or sidestep responsibility. It is to understand ownership differently.

Nothing works as well as everything working together. Stewardship brings a broader obligation - not possession or control, but to create the conditions for success, and to make the whole ecosystem better for our involvement.