Posted on: June 25, 2025
Sometimes a team just drifts.
Everyone’s working. Tasks are moving. Standups happen. But the energy is flat.
No one’s chasing the hard problems. Bugs get logged, not fixed. Sprint after sprint, nothing really changes. It’s not chaos — it’s inertia.
We talk a lot about ownership — but rarely about what it actually feels like.
Ownership is scary.
It means standing up and saying: “This is mine. I’ll drive it. Hold me accountable.”
Sounds noble — until you realize that if things go wrong, your name’s on it. You might get blamed. You might lose face.
In some teams, you might even get quietly punished.
So people hold back. Not because they’re lazy — but because they’ve learned to protect themselves.
And here’s the twist: delegation doesn’t help either.
Assigning a task isn’t ownership. It’s just execution. Even giving people full freedom doesn’t guarantee much — most will still choose familiar, safe work. Ownership quietly disappears into a pile of well-intentioned but forgettable progress.
Trust builds ownership.
Ownership takes root in teams where people feel safe — where trying isn’t punished, where no one gets left alone with a hard task, where the group has your back. And where the goal feels shared — not like someone else’s KPI you’re supposed to blindly follow.
That kind of trust doesn’t appear in onboarding sessions.
It grows quietly — in small, everyday signals:
A teammate stepping in without being asked. A failure that doesn’t turn into blame. Someone admitting uncertainty, and being met with support instead of silence.
It’s in those moments that people start to believe: maybe it’s safe to care. Maybe I won’t regret stepping up.
Before you try to “motivate.”
When you see a team avoiding ownership, don’t jump to: “How do I push them?”
Start simpler.
Where do they feel exposed?
Have they been burned before — for speaking up, or taking initiative?
Do they even believe it’s worth the risk?
Or are they just unsure how?
I once worked with someone like that. Quiet, capable, thoughtful — but convinced he wasn’t “leadership material.”
Eventually I told him:
“You’re already doing 90% of the job. The last 10% is just admitting you’re ready.”
And that was all it took. He didn’t need more training — just someone to reflect it back and say: you’ve got this.
So what can we actually do?
Start with those who are ready. Not everyone wants to lead — and that’s fine. But even solid contributors should hear: your work leaves a mark, whether you see it or not.
Make room for ownership — but fill it with context, not pressure. Don’t just say “take initiative” — explain why it matters. Connect the work to something real. Let people choose to lean in — and back them up when they do.
Above all, model it. Own your mistakes. Be transparent about what went wrong and what you learned. Show that ownership isn’t about being perfect — it’s about giving a damn.
One moment that stayed with me.
I still feel proud to have been part of the 787 program.
Not because of the tech — but because it mattered. We built something real. And I know I wasn’t the only one who felt that way.
When people feel connected to the outcome, ownership doesn’t have to be “enforced.” It just shows up.
And one last thing.
Management exists to support. To guide. To unblock. To coach.
Even sales and marketing — at their best — exist to enable builders to build.
But the product?
It doesn’t belong to managers.
It belongs to the team.
And that ownership becomes real when we show it — clearly.
Show their impact. Show their wins. Show their fingerprints on what gets shipped.
Because when people see their fingerprints — they start to care.
And when they care — they own it. For real.
Seen this in real life?
Have you watched a team move from passive execution to real ownership?
What made it happen? What got in the way?
Let’s build something real — together.
Written by Ilya Komakhin