In my professional career I have noticed that there are two types of people: those who approach everything as owners and those who face their life’s work as hirelings.
The former develop habits that make them ideal candidates for actual ownership and they also tend to position themselves in relation to the opportunities that come along to become owners. The latter meter their effort according to the amount of skin they have in the game. They fail to recognize that to be a good leader you must first be a strong follower and that the weight of ownership tends to crush those who have not adequately prepared themselves for the task.
Hirelings see the call to take ownership as a ploy by owners to get them to work harder. Hirelings draw lines not to improve clarity but to make it clear to others that they won’t go beyond the confines of a job description, come hell or high water. Hirelings hide behind company policy and use it as a billy club to back off demanding customers and coworkers. Hirelings are happy to get involved if the risk is assumed by someone else, if the project is funded using other people’s money and if there is someone above them in the organization that they can blame if things go downhill.
Those who embrace the spirit of ownership, however, are fully invested regardless of their level of ownership. They regularly cross the borders of their job description or department’s functions, not to annex new territory but to prevent a ball from being dropped in the no-man’s land that exists between any two people or departments. They see policies as the baseline, the basic expectations that can and should be exceeded. Those who take ownership would never say “they” when referring to their own company, instead, they proudly and invariably say “we”, even when speaking with a disgruntled client or referring to a supervisor when speaking with a disgruntled coworker.
No one is born one way or the other. These attitudes are crafted by the individual himself. To be sure, the nature of their environment and the quality of leadership they’ve experienced makes the choices harder or easier, but at the end of the day each one is responsible for the attitudes he takes and decisions he makes.
“Folks who never do any more than they get paid for, never get paid for any more than they do.” ~ Elbert Hubbard
Gregory Hake 
I’ve read that interesting work is one of the top life priorities of most people. I think sometimes all that lacks is being interested. I’ve seen serial employees go from job to job or even career to career. If they’re all boring or lacking in opportunity could be they’re working on the wrong end of the equation.
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There’s tremendous satisfaction in two “owners” working together and there’s nothing quite as empty as the ennui of two “hirelings” commiserating. Great post!
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It is good to think about where the sense of ownership can spring from within ourselves expressed out into our living activities such as work, relationships, avocations as mentioned. As I own my integrity and the fact that every feeling and thought I have and every action I take has an effect on my world it is obvious to choose that which would bring something of a healthy life giving influence into all my world.
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So true! Great post!!
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This attitude is very prevalent almost anytime you gather a group of people together into an organization. It can be controlled for in a smaller organization because you can more easily see the goings on around you, but in a larger organization sometimes this attitude can flourish. There doesn’t need to be the all too common fight between labor and management. They should be a team with the same goals in mind, and where the entry level position can have as much respect as the executives. It takes a special balance to make this the case, though. I would love to live in a world where this special balance is the norm and not the exception. I won’t ever be a “hireling”, and if we get enough people with this attitude, the balance wil shift and there will be no such thing anymore.
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This post should be circulated far and wide, because it describes the divide between those who live an extraordinary life and those who lurk in the selfish shadows of mediocrity. How much turns on those who function with a consciousness of ownership!
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Great descriptions of the employee I cherish and the one I hope to screen out in my interview process! I’ve noted the owner type usually invests themselves in every other facet of their lives too; family, friends and avocations. In this economy the owner type is even more apparent as they have come forward as being capable to do more with less. Prior to the recession many good business practices were jettisoned for expediency to grow but in the effort to stay afloat in this tough financial era closer scrutiny as to who the business will invest in has become even more important. Thanks for your thoughts on this subject.
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Great post! The spirit of ownership flows from the inside out and employees that approach life this way are real gems!
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This is such a great post. I am always amazed at what you called the “hireling” attitude as it is such a bad choice for the individual (not to mention anyone effected by it). You can’t fake the attitude of ownership as this type of person never sees anything as an imposition, takes responsibility for whatever they can do to make a situation better, is willing to go beyond the extra mile and is always concerned to lift up others. The question is, do you want to live a small, insignificant life or life a life where the sky is the limit!
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