5 Reasons Why Taking Ownership is Important to Grow Professionally (7 Mins Read)

It is always imperative to inculcate a culture of ownership and accountability amongst the employees of an organization to attain excellence in the field of business. In a competitive workplace, as all the individuals have to project their talent, skills and attributes in a way which would help in their career progression as a whole, there ownership can be one of the most critical factors towards building a successful career.

What’s the biggest difference between an average employee and a top performer, the answer in one word is ownership. What are the biggest complaints we get to hear from the management today?

"The employees don't work hard..."
"We don’t get the results we need..."
"All of them make excuses..."

All these complaints reflect a lack of ownership on the part of the employee. When you own your responsibilities and your role, then you tend to work as hard as you need to get the job done and deliver the targeted results. If those results are not delivered in any case, then there is no room for excuses. As it is necessary to understand why you failed, post mortems are to be done so that the same mistakes are not repeated and you do better next time.

If you're a manager who has the above complaints, then you need to ask yourself why your people aren't doing what’s necessary to get their job done? Their ownership stake is most often a direct reflection of your ownership. 

Taking responsibility doesn’t mean being a workaholic or micromanager. It's all about identifying and understanding what exactly needs to be done, empowering others to do the work which they have been assigned to do and owning the outcome irrespective of whether it's good or bad. Thereafter, you need to analyze the results, learn the lessons, improve and then deliver.

What does ownership mean:

• Understanding what exactly has to be done, not just what you are supposed to do. 
• Being disciplined about the process and having full faith in it.
• Knowing all the roles and the responsibilities and how it impacts the other departments too which we have in the process.
• Taking full responsibility of the results, irrespective of the outcome. Not just take credit for the win and blame others for the loss.
• Doing your best and understanding how to do it even better, not doing just enough to make it look like that you did your part
• Taking action towards making your best work even better and becoming an expert in the industry, not just being an average player in the bigger picture. 

Great people always take the ownership and the great people managers also take the ownership for whatever they do. It's not so easy, but the principles behind it are very simple and anyone can take the ownership of the job or the position they're put in, if they want to do so. When that happens, the results are fantastic.

How taking ownership adds to an employee’s growth?

Ownership is a key factor in accelerating the growth and development of an individual. When an employee actually takes a step towards ownership, it benefits in the following ways:

1. It helps in building relationships within the functions and different departments in the organizational hierarchy.
2. It strengthens the employee and the employer relationship and provides a sense of mutual trust and confidence in the workplace.
3. It helps in bringing more ideas to the forefront related to a specific task or project which might have been in a dormant stage due to lack of time and resources. While taking ownership the employees get a lot of self confidence and become more result oriented.
4. The employees become more productive, active and stronger. Further, they develop a more proactive attitude in finding and solving their problems.
5. Moreover, ownership channelizes the energies of the employees towards a positive direction.

In an organization, when the employees understand their own responsibilities, it helps in strategizing and achieving the organizational goals in a more efficient and effective manner. From an overall organizational perspective, it ensures to identify the potential loopholes in a specific process and taking the appropriate actions to prevent recurrence. Hence, ownership is one of the key steps towards effective leadership and management.

What happens if the employees work without taking ownership?

All the organizations have a group of resources who do not believe in taking any extra initiative, apart from their routine work responsibilities. For them, it’s just about fulfilling the minimum log in hours required, while sitting in their comfort zones.

These employees get badly impacted in the following ways:

1. Employees who are not willing to take ownership in their respective job functions usually have a very short term association with the organization.
2. Their motivation levels keep dropping and they lose their alignment with the organizational goals and objectives.
3. They ultimately lose out in the competition with the creative and talented pool of resources, who love taking the challenges and sharing innovative ideas for the benefit of the organization.

Takeaway: We strongly connect with the philosophy that taking ownership is critical to the growth of the employee as well as the company. Organizations love to hire people who take ownership of their work and treat the business as if it were their own. When employees take ownership of their work, they treat the business and its money — as if it were their own. So, they make the decisions very responsibly, thoughtfully and with a lot of care. They will also be highly motivated, driven and take more initiative, seeking creative and innovative ideas to improve and develop on what they are doing. In short, a company full of employees who take ownership of their work is a company that’s actually moving ahead. It also creates a much more positive and fulfilling work environment which provides a lot of benefits to both the employee and the employer.  Finally, taking ownership of whatever you do will make you work responsibly and carefully which in turn will lead you and your company to great success in the long run.