The Importance of Hiring Team Members Who Think and Act Like Owners
For years, my clients have been pulling out their hair trying to understand why people they hire for their executive/management teams don’t behave or perform as they do. The answer is quite simple: if you’re a business owner or CEO and you want to grow your business, you must hire management team members who think and act like owners (like you do).
Even if your employee has no ownership stake in the company, having this “ownership” mindset can significantly impact work performance, personal growth, and overall satisfaction—which in turn positively impacts your business. This mindset is about individual team members adopting an approach characterized by you, the owner: being responsible, taking initiative, and having a deep sense of engagement in whatever role or task they undertake.
Raise the Bar on Performance
To cultivate this mindset, you must fully embrace your responsibilities with a sense of accountability. You want your direct reports to take ownership of their outcomes. This means proactively identifying and addressing potential issues, ensuring that their work not only meets but exceeds expectations. Like you, you want them to think beyond the immediate requirements of a project. You want them to consider various long-term implications and how they can contribute to the project's success in a way that aligns with broader goals.
Another consideration is for you, the owner, to demonstrate initiative by looking for opportunities to add value beyond your core duties. It’s you your team looks to for clarity of vision, congruence in action, and consistency in approach. Like you, they shouldn’t be waiting for instructions. Instead, they should innately be seeking out ways to improve processes, enhance efficiency, or innovate. You want them to volunteer to lead a new project, suggest improvements to existing procedures, or offer to help colleagues in areas outside their usual scope of work. By taking such steps, they show commitment to the overall success of the team or organization and alignment with strategies that reflect your proactive attitude.
Effective communication is another crucial aspect of thinking and acting like an owner. Successful leaders are typically skilled communicators, able to articulate their visions, share feedback constructively, and engage with others to drive their businesses forward. As a successful leader, coach/mentor your direct reports to speak up when they have something valuable to contribute and also to listen actively to understand different perspectives and respond appropriately. Coach/mentor them to approach problems with a solutions-oriented mindset. In other words, “When you come to me with a problem, come to me with the solution too!”
When issues arise, owners usually look for ways to resolve them. It’s what they’ve always done and how they got where they are: successful. Now, though, as a successful leader, you can delegate the problem solving to your team. Hold them responsible to collaborate with others to develop a strategy or experiment with new methods to address challenges. Their ability to tackle problems proactively demonstrates a level of commitment and resourcefulness that mirrors an ownership mentality.
Financial acumen is also important. While they may not have control over the company’s financial decisions, understanding and being mindful of budget constraints and resource management can foster a sense of ownership. This is another opportunity for leaders to coach/mentor direct reports—in this case to treat resources with care, seek cost-effective solutions, and avoid unnecessary expenses.
Business owners can also model their dedication and persistence to their direct reports as a way of cultivating a strong work ethic and a culture of reliability and commitment.
A Pathway Forward to A World-Class Team
If you coach/mentor your team in the aspects of thinking and acting like an owner, your team is bound to deliver high-quality work consistently, meet deadlines, and be dependable. Not only will this enhance the reputation of your business, but it will also contribute positively to the team’s overall performance.
If you’re in the process of hiring individuals, bring those on board who already think and act like owners—those that show proactive, responsible behavior, who are accountable, show initiative, communicate effectively, solve problems with a solutions-oriented mindset, manage resources wisely, and demonstrate a strong work ethic.
Explore leadership insights for teams who think and act like owners and achieve exceptional results with my new book, Leaders Don’t Solve Problems.