Leadership Lesson One: Ownership

An unusual notice placed inside the washrooms of a leading government agency really broke my heart. It warned members of staff against taking office toiletries out of government washrooms and probably into their homes. On a normal day, I would have most likely missed it but April is our official Leadership Month and so I decided to write about it.

The practice is not entirely new and it is not confined to a public institution. In fact, it points to a rampant culture that pervades every facet of our society. It manifests itself in the form of littering, running taps, lights that are left on and even crimes that go unreported.

During my college days, I resided in these hostels that did not have a continuous running water supply, perhaps it was part of the institutions means of controlling waste; just the same way power overloads could cause localized blackouts. The downside to these austerity measures was that students would leave the taps open and when the water did come back it would be left wastefully running for hours.

During one such instance, while I sat in my room while away indifferent to a running tap upstairs. A student passing; by obviously a different kind of breed, climbed the flight of stairs, turned off the tap and then went on his way. I froze in utter admiration of his noble gesture, I knew him in person and that just served to intensify the emotion.

Since that day, almost twenty years ago, I have never walked away from a running tap. The difference between this young man and the rest of the student population was his sense of ownership. He considered university resources to collectively belong to the students and was therefore personally responsible for their appropriate use. This is a very difficult concept to master in our society and that does explain why grand theft is yet to ignite civil agitation. As a nation, we are unable to comprehend how the loss of billions affects us directly or what our role is in abetting or averting it.

The foundational lesson on leadership is cultivating a sense of ownership, one of the most recognizable statements being “yes we can”. A slogan, that delivered an election victory for the first African-American presidential candidate in the US. The win was more celebrated in Kenya than in the US, I remember vividly because I was a newspaperman then and we sold-out. As a leader, your first role is to develop a deep sense of belonging amongst your troops. Author Jim Collins calls is indoctrination and my studies of local organizations have confirmed this. Though I have to admit it is not that widespread among local organizations, public or private. Ours is more of a culture of whining and dining; bad-mouthing your employer behind their back while sheepishly collecting your pay.

An attention-grabbing study by Professor’s Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo of MIT packed as a book with the title “Poor Economics” had very revealing insights about Kenya in particular. According to the scholars, Kenyans assume a collective responsibility, when faced with calamity, disease, and death. They pull together and pool resources to meet burial expenses and hospital bills. Interestingly, they rarely see eye to eye when it comes to pursuing business opportunities or fundraising for investment.

It is the same attitude many salaried or wage-earning employees take to the workplace. Whenever tragedy befalls a member of staff, everyone including their seniors contributes generously towards the cause. The converse is true when the same employee would be struggling with performance or needed a good word put in for them for that crucial promotion. Undeniably we own our pain but not our gain.

Max Weber writing in the early 1900s stated that Calvinist Protestants so devoted themselves to work, that they caused an economic revolution. In what he describes as The Protestant Work Ethic Max observed that, members of this religious denomination regarded their work as a calling from God. That level of ownership is what drove them to achieve unrivaled economic success.

Closer home, the gentleman who went around turning off taps during our college days went on to join the Opus Dei. Is it possible to achieve this level of ownership in the workplace? I believe it is; actually I spend a significant part of my professional time teaching organizations how to go about it. The labor landscape has evolved dramatically over the last several years and hefty perks and generous benefits are only a small portion of the reward pie. Most employees desire to feel treasured, to know that their work does matter and their skills are essential. Next time you need to put out a deterrent notice, consider first whether your employees see themselves as allays or adversaries looking out for benevolent opportunities to work together. Happy leadership month.