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Management & Leadership vocabulary · Delegation and Accountability

Ownership

Meaning in management & leadership, with examples

/ˈoʊnərʃɪp/nounCore term

In management & leadership, ownership means: In management, the attitude of treating a task or problem as your own and taking responsibility for getting it done, rather than waiting for someone else to act.

In Turkish: sahiplenme, sahiplik, işi üstlenme

How it is used

Very common in feedback and company values: take ownership of a project, show ownership, a sense of ownership. Managers praise people who take ownership. The legal meaning, owning property or shares, also exists.

Example sentences

  1. Deniz took ownership of the delayed shipment and called the client himself.

  2. We want every engineer to feel a sense of ownership over the product.

Common collocations

  • take ownership
  • sense of ownership
  • show ownership
  • clear ownership
  • accountabilityThe duty to answer for the result of a task or decision, which includes explaining what happened and accepting the consequences, even if others did the work.
  • empowerTo give people the authority, confidence and resources to make decisions and act on their own, instead of waiting for approval at every step.
  • delegateTo give part of your work, responsibility or decision-making power to someone else, usually a person in your team, while still checking that the result is achieved.
  • micromanageTo control every small detail of other people's work, checking constantly and making decisions for them instead of trusting them to do the job.
  • buy-inReal agreement with and support for a plan or decision from the people it affects, so that they actively help to make it work.

More terms: Delegation and Accountability

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