Are we assuming responsibility by default?
When you are assigned a role: team to manage, program or project to deliver, task to accomplish – take complete ownership of it. You own the success or failure and you will be held responsible for the final outcome. Your name will be hanging out there and speak for itself.
When you think about it, do you feel the change of perspective? A while ago, there was someone else who will come and help – your boss or senior manager. A while ago there was someone else whom you can go and talk to or shift the responsibility to. Stop thinking this way, or you will always be a follower, and not a leader.
We shall stop waiting until someone else will come and tell us: “Now, I am officially assigning you an owner here, manage it”. Instead, we shall assign ourself accountable for everything we do and what happens to us.
It is not an easy thing to do and I continuously keep reminding myself every day about it and keep improving. But this is the only right thing to do.
If you want to explore the topic further, I would like to recommend a book called “Extreme Ownership” by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin.