Ownership Culture Ends Where the Org Chart Begins
There's a particular kind of dissonance that comes from being terminated for reasons you're never consulted about. One day you're a contributor with four-plus years of institutional knowledge, the architect of systems still running in production, someone trusted with significant projects. The next day you're being informed that your position has been eliminated and your employment ends immediately.
The decision was made without you. About you, but never with you.
This wouldn't be remarkable except for one thing: the company's stated culture was built on "ownership." PPG Industries' values emphasized empowerment, accountability, and treating employees as partners in the business. The rhetoric suggested that workers weren't just executing instructions but actively shaping outcomes, taking initiative, driving results. You weren't supposed to wait for permission. You were supposed to own your work.
Until, apparently, ownership meant having input into decisions about your own role. Then the rhetoric met reality, and reality won without discussion.
The Empowerment Paradox
Corporate ownership culture presents itself as democratic workplace philosophy. Instead of top-down command structures where workers mechanically follow orders, modern organizations claim to value employee judgment, distribute decision-making authority, and trust individuals to manage their responsibilities. This isn't just feel-good HR language. When implemented genuinely, distributed ownership improves outcomes. People closest to problems often see solutions that distant executives miss. Frontline workers understand operational realities that don't translate to PowerPoint. Empowered teams move faster, adapt better, and deliver higher-quality results than micromanaged hierarchies.
But there's a catch. The catch is almost always the same across organizations that claim ownership cultures: accountability flows down the org chart while authority flows up. Workers are responsible for outcomes but lack meaningful control over resources, timelines, or strategic direction. They're told to "own" projects they can't actually steer. They're measured on metrics they didn't choose using methods they can't influence.
This creates what organizational psychologist Amy Edmondson calls a "failure of psychological safety"—the condition where people are held accountable for outcomes without the authority or support to achieve them. It's not quite powerlessness and not quite empowerment. It's something more insidious: the illusion of agency combined with the reality of constraint.
In practice, this manifests in predictable patterns. Workers are encouraged to "take ownership" of problems, which means staying late to fix things when they break and absorbing blame when results disappoint. They're told to "be proactive," which means identifying issues early so management can redirect them to work on other priorities. They're asked to "think like owners," which means accepting trade-offs and resource constraints that actual owners would never tolerate for themselves.
The psychological contract is clear, even when unspoken: you get responsibility without authority, accountability without control, and expectations without support. And when you point out this imbalance—when you note that "ownership" seems to mean different things depending on your position in the hierarchy—you're told you're not being a team player.
Throughout my tenure, I experienced this tension repeatedly. I was told my work was valued, that the automation systems I built were critical to business operations, that leadership appreciated my initiative and technical judgment. But I also experienced decisions made about my work, my team, and eventually my position that I learned about only after the fact.
One-on-one meetings with my manager were supposed to happen weekly. They were canceled so frequently that we met roughly once per month. This wasn't malicious neglect—my manager had legitimate demands on his time—but it created a feedback vacuum. How do you "own" your performance when you can't get consistent guidance about expectations? How do you demonstrate accountability when the person measuring your results is rarely available to discuss them?
When guidance did arrive, it was often contradictory. Present results this way for one stakeholder, that way for another. Focus on this priority—no wait, actually this other one is more urgent. The shifting expectations weren't necessarily unreasonable in isolation, but collectively they made it impossible to develop clear ownership of anything. You weren't steering your work so much as constantly adapting to changing winds you couldn't predict.
This is the empowerment paradox: organizations that claim to value ownership often create conditions where genuine ownership is structurally impossible. Not because individual managers are bad people or because policies are explicitly hostile, but because distributed accountability without corresponding distributed authority doesn't actually distribute power. It just distributes blame.
Where Trust Breaks Down
Ownership culture requires trust. Not the superficial trust of "I trust you to complete this task," but the deeper trust of "I trust you to identify problems, challenge assumptions, and shape how we work." It requires what Edmondson calls "reciprocal vulnerability"—leaders being willing to admit mistakes and uncertainty, workers being willing to voice concerns without fear of retaliation.
This kind of trust is rare. And it's especially rare in hierarchical organizations where power differentials are stark and consequences for speaking up are unpredictable.
I saw this breakdown most clearly in how critical feedback was handled. During team stand-up meetings—public forums with multiple attendees—my work was sometimes criticized. Not privately in one-on-ones where we could discuss nuances, but in front of peers where the dynamic was inherently different. Public criticism creates defensiveness. It signals to others that you're not meeting expectations. It undermines the psychological safety necessary for genuine ownership.
The message this sends is unambiguous: your input is welcome as long as it aligns with existing expectations. Challenge those expectations, or fail to meet them even for understandable reasons, and you'll be corrected publicly rather than supported privately.
There was also the matter of language. On at least one occasion, my manager conducted team communication in Spanish despite English being the team's primary language. I don't speak Spanish. Neither did other team members. Whether intentional or not, this created isolation. When you can't fully participate in team discussions because they're happening in a language you don't understand, "ownership" becomes an abstract concept. You're not empowered. You're excluded.
These might seem like minor incidents. A few canceled meetings, some public criticism, occasional language barriers. Individually, each could be dismissed as the normal friction of organizational life. But collectively, they created an environment where psychological safety eroded. Where trust broke down. Where "ownership" meant something very different than what the company claimed to value.
And this is the structural problem with ownership culture in hierarchical organizations: the people with the least power are asked to behave as though they have the most agency. The people most vulnerable to arbitrary decisions are told they're empowered to shape outcomes. The gap between rhetoric and reality becomes a source of chronic stress, and pointing it out marks you as someone who doesn't "get it."
When the termination came, the trust breakdown crystallized. I wasn't consulted about my position's elimination. I wasn't given advance notice comparable to what other terminated employees received, I got same-day notification. I wasn't invited into the decision-making process about my own role. I was simply informed of a fait accompli: budget cuts required headcount reduction, your position was selected, you're done today.
This would have been jarring under any circumstances. But in an organization that claimed to value ownership and employee partnership, it felt like a betrayal of stated principles. You can't own what you're never trusted to manage. You can't be a partner in decisions from which you're systematically excluded.
What Shared Ownership Actually Requires
If ownership culture is going to mean something more than rhetorical cover for accountability without authority, it needs to operate differently. It needs structural changes, not just better intentions.
First, it requires reciprocal vulnerability. Edmondson's research on psychological safety shows that high-performing teams are characterized by mutual willingness to admit uncertainty and mistakes. Leaders who model vulnerability—who say "I don't know" or "I was wrong" or "I need your help"—create permission for others to do the same. This isn't weakness. It's the foundation of genuine collaboration.
But reciprocal vulnerability requires that the people at the top actually face consequences for failures comparable to those faced by people at the bottom. If executives who make poor strategic decisions receive retention bonuses while front-line workers who miss metrics get performance-managed out, the vulnerability isn't reciprocal. The power structure remains intact beneath a veneer of egalitarian language.
Second, ownership requires actual authority commensurate with responsibility. If you're going to hold someone accountable for project outcomes, they need meaningful control over timelines, resources, and execution. They need to be able to say "no" to unrealistic expectations without career consequences. They need access to decision-makers when problems arise. Responsibility without authority is just blame with extra steps.
Third, ownership requires consistent, private, constructive feedback. Public criticism undermines psychological safety. Canceled one-on-ones create information vacuums. Contradictory guidance generates confusion. If you're serious about distributed ownership, you invest in the communication infrastructure that makes it possible. Regular check-ins aren't optional. Clear expectations aren't nice-to-have. These are prerequisites.
Fourth, ownership requires transparency in high-stakes decisions, especially those affecting people's livelihoods. If someone's position is being eliminated, they deserve to know why, to understand the decision-making process, to have input if possible. The kind of opaque, top-down termination I experienced—where I learned about my position's replacement in Poland only through independent research—is antithetical to ownership culture. If you want workers to feel like partners, you can't treat them like disposable resources when it's convenient.
Fifth, ownership requires that stated values actually guide behavior, especially during crises. It's easy to promote empowerment and partnership when business is good and budgets are healthy. The real test comes when resources tighten and hard choices emerge. Do you include affected workers in discussions about restructuring? Do you provide adequate notice and support? Do you honor the partnership you claimed to value when it's inconvenient?
Or do you abandon the rhetoric the moment it costs something?
Gallup's research on workplace engagement consistently shows that organizations with genuine distributed ownership outperform those with command-and-control structures. But "genuine" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. The performance benefits come from actual empowerment—meaningful authority, psychological safety, transparent decision-making, reciprocal accountability. They don't come from calling something "ownership culture" while maintaining traditional power dynamics beneath the surface.
The Cost of Rhetoric Without Reality
When organizations promote ownership culture without implementing its structural requirements, they create specific forms of harm.
First, they generate cynicism. Workers who are told they're empowered partners but treated as disposable resources learn not to trust institutional rhetoric. They become skeptical of values statements, diversity commitments, employee engagement initiatives. The gap between what companies say and what they do becomes a source of chronic frustration.
Second, they burn out high performers. The people who take "ownership" seriously—who stay late, take initiative, invest emotionally in outcomes—are the ones most harmed when the reciprocity doesn't materialize. They give more than they receive. They operate as though the stated values are real, and when the inevitable termination or disappointment comes, these people feel the betrayal most acutely.
Third, they select for compliance over capability. If "ownership" means accepting whatever decisions leadership makes without pushback, then the workers who succeed are those willing to perform enthusiasm for policies they may privately doubt. The ones who challenge assumptions, ask uncomfortable questions, or insist on genuine empowerment are gradually managed out. The organization becomes less capable as a result, but the hierarchy remains stable.
Fourth, they waste institutional knowledge. Workers who've built systems, developed expertise, and accumulated organizational wisdom carry value beyond their current productivity. When they're terminated abruptly without knowledge transfer or transition support, that value evaporates. The organization loses capabilities it can't easily rebuild. And the replacement workers—whether offshore or internal—start from scratch, making predictable mistakes that the departed worker would have avoided.
Fifth, they damage the organization's ability to attract and retain talent. Word gets out. Former employees talk to prospective candidates. Reviews appear on Glassdoor. The gap between stated culture and lived experience becomes visible. And the workers you most want—the ones with options, skills, and judgment—choose employers where the rhetoric more closely matches reality.
These costs compound over time. Organizations can survive them in the short term, especially when labor markets are loose and workers lack alternatives. But over years and decades, the accumulation of cynicism, burnout, capability loss, and reputation damage creates organizational brittleness. The company becomes less adaptive, less innovative, less resilient.
And the employees who remain learn not to believe what they're told.
The Alternative That Doesn't Scale
I've seen genuine ownership culture work. It's not theoretical. There are teams, departments, even entire small organizations where distributed accountability comes with distributed authority, where psychological safety is real, where stated values guide behavior even when it's inconvenient.
These environments have predictable characteristics. Leaders who admit uncertainty and mistakes. Clear expectations combined with flexibility about how to meet them. Regular, substantive feedback in contexts that feel supportive rather than evaluative. Transparency about decision-making, including bad news and difficult trade-offs. And most importantly: consistency between rhetoric and action, especially during crises.
I've worked in such environments. They're energizing. You give your best work not because you're obligated but because you're genuinely invested. You take initiative because it's genuinely valued. You challenge assumptions because it's genuinely welcome. The psychological contract is balanced: both sides contribute, both sides benefit, both sides honor the partnership.
But here's the pattern I've observed: these environments exist in small pockets within larger organizations, and they depend heavily on individual leaders who've somehow escaped corporate socialization into traditional power dynamics. They're fragile. When that leader leaves or gets promoted, the culture often reverts to hierarchical norms. Or corporate restructuring eliminates the pocket of autonomy. Or budget pressure forces compromises that undermine the psychological safety.
The genuine ownership culture doesn't scale easily because it requires giving up control in ways that large organizations find threatening. It requires trusting workers to make consequential decisions. It requires accepting that distributed authority means distributed power, which means leadership becomes more facilitator than commander. It requires tolerating dissent, acknowledging uncertainty, and allowing outcomes to emerge from collective judgment rather than executive fiat.
Most organizations aren't built for this. The incentives, structures, and measurement systems all push toward centralized control dressed up in empowerment language. Ownership culture becomes a brand rather than an operating principle. And the workers caught in the gap between promise and practice learn, eventually, not to trust the rhetoric.
The Clarity That Comes After
The experience wasn't without value. It taught me what to look for in organizations. Not the values statement on the website or the culture deck in the interview. But the actual behavior when stakes are high and convenience conflicts with principle. Does the organization honor its commitments when it's inconvenient? Does it include affected workers in decisions about their futures? Does it maintain psychological safety during crises? Does it actually distribute authority commensurate with accountability?
These are empirical questions. They have observable answers. And the answers reveal whether ownership culture is operational or just rhetorical.
For future employers reading this, or for leaders trying to build genuine distributed ownership: the test isn't whether you use the right language. It's whether you're willing to give up control. To admit uncertainty. To honor the partnership even when it costs something. To maintain consistency between your stated values and your behavior when things get difficult.
Ownership culture without trust is just a culture of blame with better branding. Accountability without authority is just exploitation with a values statement. And workers will always know the difference, even if they can't safely say it.
You can't own what you're never trusted to manage. And you can't build trust by centralizing power while decentralizing responsibility.
The gap between those truths and organizational reality is where disillusionment lives. It's also where clarity begins.
Next in the series: Essay 5 - The Mirage of Diversity in a Budget Crisis