In this episode of the Proteus Leader Show, host Erika Andersen interviews leadership and project‑management advisor Kirsten Fowler about the core idea of moving from a compliance‑focused, control‑oriented leadership style to one that cultivates an ownership mindset among team members. Fowler explains how well‑intentioned micromanagement actually conditions people to depend on the leader, creating bottlenecks, stalled work, conflict, and loss of creativity. She outlines the negative outcomes of low ownership and then offers three concrete practices leaders can start using immediately: (1) replace directives with open‑ended, non‑threatening "what" and "how" questions that engage employees’ thinking; (2) re‑imagine the leader’s role as a collaborator rather than a traffic‑director; and (3) "stay out of the box" by recognizing when they are stepping in to solve problems and instead stepping back, using preparation, breath pauses, and curiosity. Fowler describes how to spot when you’re in the box (giving opinions, talking more than listening) and how to move from unconscious incompetence to conscious competence through realistic expectations and tiny habit experiments. An anecdote about using an Asana task to ask a curious question each week illustrates how small, repeated practices lead to a "gel point" where ownership conversations become natural. The episode closes with resources for listeners to learn more about Fowler’s work and the book The Hidden Project Drivers.
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Welcome to the Proteus Leader Show, a podcast for forward-looking leaders driving transformation in their organizations, within their teams, or for themselves. Your host today is a senior leader at Proteus International, a firm that partners with companies around the world to make true transformation easier through change consulting, leadership development, and executive coaching. If you're looking for fresh perspectives and practical insights, can take back to work today, you're in the right place. Enjoy the episode.
Many studies done over the past decade show that when employees have an ownership mindset, they tend to shift from being passive task-doers to being stakeholders, seeing the company's success as their own. This drives higher productivity, deeper engagement, and more innovation. So, as leaders, how can we build that sense of ownership on our teams? Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Proteus Leader Show. My guest today is Kirsten Fowler, a leadership and project management advisor who spent decades helping organizations navigate complexity, change, and transformation. Founder of Midgard, a leadership consulting firm, He's worked with executives and teams across sectors, offering executive coaching, leadership development, and advisory services. So we're going to be talking about the new book that Kirsten has co-authored with Alan Weiss called The Hidden Project Drivers: Building Behavior That Drives Success. So welcome to the show, Kirsten.
Thanks, Erika.
Yeah, I'm really happy to have you. I believe our listeners are always interested in Hearing about how to lead better and more authentically, and especially in today's wild times. Let's get started.
Let's go.
Okay, so first question I'd love to ask is, you shared a sentence with me in our emails back and forth that I really loved, which is, stop managing for compliance and start leading for ownership. So can you just explain that to us more and why you think it's so important?
Yeah, thanks, Erika. It's a great question because most leaders don't realize they're doing it. It's one of the most common things I come across in my executive work. So, what I'm really talking about here when I say compliance, it's about control.
Yeah.
So, when we're telling people what to do, we're stepping in to solve their problems. We're trying to keep everything on track. It feels helpful. It's well-intentioned. But it's actually reducing ownership. And I learned that the hard way early in my career. I did exactly that. I thought I was helping when I was stepping in and directing traffic, but what I was really doing was conditioning everybody to rely on me and work could only go at that pace that I could make decisions or direct traffic. So when I say ownership, that's something that's different. And It's where people are thinking, taking initiative. They're able to unlock their creativeness. They're able to problem solve. And it comes from a place of internal motivation, not external force. When we have purpose and there's something that we believe in, that's where we put in the extra effort and we bring our best to whatever we're doing. So, we've got to shift from being the person that's got the right answers And directing traffic to somebody that's focused on creating the environment where we facilitate people taking ownership willingly and start thinking for themselves. So that's where you'll get better ideas. You're going to get more energy, better problem solving. And ultimately we don't do this just because it's nice to do. We do it because this is where real performance comes from within a team.
Yeah. And creativity and innovation. I love what you're saying. If you, as you say, condition people to be dependent on you, then they're just doing what you tell them to. And therefore, their own creativity and sense of innovations and ideas about how to make things better tend to just lie fallow, just fall by the wayside.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. Okay, so what are some of the things— we started to talk about this, but what are some of the things that happen in your experience when employees and teams don't feel like owners? What have you seen? What are the negative outcomes that you've seen?
Yeah, the immediate things are signs like work is stuck. It's not moving. It moves slowly. There's conflict, disagreements, a lot of escalation up to leadership. I see a lot of back and forth without being able to land clear direction and moving forward efficiently. So that's what happens when Employees don't feel like owners and it's a real problem. So underneath what's happening in that situation is people have disengaged. So they stopped bringing their best ideas. Like we talked about, problem solving breaks down. We lose creativity probably right when we need it most, especially in the highest stakes moments.
Yeah.
Leadership is the bottleneck in that moment because when teams, when people default back to minimum compliance, everything gets pushed up to leadership and work can really only move. Yeah, it can only move at the pace that leaders can make decisions.
Oh, that's such a great— sorry to interrupt you, but that's such a great definition of what a bottleneck is, that people just go, okay, well, you decide, you know, things get pushed back up to the leader. And then I love that sentence you just said, things can only move at the pace that the leader can move. So if you have a big team, a lot of complex decisions to be made and results to be gotten, and if it's Held back to the pace that only you as a single person can do things. That's problematic.
Well, it's problematic in today's age. It wasn't as problematic 50 years ago when the business environment was relatively stable, when there wasn't a lot of complexity. Like, Ellen, my co-author, coined the term no normal now since COVID And he's convinced that we're not going back to any kind of nice, normal status quo anytime soon. And I agree with him. That's why this is so important. This is where we unlock A lot faster movement and better quality work too.
Yeah, I really agree with you and Alan in that regard. I've said that a lot. There's no— whatever we thought was normal is now just— it's all up for grabs. So we always promise practicality. So from your point of view, and based on the work that you guys have done in the book, what can leaders do just starting today to focus on building greater ownership on their teams?
Yeah, I'd say 3 things that listeners could take away right now. So the first would be asking better questions. So flip telling into asking questions. And the quality of question is important as well. We need to ask more open-ended questions as leaders.
Yeah.
So just as a quick rule, what and how questions tend to be pretty non-threatening and engage somebody's thinking on the other side. So what When one of my team comes into my office, if they're dealing with a problem, I'll ask a question like, oh, that's interesting. What do you think the next step is? Or what do you think is causing that? And really what I'm doing is engaging their thinking and helping them critically think through whatever they're facing.
Yeah.
So that's one. I'd say reimagine yourself as a collaborator instead of an army sergeant who's directing traffic. If we change that frame to where 2 colleagues trying to solve a problem, it One takes a lot of pressure off of us to always have the right answer and direct traffic. And it also allows us to show up as an equal and ask those better questions. It's just natural when we see ourselves as a collaborator.
Yeah.
And the third I'd say is what I call staying out of the box. So the box is the problem that somebody comes to you with. And like most leaders, I was somebody that came from a highly technical background. So that's where our worth and our definition of who we are comes from, is our ability to answer those questions right. So it's hard at first to stay out of that problem box, but as soon as we get in there, then that's when we start directing traffic and trying to give the right answers. So just stay out of the box, leave ownership of solving the problem with your team or the team member that's working with you.
I love that metaphor so much that I want to dig into it a little bit more. So how do you know when you've stepped into the box and how do you stay out of the box? Can you give us some examples of that?
Okay. I heard 2 questions. How do you know when you're in the box and how do you stay out of it? Signs that you're in the box is you're giving your opinion on the technical issue that's in front of you.
Ah, okay.
That would be a pretty clear indicator. Another indicator would be you're doing more talking than listening.
Oh yeah, good. Oh, that's an easy thing to pay attention to.
Yeah, that's a couple of them.
That's good. And then how do you stay out of the box? If this is a new attempt for somebody, what can they do to help themselves stay out of the box?
Yeah, if I'm working with a client coaching them to do this, first of all, set realistic expectations. You're not going to get it perfect The first time. And the way we learn to do something new is we've got to move ourselves from unconscious incompetence, where we're not even aware that we're getting into the box, to a place where, oh, there's a box and sometimes I get into it. But the learning actually happens when we move into conscious competence.
Yeah.
So, that's when we're actually focused and thoughtful in the moment. So, what we need to do is You know, get ready, a little bit of preparation, say, for a conversation with a team member before it happens, just to say, hey, remember, stay out of the box.
Yeah.
And the moment when you feel compelled to tell somebody what to do or what the answer is, in that moment, just practice stepping back a moment, taking a breath, skipping a beat, and maybe try to ask a question.
Yes.
But in hindsight, after the conversation is done, if Your listeners are like me. There's lots of times where you'll say, oh, I wish I would have asked that question, or why did I still give the answer in that moment? That's where we need to be gracious with ourselves and not beat ourselves up. We need to say, hey, you know, that was a practice run, and I'll get another chance to do another practice run the next time.
I love all of that, and I especially love where you circled back to curious open-ended questions. I feel like A lot of times when I was early in my career trying to do the same thing, 'cause I have a tendency to just like, hey, this is what you guys should do. And just exactly what you said, to do a little preparation beforehand. You know about the issue, you think about the issue, and just think of a couple of questions that you could ask that are curious, open-ended. Hmm, why do you think that'd be a good idea? Or have you thought about this? Or just what you said, what do you think would happen if you asked? I think that really helps because sometimes when you're in the situation, You just default to your most common response, which is jumping into the box, right? And so to have a couple of things prepared, I love that. That's a great suggestion, I think. Yeah.
And just real quick example of one of my team members 5 years ago when she started playing around with this, she's a big Asana fan and she had an Asana task in her Asana to-do list that was ask one curious question this week. It starts with the tiniest experiments. And as you build the experiments and start building these skills and embedding them in your thinking, you hit what I call a gel point where all of a sudden you have a conversation and you look back and it's like, whoa, where did all of that come from? How did I orchestrate such a great conversation? Well, it's the aggregation of all these tiny skills you've built along the way.
Oh, that's wonderful. And absolutely, that's true. All the stuff that's come out about habits over the last 10 years about just build those little tiny habits, it's really true. It makes a huge difference. Oh, this is wonderful, Kirsten. I know it's clear to me we could just keep talking for a long time. This is such a rich topic, but we always promise we'll keep it short and sweet. So listeners, you can find out more about Kirsten and the work he does at kirstenfowler.com. That'll be in the show notes. And you can buy The Hidden Project Drivers now at Amazon. It's out on Amazon. And so thank you so much. This has been a great conversation. Thank you.
Yeah, thanks, Erika. It was my pleasure, a lot of fun. I hope we can do it again sometime soon.
Yes, yes. And listeners, to find out how Proteus supports leaders and their teams, you can just go to proteusinternational.com and click on What We Do. So thank you so much for listening, as always. And until next time, here's to creating the life you truly want.
Thanks for listening to the Proteus Leader Show. We hope you're leaving with ideas you can put to use on your team, in your organization, or in your own career. To learn more about how we support true transformation through change consulting, leadership development, and executive coaching, visit us at proteus-international.com. Until next time.
