Employeeship
When leaders trust people, people take ownership. When people take ownership, they take initiative. Everything else follows.
We obsess over getting the leader right.
Most leadership thinking gets it backwards.
Companies look for those who have the charisma. the vision and the five-year plan.
But what I’ve found after fifteen years of working with teams is this: leadership and employeeship are two sides of the same coin.
You can’t fix one without the other.
Employeeship describes a relationship between employee and organisation built on something most still haven’t figured out.
The belief that people want to do good work.
Not because they’re forced to.
Not because of incentive schemes.
Because they feel trusted enough to own it.
When an organisation trusts employees, it reduces control.
Less control creates space.
Space becomes ownership.
Ownership drives initiative.
It’s the right balance between trust and accountability.
Most organisations get it backwards, high control and low trust, and then wonder why people don’t care.
Why this matters now
In 2026, everyone’s AI writes the same things.
But there is one thing that can never be automated or AI’ed
Trust!
And trust doesn’t come from a policy.
It comes from being treated like an owner instead of a resource.
From being trusted to speak up, maybe even disagree with the current standards and status quo.
Not because you’re an asshole, but because innovation and fresh perspective is what makes us move forward.
To represent your company because you want to, not because you were told to.
Research shows that lack of engagement costs companies more than sickness or absenteeism.
Yes let that sink in….
When employees don’t care, performance drops.
And in today’s competitive AI world that is fatal!
When they feel trusted and take ownership, results improve.
Most organisations still operate on models where control sits at the top.
The companies that create space for employeeship see people step up in ways that policies and procedures never produce.
For you
Stop waiting for permission to care about your work.
Your manager or company doesn’t own your career.
You do.
Once you realize this, you;
– Stop waiting.
– You start asking what you need to own.
– You stop being an employee who can be replaced.
– You become a valuable asset, not a cog in the machine.
For your organisation
People don’t become ambassadors because of a program.
They become ambassadors when they feel ownership.
When their voice matters.
Employee advocacy works when people actually want to represent their company.
That desire doesn’t come from policies or approval workflows.
It comes from feeling trusted enough to speak up.
Employeeship creates that foundation.
VIBE, the culture framework
It all starts from one assumption: people are smarter than we give them credit for.
I write about employeeship, culture, and work every week
Things I’m learning, testing, sometimes getting wrong.