Reclaiming Your Power: Stop Owning Everything

Week 1 of Powerful February. The ownership move that unsticks stalled work.

Author

Jen Phillips
February 03, 2026

Hi it's Jen,

Welcome to February - a month perfect for one big idea: reclaiming your power.

Not power as title or authority.
Power as leverage.

The kind that unsticks work, protects capacity, and brings back momentum when everything feels heavy and slow.

Leading through constant change — this endless “future of work is now” marathon — has a way of making everything feel out of control. When that happens, even strong leaders default to overwork, over-alignment, and over-tolerance of friction instead of exercising the power they already have.

So this month, I’m focusing on four real powers you hold — and sharing some surprisingly low-lift ways to use them.

Today is a look at the one power that jump-starts (or drags down) almost everything else: Ownership.

In today's issue:

Default

Stop me if you’ve lived this one before…

You've got a strategic initiative—product launch, GTM pivot, operational overhaul, org-wide shift to agile, whatever. It matters. It's been talked about for weeks, maybe months.

Calendars are full of meetings about it.
(so many) Decks exist.
Everyone agrees: it's critical.

And yet…

Nothing ships.

The thing - whatever it is - lives in a permanent state of 70–80% done. Conversations loop. Decisions drift. "Still working on alignment" becomes polite code for "no one wants to actually call it."

If you're the founder - or the senior leader - you may even be the default owner of everything strategic. Not because you're a control freak, but because when ownership isn't explicit, everything rolls uphill until it hits the person who cares most about the outcome.

And that’s a total momentum killer.

Week after week, you want the thing DONE.
Week after week, it just sits there, mocking you.

This isn't a personal failing. It's a structural one.

When decision ownership is unclear, the most capable people absorb the slack.
Over time, that creates a stack of half-owned, un-done initiatives.
Strategic in name, orphaned in practice.

And we all deserve better than that.

Ambition

So what does the power of ownership deliver?
Oh, it’s quite exhilarating. Really.

When it’s clear who owns:

  • the call

  • the tradeoffs

  • the downside

  • the what-happens-next effects

execution stops being political, slow, and exhausting.

When one person clearly owns the decision and its consequences, work moves.
Fast.

Some organizations formalize this as a Directly Responsible Individual (DRI).
The label doesn’t matter. The ownership does.

One empowered decision owner beats a committee of semi-invested, overbooked people every single time.

The shift moves you from chaos to clarity like this:

Instead of: "We're all responsible for this," or “Delivery owns this.”
Try: "[Name] owns this. They make the call. I'm available as a thought partner, not a co-owner."

Instead of: "I'll just handle it once and for all since no one else is."
Try: "This isn't formally my responsibility. Either assign it an owner or we’re deprioritizing it."

Can it be that easy?

Well, that depends. Culture matters.
So does scale.
And ownership without authority is just theater.

But when it does work?

  • Projects ship instead of stall.

  • Meetings shrink because decisions don't need community consensus.

  • Calendars start reflecting real priorities.

Because your job as a leader was never to own everything.

It’s always been about making sure everything that matters has a real owner.
One who can decide, absorb the consequences, and move.

That’s power.

Use your power: Forward this to a founder or leader who’s currently carrying every decision by default. They’ll recognize themselves immediately.

GO | DO

Estimated time: 30 - 45 minutes | Estimated energy: low - moderate

This week, your power is owning the shift.

Dear DRIary (15 minutes)

List the initiatives currently in flight. For each one, answer:

  • Who makes the final decision?

  • Who absorbs the downside if it goes wrong?

If those answers aren’t clear, or aren’t the same person, you’ve just found an ownership opportunity.

Formalize Decision Ownership (15 minutes)

In your next leadership meeting, explicitly name the decision owner for each initiative.

Here’s the pressure-test:

  • Do they have authority?

  • Do they have context and bandwidth?

  • Do they have psychological safety and political capital to actually decide?

If not, the role isn’t ownership — it’s exposure. And that’s a risk that needs to be fixed.

Tell ‘em, tell ‘em, tell ‘em again (5-15 minutes, weekly)

Communicate decision ownership clearly and repeatedly.

Ambiguity always erodes outcomes. Clarity compounds.

What’s In It For All Of Us

By the way, if naming an owner feels risky, that’s a signal. Don’t ignore it.

Because clearing up decision ownership makes for healthier work. Fewer meetings, less thrash, clearer priorities.

The power of ownership isn’t a “nice to have”. It’s a load-bearing wall in the design of efficient, effective work.

Founders who default to owning it all stunt revenue. Leaders who foster ownership by committee are designing a building no one wants to live in.

🏗️ Clear ownership is both elegant and built for scale.

Get In There

📊 Subscribe to The New Ambition for instant access to the complete subscriber vault: healthy leadership tools, templates, and frameworks updated weekly with resources shaped by subscriber feedback.

🎧 Lenny's Podcast: Cameron Adams on "Giving Away Your Legos” at Canva — The classic framework on letting go of founder ownership

Your turn...

When things stall in your work world, what's usually the real reason?

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February is about reclaiming our power because… We’ve got the plan in place. We know our goals. And even though everything (everything) feels chaotic. Taking a little time every week to get clear on the power you’ve got, and how you can wield it for (more) good right now can change the trajectory of your year.

Work with me

If you're carrying invisible ownership everywhere—and it's costing you momentum, health, or revenue (or all three)—that’s not a “you’ problem. It’s a business risk. Let's untangle it.