The Match | Ownership
Word: Ownership
Sentence:
Ownership is the courage to say, “This part is mine.”
Passage:
Ownership sounds simple. In practice, it rarely is.
It is hard to say, I messed that up.
But it is also surprisingly hard to say, I did that well.
Both require a kind of vulnerability. One risks judgment. The other risks sounding like arrogance. So many of us live somewhere in the middle, explaining our mistakes and minimizing our successes.
It took me a long time to learn how to own my mistakes. It still does not feel good. I’m still learning. There are always reasons. Context. Other people involved. But the truth is most people are not looking for the explanation. They are looking for ownership.
“I messed that up.”
When someone says those words sincerely, something shifts. Trust grows. Repair becomes possible.
I remember sitting in my office one year with our valedictorian. Perfect grades. Scholarship waiting. Everything on paper said success.
But she looked at me and said quietly, “I feel like if I mess up once… everything falls apart.”
A week later another student who had failed his sophomore year sat in that same chair.
Different transcript. Different story.
But the feeling in the room was almost the same. Shame. Pressure. The weight of expectations.
Both of them were carrying a story about who they were supposed to be.
Ownership creates the space to tell the truth about those stories.
At the heart of relationships is a constant process of repair and restore. But repair only begins when someone is willing to stand in the moment and say, This part is mine.
Not the whole story.
Just the part that belongs to you.
And sometimes the bravest form of ownership is not admitting what went wrong, but pausing long enough to recognize what went right and how you helped make it happen.
There is learning in both, if we are willing to own them.
Your Turn:
Where in your life are you explaining a mistake or minimizing a success instead of owning it?
If this word meant something to you, pass The Match along to one person who might need it this week.
Thank you for being a part of this community! Keep your fire lit!
6 Comments
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6 Comments
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on March 13, 2026 at 10:36 am
Not OTF but OFO – Ownership From Others makes the development, implementation and monitoring much smoother. Ownership brings cooperation and an attempt at understanding.
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on March 14, 2026 at 10:35 am
Good point Jeff! I’m wondering how we give people space and time to take ownership of their mistakes and learn from them, but also how do we give them time and space to celebrate and reflect on those as well. I used to do a gratitude waterfall with my leadership team. I would stand over the each member of the team and hover my hand over their head and then the team would shower them with gratitude for one full minute. We would rotate around the entire group. People left feeling celebrated and seen.
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on March 14, 2026 at 1:38 pm
This one resonates across multiple roles for me.
As a teacher, it was initially painful to own where things could have been better. It never felt good to realize I could have done more, that the lesson should have been better structured, or that I should have used a different approach to help a student engage. It hurt to see half my class not meet the objective, and to see that student continue to stay off task. As I slowly got better and my confidence increased, I learned to not let that ownership keep me up at night. Ultimately it’s a healthy impulse – if we can’t name where it could have been better, how can we get better? The hard part is finding the energy and optimism to keep tinkering, keep pushing to apply those heard-earned insights.
Then as a principal – owning larger errors. Not just my own classroom or my own students, but the larger school context. Back to School Night, faculty meetings, transportation snafus. Protect the teachers – take any bullets you can for them. In some cases, naming the error and accepting my role in it was effective. “Yeah, I screwed that up by not structuring the PD better – that was my mistake….Yes, you’re right, that fight probably wouldn’t have happened if I had planned the coverage for the lunchroom better…” That’s not to say you should absolve the other adults from any ownership, but as a leader who doesn’t shy away from owning an error, you can build trust.
Now in central office – I think/hope owning my own mistakes builds credibility. We don’t need to spend a ton of time reliving the past and litigating fault. I’ve learned to embrace taking one for the team, admitting I screwed up, leaving space and grace for others to have their say in what should come next and sharing my best thinking about how I/we can learn from it. Keep the conversation focused on what comes next – that can be a benefit to taking ownership of an error.
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This is a really thoughtful reflection. I appreciate how you traced ownership across the different roles in education. What stood out to me is exactly what you named: ownership can hurt at first, but over time it becomes the thing that actually builds trust and learning. Thank you for sharing this perspective Mike!
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on March 15, 2026 at 5:48 pm
Another reason why someone may not own their successes…sometimes someone else is owning them. I believe, as leaders, it is critical to give others their flowers. Genuinely and without reserve. Often hearing from the folks I serve it is too common that people share they don’t feel seen and when something they worked hard on receives recognition it so often goes to someone above them.
We can help to model this by shouting people out or giving them descriptive positive feedback.
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I really appreciate this perspective. Sometimes people don’t own their success because someone else already claimed it. As leaders we have to be intentional about shining the light on the people doing the work. Giving people their flowers builds trust and reminds teams that their contributions matter.
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Not OTF but OFO – Ownership From Others makes the development, implementation and monitoring much smoother. Ownership brings cooperation and an attempt at understanding.
Good point Jeff! I’m wondering how we give people space and time to take ownership of their mistakes and learn from them, but also how do we give them time and space to celebrate and reflect on those as well. I used to do a gratitude waterfall with my leadership team. I would stand over the each member of the team and hover my hand over their head and then the team would shower them with gratitude for one full minute. We would rotate around the entire group. People left feeling celebrated and seen.
This one resonates across multiple roles for me.
As a teacher, it was initially painful to own where things could have been better. It never felt good to realize I could have done more, that the lesson should have been better structured, or that I should have used a different approach to help a student engage. It hurt to see half my class not meet the objective, and to see that student continue to stay off task. As I slowly got better and my confidence increased, I learned to not let that ownership keep me up at night. Ultimately it’s a healthy impulse – if we can’t name where it could have been better, how can we get better? The hard part is finding the energy and optimism to keep tinkering, keep pushing to apply those heard-earned insights.
Then as a principal – owning larger errors. Not just my own classroom or my own students, but the larger school context. Back to School Night, faculty meetings, transportation snafus. Protect the teachers – take any bullets you can for them. In some cases, naming the error and accepting my role in it was effective. “Yeah, I screwed that up by not structuring the PD better – that was my mistake….Yes, you’re right, that fight probably wouldn’t have happened if I had planned the coverage for the lunchroom better…” That’s not to say you should absolve the other adults from any ownership, but as a leader who doesn’t shy away from owning an error, you can build trust.
Now in central office – I think/hope owning my own mistakes builds credibility. We don’t need to spend a ton of time reliving the past and litigating fault. I’ve learned to embrace taking one for the team, admitting I screwed up, leaving space and grace for others to have their say in what should come next and sharing my best thinking about how I/we can learn from it. Keep the conversation focused on what comes next – that can be a benefit to taking ownership of an error.
This is a really thoughtful reflection. I appreciate how you traced ownership across the different roles in education. What stood out to me is exactly what you named: ownership can hurt at first, but over time it becomes the thing that actually builds trust and learning. Thank you for sharing this perspective Mike!
Another reason why someone may not own their successes…sometimes someone else is owning them. I believe, as leaders, it is critical to give others their flowers. Genuinely and without reserve. Often hearing from the folks I serve it is too common that people share they don’t feel seen and when something they worked hard on receives recognition it so often goes to someone above them.
We can help to model this by shouting people out or giving them descriptive positive feedback.
I really appreciate this perspective. Sometimes people don’t own their success because someone else already claimed it. As leaders we have to be intentional about shining the light on the people doing the work. Giving people their flowers builds trust and reminds teams that their contributions matter.