A team can be full of competent people who do their individual jobs well and still fail to deliver the outcome the organization needs.
That idea became one of the clearest themes in my recent conversation with Kyle McDowell, former Fortune 10 executive, bestselling author of Begin with We: Ten Principles for Building and Sustaining a Culture of Excellence, and founder of Kyle McDowell Inc.
Kyle spent nearly three decades leading large teams and billion-dollar operations. His perspective on leadership is shaped by something he saw repeatedly: talented people can become focused on doing enough to stay out of trouble instead of doing their best work.
The difference often comes down to the environment leaders create.
Compliance Is Not the Same as Commitment
A boss can use authority, pressure, and fear to get people to comply.
Compliance can produce acceptable short-term performance.
It does not necessarily create ownership.
Kyle described environments where employees become more concerned about avoiding mistakes, criticism, or punishment than about doing exceptional work.
That creates a dangerous pattern.
Employees may technically meet expectations while withholding the discretionary effort, creativity, initiative, and judgment that separate average performance from exceptional performance.
This matters financially.
During our conversation, I shared an example involving a business with a $10 million annual payroll. When I asked the owner to estimate the discretionary effort of the average employee, he estimated roughly 60%.
If that estimate is even close, the gap between payroll expense and actual productive effort becomes impossible to ignore.
Leaders routinely scrutinize expenses, waste, theft, and operational inefficiencies.
Disengagement deserves the same attention.
Accountability and Ownership Are Not the Same Thing
Kyle made an important distinction between accountability and ownership.
Accountability is often treated as a mechanism for making sure people do what they are supposed to do.
Ownership goes further.
Someone with ownership does not simply ask:
“What is my job?”
They ask:
“What outcome are we trying to create, and what needs to happen next?”
That distinction came to life through a restaurant experience I shared during the interview.
I visited a premium restaurant after spending a hot day working outside. I was extremely thirsty.
The host did her job well.
The server did her job well.
The bartender did his job well.
The restaurant was clean. The food was good. The service was professional.
Yet I repeatedly sat with an empty water glass while multiple employees walked past my table.
Eventually, I had to get up and ask the bartender for water myself.
The problem was not that employees were incompetent.
The problem was that they appeared to own their individual tasks without owning the customer experience.
Kyle immediately connected the story to the difference between accountability and ownership.
A team can execute individual responsibilities correctly while still failing the customer.
Great Cultures Create a Clear Identity
Culture becomes stronger when people understand more than their job descriptions.
They understand who they are as a team.
During our conversation, Kyle explained how his own leadership principles grew out of a question of identity.
What kind of team were they going to be?
What behaviors would define them?
What would they refuse to tolerate?
Kyle developed what he calls the “Ten We’s,” a set of observable leadership and team behaviors.
Several came up during our discussion:
- We challenge each other
- We embrace challenge
- We lead by example
- We take action
- We own our mistakes
- We measure ourselves by outcomes, not activity
These are not abstract values.
They are behaviors people can see.
That matters because employees do not build their understanding of culture from a framed values statement.
They build it by watching what leaders do, what gets rewarded, what gets ignored, and what behavior is allowed to continue.
Strong Teams Challenge Each Other
One of Kyle’s favorite principles is:
We challenge each other.
In a weak culture, challenge often flows in one direction.
The boss challenges employees.
Kyle argues that high-performing teams need something different.
Peers should be able to challenge peers.
Employees should be able to challenge leaders.
Leaders should be able to challenge more senior leaders.
That does not mean creating conflict for the sake of conflict.
It means building a culture where people are comfortable pushing one another toward better thinking and better performance.
Challenge becomes part of the identity of the team.
Avoiding difficult conversations, by contrast, can quietly normalize mediocrity.
Measure Outcomes, Not Activity
Kyle also warned about confusing activity with performance.
A packed calendar can look impressive.
Back-to-back meetings can make someone appear important.
Constant busyness can create the appearance of productivity.
The question is whether the activity connects to meaningful outcomes.
Kyle’s principle is:
We measure ourselves by outcomes, not activity.
That is an important distinction for executives and managers.
Hard work matters.
Effort matters.
Activity matters.
But activity without a connection to the desired business result should be questioned.
Leaders should be careful about rewarding visible busyness while overlooking people who quietly produce meaningful outcomes.
What to Do When You Inherit a Struggling Team
Kyle also addressed a difficult leadership situation: taking over a team with low morale, low trust, or a history of poor performance.
His advice is not to walk in swinging a sledgehammer.
A new leader may be told that certain employees are the problem and need to go.
Kyle recommends resisting the urge to make immediate assumptions.
Listen first.
Observe.
Understand why the team is performing the way it is.
Establish clear behavioral standards.
Create some visible wins.
Then model the behavior you expect from everyone else.
People who have spent years inside a weak leadership environment may have learned that initiative is not rewarded, speaking up is dangerous, or extra effort only results in more work.
Changing the people without changing the environment can leave the underlying problem untouched.
Leaders Set the Behavioral Ceiling
Leadership principles only work if leaders model them.
Kyle emphasized that people watch leaders closely, especially when adversity appears.
It is easy to talk about values when things are going well.
The real test comes when results disappoint, pressure rises, or someone delivers bad news.
That is when leaders reveal what the culture actually values.
Kyle also pointed out the importance of admitting mistakes.
One of his principles is:
We own our mistakes.
A leader who expects accountability from others but refuses to acknowledge personal mistakes destroys credibility.
A leader who can say, “I blew it,” reinforces the idea that the standards apply to everyone.
The Promotion Kyle Lost Because He Never Asked for Help
One of the most memorable moments in our conversation came when Kyle shared a story from earlier in his career.
He had taken responsibility for an unfamiliar and underperforming function.
When his boss left the organization, Kyle believed he was a logical candidate for the promotion.
He did not get the job.
Later, he asked the division president why.
The response was:
“You never asked for help.”
Kyle had believed that because he owned the function, it was his responsibility to solve the problems himself.
What he viewed as ownership was also preventing him from using the expertise and resources around him.
The experience changed the way he thought about leadership.
A new title does not suddenly give someone every skill, answer, or piece of experience they need.
Strong leaders know when to raise their hands.
They know when to ask for help.
They know when someone else in the room has more expertise.
Vulnerability, used correctly, does not weaken leadership.
It can strengthen trust.
The Leadership Question Worth Asking
The conversation with Kyle raised a question every business owner, CEO, and manager should consider:
Are your employees simply accountable for completing tasks, or do they feel ownership of the outcome?
Those are very different environments.
One can produce compliance.
The other can produce initiative, judgment, accountability, engagement, and stronger performance.
If your team is doing what is required but still falling short of what the business needs, the answer may not be another policy, another meeting, or another performance metric.
It may be time to examine the leadership environment itself.
Watch the Full Conversation
Kyle McDowell is a former Fortune 10 executive, bestselling author of Begin with We, and founder of Kyle McDowell Inc.
Watch the full conversation on The Workforce Alchemy Show:
Listen to the full podcast:
https://open.acast.com/public/streams/5cd334e4e3b953af742edd5d/episodes/6a9ee60dffe0e27491459234.mp3
Learn more about Workforce Alchemy:
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