Leadership is Not About Titles
In a recent essay published in Inc.com, Carolyn Stanworth, CEO of BL Companies, described how moving to an employee-ownership model fundamentally shifted the culture at her company, in ways deeper than just financial ownership. The transformation meant redefining what leadership means, who can lead, how decisions are made, and how people communicate and grow. The core idea: leadership isn’t about title or hierarchy—it is about behavior, initiative, and shared responsibility.
Employee Ownership & Its Cultural Impact
- Many years ago, BL Companies transitioned to an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP). While Stanworth expected financial consequences of that shift (everyone getting equity, benefits etc.), she was surprised by how dramatically the culture changed.
- Shared ownership opened possibilities: not just the ability to have a stake, but a new mindset. Because people “own” the company, they see themselves as stakeholders rather than just employees. That shift made questions like “how do we make decisions?” and “how do we communicate?” become more urgent and more collective.
Leadership for Everyone
- One major change was teaching that leadership is not a title. It’s a way of being. Anyone, in any role—junior, senior, not in management—can lead through actions: running meetings, mentoring others, improving processes, speaking up with concerns.
- To make this real, BL Companies developed a program they call Foundations. It’s a leadership development initiative that every employee-owner must complete (with newcomers doing so in their first year). But unlike traditional leadership programs, this is not about grooming future executives – it’s about enabling everyone at every level to lead in the context of their own role, their projects, their teams.
Communication, Feedback, and Emotional Intelligence
- A big part of leadership is communication—especially feedback. In many organizations, people hold back – afraid of offending someone or damaging relationships. But in BL’s employee-owner culture, being silent isn’t acceptable. Everyone is expected to contribute, to speak up.
- Tools are given to all employees to develop emotional intelligence and a shared language around communication. Among them:
- Self-awareness: understanding one’s own emotions, managing them, being aware of how one’s behavior affects others.
- Empathy and adjusting tone/cadence to fit stakeholders and situations.
- A distinct phrase for feedback: they use “I have a gift for you” to preface feedback. This signals respect, sets a tone for listening, frames feedback as growth rather than correction.
- Over time, this culture of honest, respectful feedback becomes embedded. People at all levels – including senior leadership – give and receive feedback.
Watching Leadership Emerge
- Stanworth talks about witnessing leadership arise in unexpected places: from frontline employees, in committees, in people who are not titled managers. For example:
- Someone (not in a management position) volunteers to lead a training session for a company committee. Over time, they grow to lead planning themselves and eventually lead without outside facilitation.
- A junior person gives feedback to Stanworth herself respectfully and candidly—and is listened to. This is part of a culture where the CEO doesn’t have to be the loudest voice, but one who listens, observes, and supports others.
- Stanworth also reflects that her role has shifted: it’s less about directing, more about modeling behaviors—humility, inclusion, clarity—and giving people what they need to succeed rather than micromanaging.
Why It Works & What It Takes
- Tools + Trust + Language: It’s not enough to say, “everyone should lead.” BL Companies gave people a shared vocabulary, structured training, emotional support, and trust. They also created formal structures (like the Foundations program) to ensure everyone is prepared, not just hoping people step up on their own.
- Time and Investment: Building a leadership culture across all roles doesn’t happen overnight. It requires ongoing investment: in teaching, in feedback, in creating safe space for failure, in supporting employees as they try, misstep, and learn. Failure to invest over time undermines trust.
- Shared Ownership as Foundation: The ESOP created a structural basis: When people own a stake, they are more likely to see themselves as stewards of the whole, and to act accordingly. That sense of ownership motivates initiative. Without it, it’s harder to get people to feel empowered.
Outcomes & Benefits
- Engagement increases. When people have ownership—both financial and emotional—they are more likely to commit, care, take initiative. They don’t wait for directions. They build improvements and suggest changes.
- Collaboration strengthens. Shared responsibility pushes people to work across silos, to help each other, to mentor. Leadership becomes distributed.
- Culture becomes more resilient and adaptive. Because leadership comes from everywhere, the organization becomes less dependent on single individuals. It gains agility. People are more ready to step in, to raise issues, to shape processes.
Challenges / Things to Mind
While the article emphasizes many benefits, it implicitly acknowledges some challenges (though not all explicitly). Key ones include:
- Giving people opportunity to lead isn’t the same as preparing them—there’s risk if people try and fail without support or guidance. That’s why training and structured programs are necessary.
- Communication and feedback can be uncomfortable. People need psychological safety to speak up. Mistakes will happen. Leaders need to model this.
- The mindset shift away from hierarchy is hard—both for leaders who are used to top-down control, and for employees who have been conditioned to wait for instructions. It requires consistent reinforcement.
Key Principles to Take Away
From the article, here are the main principles that Stanworth suggests for any organization wanting to teach leadership to all employees:
- Provide tools and language. Emotional intelligence, feedback frameworks, communication skills.
- Define leadership as behavior, not title. Anyone can lead through initiative, action, ownership.
- Train early and universally. Ensure everyone (including new hires) go through leadership development, not just aspiring managers.
- Trust people to lead. Give them space to try, to lead projects, committees, to act without needing approval for everything.
- Model what you preach. Senior leadership must embody inclusion, humility, clarity, vulnerability.
- Make ownership real. Financial ownership helps, but cultural ownership (feelings of stewardship, influence, responsibility) is equally important.
- Be patient and persistent. Culture change is gradual; consistency matters more than speed.
Conclusion
Stanworth argues that when leadership is democratized—available to every employee—it changes how organizations function for the better. The shift shapes culture, engagement, collaboration, and performance. It requires structural support (training, programs, etc.), emotional and psychological safety, a framework for communication and feedback, and a mindset that trusts employees.
Leadership becomes less about position and more about contribution. In her view, this is not just a “nice to have” but foundational—especially in an ESOP model—but applicable more broadly to any company that wants to harness the creativity, responsibility, and potential of all its people.
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