Why Having An 'Owner's Mentality' Makes All The Difference

Forbes

08-08-2025

Dennis Kozak is the Chief Executive Officer at Ivanti, responsible for the company's overall strategic direction and growth.
In my first week as a CEO, I built upon my experience as COO by spending as much time listening to customers as I did in meetings with employees and other leaders. I was (and am) determined to make decisions based on firsthand information—directly from our customers.
Many executive teams fall into a comfortable yet dangerous pattern: They make key decisions while understanding only a fraction of what actually happens within their business. It's the leadership equivalent of claiming to own a vineyard when you've never walked the rows, tasted the grapes or gotten soil under your fingernails.
Ownership Or Occupancy?
I often describe the difference between effective and ineffective leadership as the gap between owner and renter mentality. It goes far beyond who holds the title or signs the papers.
Renters make surface-level improvements, but only when necessary. They fulfill basic obligations but don't often dig deep. They think short-term, rarely planning beyond their current lease. This limited commitment is perfectly reasonable when you're renting an apartment, but it can be problematic when you're leading a company.
Owners invest differently. They understand every corner of their property. They make improvements with long-term value in mind, not just immediate comfort. They build relationships with neighbors, thinking about community impact beyond their property line.
This ownership mentality isn't automatic when you get a leadership title. I've seen C-suite executives who operate like renters—making decisions based on quarterly targets without understanding their deeper impact. And I've seen employees and contractors who think like owners—going beyond their job description to solve problems that affect the entire company. Whether you treat your organization as an owner or a renter isn't determined by your title; it's determined by your mindset.
How Ownership Thinking Evolved
My perspective on ownership evolved as I spent my career exploring different business functions. Each role I held expanded my view of what effective ownership requires.
• Finance: When I held a finance role, I learned that owners must understand not only costs and revenue but also how financial decisions impact customer experience and employee morale.
• Operations: My time in operations taught me how execution challenges can transform perfect strategies into messy realities.
• Sales: Sales showed me that customers don't just buy products, they buy into your vision and trust in your long-term partnership.
Many assume executive leadership automatically means you have a stronger ownership mentality. I've found the opposite. The higher you climb, the easier it is to lose touch with ground-level reality. Leaders can easily fall into making decisions from 30,000 feet, seeing only what filters through layers of management.
Real-Time Leadership Laboratory
The (major!) contrast between public and private environments further shaped my leadership perspective. After holding leadership positions at two public companies, joining Ivanti as a private equity-backed COO, and eventually CEO, I acquired new insights into ownership dynamics.
Public companies face constant pressure to demonstrate quarterly performance. This environment makes a true ownership mindset challenging—the market rewards short-term wins over long-term investment.
The private setting allows for deeper commitment to foundational improvements. Without quarterly earnings calls driving every decision, we can invest in structural changes that might not show immediate returns but create lasting value.
This private environment doesn't automatically create better ownership thinking, however. The key difference is where and how you spend your time as a leader.
Customer Zero Leadership
True ownership means embracing a "customer zero" strategy. That is, experiencing your company's products, services and processes firsthand before asking anyone else to use them.
Being customer zero means spending time in every department and understanding challenges across the organization. Depending on the day, I might work alongside our marketing team on messaging clarity, join customer success calls to hear feedback directly or participate in sales meetings to understand what resonates with prospects.
This approach offers unfiltered insights that no executive summary can capture. It sends a clear message throughout the organization: No function is beneath leadership attention, and every role matters to company success.
Building An Ownership Culture
The most powerful way to cultivate ownership thinking across your organization is to model it yourself. When employees see leaders investing time to understand ground-level challenges, they are more likely to adopt similar behaviors. And feel their work is valued.
This culture shift happens through consistent demonstration, not occasional gestures. It requires leaders who:
• Ask questions and spend time listening before offering solutions.
• Focus on where value is created, not just where decisions are made.
• Take responsibility for outcomes, not just intentions.
• Invest in structural improvements, not just quick fixes.
• Think about legacy impact, not just immediate results.
Leaders who embrace true ownership thinking make decisions with a different calculus. They weigh short-term gains against long-term vision. They consider impact across stakeholder groups rather than optimizing for a single metric.
The Ownership Gap
The greatest leadership challenge I see is bridging what I call the "ownership gap"—the distance between what leaders think is happening on the front lines and what is actually happening there.
Executives who make decisions without understanding operational realities create solutions that don't address the root of the issue. They optimize processes that look efficient on paper but create frustration for customers and employees.
Closing this gap requires humility and curiosity. It means acknowledging that leadership titles don't confer perfect understanding. It requires regular, direct exposure to customer experiences and employee challenges.
An Owner's Mentality
The companies that consistently outperform competitors aren't just better at strategy or execution. They're places where ownership thinking extends beyond the C-suite to every level of the organization.
When everyone approaches problems with an owner's mentality—thinking beyond job descriptions to focus on what the business truly needs—adaptation becomes natural rather than forced.
The next time you face a leadership challenge, ask yourself: "Am I approaching this as an owner or a renter?" Answering honestly will tell you more about your leadership effectiveness than any performance metric.
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