Have you ever had to lead a project? If so, did you feel ownership for the project and was this project your own idea?

What if you had to lead a project that was not your own idea? Furthermore, imagine leading a project with passionate team members who tend to dominate the conversation and leave you having a hard time getting in a word edgewise.

This can make you feel like you don’t own the project. You may even feel ineffective because other people are leading the discussion and determining the priorities for your project. But do you know what, this can a good thing if managed properly.

In this article I will talk about how to take proper ownership of a project. For me, I learned this by working with a team of fellow of Toastmasters. The project in question was creating a training program to teach Toastmasters clubs how to promote themselves using promotional booths.

What I learned from this project is that you can take ownership of a project by doing the following:

1. Supporting someone else’s idea.
2. Letting team members have their say.
3. Delegating responsibility and authority to team members.
4. Monitoring and controlling the project.

Supporting Someone Else’s Idea

The idea for the promotional booth training program was not my own idea. I had been speaking to a fellow Toastmaster named Dave. Dave had an idea that we could create a training program to teach the members of Toastmasters clubs how to run a promotional booth to promote their clubs. I thought this was a great idea and I recruited Dave and a few other Toastmasters to create this training program with me.

I still remember one of our first planning meetings. I had an agenda for the meeting, but my team members ended up dominating the conversation and we didn’t really follow my agenda. I felt ineffective as a leader, and I didn’t really feel ownership of the project because I did not feel like I was in control of the meeting.

I later discussed this problem with my friend Laverne. What Laverne told me was that you don’t have to own an idea to be a good leader. He taught me that you can still lead a project even when it is not your own idea. He also told me that it is a good thing to have people on the team who are passionate about the project and want to share their ideas.

Laverne went on to tell me that one of my strengths is that I don’t have to make an idea my own and that I can support the ideas of other people. He also told me that another strength I possess Is that I value people and support their ideas. He also said that the world needs more leaders like this. That is, leaders who value people and who support other people’s ideas.

This gave me a new perspective on the meeting where I thought I had not done a good job as a leader. Looking back on this meeting, I realized that my team members were passionate about our project and that I was being a good leader by letting them share their ideas. I could have done a little better by having more control over the meeting, but ultimately the meeting was a success because I tapped into the passion of my team members and let them share their ideas.

Letting Your Team Members Have Their Say

In a team meeting when you are planning a project to bring an idea to fruition, it is important to let team members have their say. If your team members are passionate about the project and are dominating the conversation, it is ok to let them share their ideas. However, you should reign in the discussion from time to time to give other team members a chance to speak.

I recommend being respectful by letting a person speak, and then politely interrupting at the right time to thank them for their contributions. Then ask other team members if they would like to share their thoughts.

If you are following an agenda, you can also steer conversation back to the agenda when it gets off topic, but it is important to let your team members share their ideas. When team members are passionate and are actively sharing their ideas, this is good. Just remember that you have an agenda for a reason and strive to keep the discussion on track while also giving team members the chance to speak.

Delegate Responsibilities and Authority

When you have passionate team members, you have an opportunity to delegate responsibilities and authority to those team members. Their passion, energy, and enthusiasm for the project will make them ideal candidates to get the work done for your project.

Don’t let your desire for perfection or your desire to get it done right stop you from delegating tasks to your team members. Remember, you don’t have to own the project to support it. You can let team members take on some of the work, even if you think you could do it better on your own.

Delegating tasks to team members will help them to learn and grow. It will also help them to contribute to the project. Your team members will apply their own unique approach to implementing the tasks you assign them, and they may even surprise you by doing a better job than you would have done yourself.

When you do delegate tasks to a team member, be sure to give them both the responsibility and the authority to make decisions about how to implement that task without always having to check with you. This empowers them to take ownership of the tasks and responsibilities that you assign to them.

Monitoring and Controlling the Project

To truly take ownership of your project, you can establish a system to monitor and control your project. For me, I did this by scheduling and running the planning meetings for our promotional booth training project. I left my team members to do their tasks without supervision from me and the purpose of our team meetings was to check in with each other, to review each other’s progress, and to review the deliverables for our project.

My job as team leader was to coordinate with my team members to schedule our team meetings, to prepare the agendas for our team meetings, and to run those team meetings. This is how I took ownership of our project and provided direction and support to my team members.

My team members created most of the training materials themselves, and they did a great job. As the leader, I didn’t micromanage my team. Instead, I only checked in with my team members periodically via our team meetings. My team members also sent me their contributions to the training program via email, which I reviewed and provided feedback on.

Ultimately, I took ownership of the project by being the team leader, and I let my team members do the work and create the ideas and content for the training program. I also contributed my own ideas to the training program, and it was truly a team effort.

Conclusion

To take ownership of a project, you don’t have to make an idea your own. It is perfectly acceptable, even desirable, when your team members own the idea and are passionate about it. If you truly value people and support their ideas, you can help people to bring great ideas to fruition, even when those ideas are not your own.

As my friend Laverne says, the world needs more leaders like this. That is, leaders who value people and who support other people’s ideas.

To take ownership of a project, do the following:

1. Support someone else’s idea.
2. Let team members have their say.
3. Delegate responsibility and authority to team members.
4. Monitor and control the project.

You can be the leader, and own the project, by monitoring and controlling the project while you let the passion of your team members bring the project, and their ideas, to fruition.