Why people treat company money like it grows on trees, and what to do about it.

"They just don't GET it."

If you've ever muttered that under your breath, watching a team member blow the budget on something you'd never spend your own money on, or shrug at a problem that would keep YOU up at night - you're not alone.

There's a particular kind of frustration that comes with caring deeply about something and watching others treat it like it doesn't really matter. Like the money grows on trees. Like the standards are optional. Like it's just... a job.

When I worked with BHP, I got to see the other side of this. A brilliant team built and delivered a whole suite of initiatives designed to cultivate exactly the opposite - what they called an owner's mindset. The idea that employees would think, act, and decide AS IF it were their business. Their money. Their reputation on the line.

It was one of those things that sounds simple and is actually anything but.

The gap between "this is my job" and "this is MINE" turns out to be a psychological one. And if you're trying to close it, whether you've got a full initiative underway or you're just one leader trying to shift the dynamic in your team, this research is a very good place to start.

Because it turns out we now know quite a lot about what actually builds that sense of ownership in people. And the answers might surprise you.

A 2026 study published in the International Journal of Hospitality Management looked at what actually drives employees to feel like their work is truly theirs. That sense of "this job matters to me, I'm invested in it" - Researchers call it psychological ownership. And apparently your leadership style has a lot to do with whether your people develop it or not.

Here's what they found.

Generous leaders build ownership. When leaders actively give, (i.e. their time, their recognition, their knowledge, their opportunities) employees feel more personally invested in their work.

Humble leaders build it too. Admitting mistakes, acknowledging others' contributions, staying open to feedback...these behaviours create the psychological safety that allows people to step into ownership. The effect is real, even if it's a little less dramatic than generosity.

Happiness at work is the bridge. This is the part I find most fascinating. Leadership doesn't create ownership directly. It creates it through how happy employees feel at work. Positive, engaged, emotionally satisfied people are the ones who start saying "this is mine." Happiness is the mechanism. Leadership is what switches it on.

And gossip? Gossip breaks the whole thing. Even when employees are truly happy at work, a culture of negative peer gossip erodes the translation of that happiness into ownership. The researchers quantified it: at low gossip levels, happiness strongly predicts ownership. When gossip is high, that connection weakens significantly. Great leadership can be dismantled by a toxic interpersonal climate.

The owner's mindset isn't a personality trait. It's a response to leadership. And that's very good news.

Here are 5 things you can do this week that'll help to build that mindset in YOUR people:

1. Give something away. Generosity showed the strongest effect in the study. That means actual giving - your attention in a meeting, credit in a group debrief, a development opportunity you could have kept to yourself. Make it real and make it regular.

2. Say "I got that wrong" out loud. Humility builds psychological safety, and psychological safety is what allows people to take ownership. Next time you make a call that didn't exactly pan out like you'd hoped, name it. In front of the team. It costs you nothing but sends a huge signal of authenticity.

3. Ask "how are you going?" and actually wait for the answer. Workplace happiness is built through accumulated moments of feeling seen. Not annual reviews or engagement surveys (sorry). Consistent, REAL check-ins that you talk about more than just whether work has been done and what's planned...where you're not already mentally three agenda items ahead.

4. Make their work truly theirs. Give people as much autonomy as possible over how they do the job, not just the what. It's also change management 101 - ask for input before decisions are made, not after. Let their fingerprints be on the outcomes.

5. Name the gossip elephant. If your team starts to experience a negative peer dynamic (most do at some point) don't wait for it to sort itself out. The research is clear that you can have brilliant leadership and still watch the benefits dissolve in a culture of informal undermining. Address it with care and directness. Culture is everyone's job, and it starts with you modelling what you want to see. [side-note: Michelle Le Poidevin you are amazing at this].

Leadership that generates ownership in others is leadership worth having.

Go build some.

© Copyright Evelina Bereni | All rights reserved | Brisbane, Australia.

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Evelina lives in Brisbane, Queensland but travels globally.