A Podcast That Sparked a Shift

Listening to the Panelle Talks episode: Owning Your Role, Owning the Business (Season 2, Episode 4), one sentence keeps echoing in my head:

"Leadership isn’t just responsibility. It’s curiosity, courage and clarity."

Elaine Page, former Chief People Officer at TaxJar, is one of those Panelle Talks guests who truly surprised me and changed something in me.

I’m not a corporate executive. I’m an Italo-English writer. But in Elaine’s words, I found something powerful.

She gave me the courage to speak up during a video call last week when a plan didn’t feel right. The change was almost immediate.

My question shifted the tone of the meeting. That small act of vulnerability helped me understand what distributed leadership and an ownership mindset really mean. Today, offices are optional and hierarchies are flatter.

In this article, I want to reflect on these ideas not as a manager, but as an observer who takes everything in.

Rethinking Leadership in a Flat World

I’ll admit it. Early in my career, I saw work as a list of tasks to complete. Everything changed when I started thinking like an owner. Elaine put it clearly:

"Taking responsibility means treating your role as if the entire business depended on it. It’s not just about doing your part. It’s about seeing the bigger picture and asking yourself, 'How can I help solve this?'"

Modern leadership is becoming less vertical. The old model of the boss behind a closed door is giving way to distributed leadership, where authority is shared across teams.

The MIT Sloan School points out that organisations are moving away from the 'command and control' approach and shifting toward autonomy and innovation. In this new landscape, the leader’s role is not to have all the answers, but to create the conditions for everyone to do their best work.

The Power of Flexibility and Shared Leadership

According to Atlassian, 92% of employees believe flexible and distributed work improves performance.

91% say it’s one of the main reasons they choose to stay in their company.

Giving people freedom and a voice in how they work isn’t just a nice touch. It’s culture.  

Research on collective leadership shows that teams perform better when leadership is flexible and follows whoever has the right skills at the right moment. In this kind of environment, trust, shared responsibility and transparency are key.

When people have a say in what they do and how they do it, they feel involved and valued. It’s not magic. It’s logic.

When something feels like it belongs to you, you care more about it. Even Google found that the most effective teams are those where people understand the purpose behind their work. That sense of purpose leads to belonging and psychological safety.

This way, work stops feeling like an assembly line. It becomes a shared project. Even a small act, like asking a question, can spark a positive ripple effect across the team.

Culture, Courage, and Embracing Vulnerability

Elaine points out that during moments of change or growth, trusting your instinct and betting on yourself can truly shift the course of your career.

Through the podcast and my own experience, I realised that we can’t talk about shared leadership or an ownership mindset without talking about culture.

Elaine says that culture is how things are done when no one is watching. It shows up in casual interactions, in messages on Slack, in silences during meetings, in the everyday details.

That’s where you can see whether people feel free to take risks, admit a mistake or simply say, 'I don’t know.'  The real key is vulnerability.

Building Trust and Connection in Distributed Teams

From the podcast, I learned that the more I show up with honesty, share doubts, ask for feedback and own my mistakes, the more my team feels safe to do the same.

Atlassian calls this the glue that holds distributed teams together. Even if we don’t see each other every day, we can still be real with one another. That kind of honesty builds trust.

Elaine shares a moment when she had to admit she had made the wrong decision. She didn’t lose authority. She gained respect. Her team understood she was there to learn and grow, just like them. But vulnerability doesn’t appear by chance.

Vulnerability Doesn’t Grow on Its Own...

It must be nurtured. Companies have to create spaces where people feel safe to speak, ask questions and say, 'I don’t know if this will work, but let’s try.'

That can be done through simple actions, like:

• Starting meetings with emotional check-ins

• Sharing weekly failures to normalise mistakes

• Recognising each other’s efforts to celebrate courage and initiative

These practices shape a culture where leadership is not only top-down but shared. In a hybrid and distributed world, that’s the only way to build trust and cohesion.

Final Thoughts: We Don’t Need Heroes. We Need Owners.

In today’s world of work, we don’t need superheroes. We need people who take ownership of their role as if the entire company depended on it.

That doesn’t mean doing everything alone. It means caring about the impact of your actions, having the courage to speak up and actively contributing to your team’s culture.

Elaine reminds us that owning the business is an inner journey. It means listening to your instincts, building relationships and creating trust. The data and the stories both show it: when people feel ownership, companies grow faster, innovate more and keep their best talent.

Whether you’re a remote product manager, a designer working in a shared space or a student dreaming about your future, remember this: your role matters.

And if you're ready to explore what true, modern leadership looks like then you need to hear this conversation.

Listen to Season 2, Episode 4 of Panelle Talks: Owning Your Role, Owning the Business. It shifted how I see work. It might just do the same for you.

Click here to listen now. Because sometimes, all it takes is one sentence to start a transformation.

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