Wanted: Owners
By Susana von der Heide Founder & Thinking Partner at VON DER HEIDE
The word “employee” is starting to feel like a relic. A leftover from a world that no longer exists, where the deal was simple: you gave your time, I gave you a paycheck. You followed orders, I called the shots.
That model collapsed the moment machines got better, faster, and cheaper at doing what used to count as “work.” Today, the game isn’t about obedience, it’s about awareness. It’s not just about showing up and doing the job; it’s about knowing the value you bring, how you bring it, and why it matters.
This is the big challenge of our time: having the guts to become an intrapreneur inside your own organization.
We all know the entrepreneur – the risk-taker, the builder, the one who starts from scratch. But the intrapreneur is their quieter counterpart: the one who dares to innovate from within. The one who doesn’t wait for permission to think differently. Who finds new ways of doing things and owns them.
This isn’t about job titles or stock options.
It’s about mindset. It’s about standing in front of a project and saying, “This is mine,” even if it’s not written in your job description.
Sure, distinctions help – responsibility as the ability to respond, accountability as the part you’re answerable for – but the real shift is from spectator to owner. It’s when you stop doing only what’s asked and start acting like you’re responsible for the impact you create.
Companies don’t need more status reports or tighter oversight. They need more intrapreneurs: people who make decisions like they own the place. People who read the room, take smart risks, and ride the wave instead of getting dragged by it.
Because when no one steps up, the company ends up like a surfer without a board, at the mercy of the current. But when many people do, that wave becomes a shared force, a momentum that drives everyone forward, even through rough waters.
The future of work depends on this: building cultures where being an intrapreneur isn’t a bold exception, it’s just how things are done.
Where talent doesn’t wait to be picked.
The question is simple but not exactly comfortable: Are you an employee… or an owner?
