Chain of Learning: 83| Keep Ownership at the Right Level: How to Sustain Organizational Transformation [with Anna Pessah]

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Overstepping ownership rarely looks like overstepping. It looks like moving things along.

You know how something could be improved, so you give your suggestion. Work gets done, progress is visible, but the person you were there to develop doesn’t build the capability they need, and the improvement doesn’t sustain.

Every change leader, manager, and executive does this at some point. And when we take on ownership of what isn’t ours, we end up the bottleneck.

As a transformational change leader at Kaiser Permanente, Anna Pessah watches this play out every day with the internal consulting team she leads, and with the physician and operational leaders she supports.

We break down this challenge and share the practices to use instead. Leaders don’t need to stop helping or teaching. It’s about getting clear about what each person owns, and adjusting how you help based on what that leader needs in the moment.

When ownership sits in the right place, people grow, improvements hold, and you have the space to do what is actually yours to do.

You’ll Learn:

  • How to make ownership explicit from the start, by contracting up front and saying out loud which hat you’re wearing, coach or consultant or teacher
  • Why leaders learn good coaching practices best by being coached, and how making your own practice visible lets others model it
  • Why the pull to step in gets stronger the more you care about the outcome
  • Why a new practice often swings too far one direction at first, and how to find the middle without abandoning it
  • When asking coaching questions stops being helpful, and how to be directive without taking over the thinking

ABOUT MY GUEST:

Anna Pessah leads the internal consulting team that oversees the operating system at the North Valley Service Area of Kaiser Permanente, where she coaches physician and operational leaders on strategy, management systems, and the behaviors that support a culture of improvement. She is an industrial engineer from the University of Michigan and an ICF-certified coach. Anna brings a blend of systems thinking, operational improvement, and leadership development to help leaders generate insight, turn goals into action, and build habits that stick.

IMPORTANT LINKS:

TIMESTAMPS FOR THIS EPISODE:

03:16 Why change leaders struggle to keep ownership with leaders

05:22 When helping starts creating dependence

06:15 Building capability instead of becoming the bottleneck

07:12 Why doing more can make your job harder

09:23 Getting explicit about roles and ownership

11:25 Why new practices require reflection and adjustment

13:17 Making your leadership practices visible

16:03 How to give direction without taking over

22:16 What happens when leaders operate at the wrong level

24:05 The personal cost of staying in the weeds

25:30 Why helping can turn into overstepping

27:43 When coaching questions aren’t helpful

31:25 The power of listening—and leaving space

36:46 Why humility is essential to learning

38:18 Recognizing your own pull to control

39:06 Simple practices for keeping ownership where it belongs

Learn more and apply for the November 2026 cohort of my Japan Leadership Experience: https://kbjanderson.com/japantrip/