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It pays from time to time to read backwards. Which is how I came across this in the very first issue of Fast Company Magazine:

I’ve always believed there are two reasons why anybody would take a hill with you and risk getting killed. One is that the leader is so valiant that he will be first to take the bullet, therefore his people follow. I’ve never really bought into that school of leadership. For me, my men and women follow me because they know I won’t get them killed. People sense that you’re not taking them to some far-out place for the hell of it, that it’s for their well being. You will take them there, you will get them there, and, by following you, they will be better off.
— Peter Kim in Fast Company, November 1995, Page 34

Which reminded me of this from Jesus:

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they might have life and have it to the full. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down is life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep”
— John 10:10-13

There’s a difference between ownership and stewardship. We’ve seen any number of stewards take flight this century (with the money if at all possible), leaving behind most of what they claimed to hold dear. Owners—and the odd steward who behaves like an owner—show by the choices they make that they are a different breed. The marketplace is more fickle than when Peter Kim spoke with Fast Company in 1995 and getting killed in the line of business even more a possibility. As a consequence, people in commerce from top to bottom are more than a little skittish. It seems to me that business leaders who know without having to look over their shoulders that people are following are the ones who A) don’t put worker’s well-being on the line needlessly, B) don’t abandon workers when the wolf is at the door, and C) share the wealth (when there’s wealth to share). These are—to my mind at least—clear differences between ownership and mere oversight; between leading and merely managing a business.