Why Stewardship Matters - A Coach’s Perspective
In this post, I want to explore stewardship: why it matters, how it shows up in our work and lives, and how it can help good people lead with care, courage, and conscience.
Why Should You Care About Stewardship?
The world doesn’t just need more leaders - it needs thoughtful stewardship. Not louder voices, but wiser ones. Not people chasing titles, but people tending to what really matters.
I often see good people stepping back - exhausted, frustrated, unsure how to make a lasting difference. Teams under pressure, decisions made without care, opportunities missed, or the sense that your work isn’t leaving the mark you hoped for. Stewardship is a way to act differently: to lead with courage, care, and focus, without burning yourself out in the process.
From my own experience - growing up with scarce resources and working in systems that weren’t always fair - I’ve seen how influence without conscience can do harm. I’ve also been fortunate to work with teams and leaders who modelled stewardship, and I’ve coached others to do the same. The lesson is clear: ambition alone isn’t enough. Leadership without stewardship can be reckless; with it, it can be transformative.
Stewardship in Practice
Stewardship isn’t just a concept. It’s how you feel, act, and show up each day.
It means:
Feeling that your work and life contribute, to the people around you, the spaces you inhabit, and the wider world.
Creating systems and routines that support those closest to you, so care and responsibility ripple outward instead of getting lost in busyness.
Experiencing tangible personal benefits: feeling calmer, more energised, less stressed, and more focused on what really matters.
Examples from leaders I’ve worked with:
A CEO reflecting, “How long do I want to lead, and what legacy do I want to leave?”
A Chief People Officer asking, “How can I make a difference beyond our people?”
A Finance Director exploring, “I want my decisions to have a positive impact on climate.”
A Deputy Director General deciding to align every action with purpose: “Am I leading with integrity and meaning?”
A Transformation Director questioning whether to give one more push, balancing energy and influence.
These moments show that stewardship is practical, often challenging, and deeply personal. It’s about pausing, reflecting, and acting deliberately.
A Framework for Stewardship
One way I’ve guided leaders is through a simple ‘5 P’s and an F’ framework:
People: Are you supporting and challenging others to be their best selves?
Place: Are you shaping environments - at work, home, or in your community - that sustain and inspire?
Planet: Are your choices contributing to a thriving world?
Past: Are you learning from experience?
Present: Are you acting with intention today?
Future: Are you creating what’s worth inheriting tomorrow?
This framework helps turn frustration into constructive action. Stewardship gives you the courage to step up - not as a threat, but as a responsibility. Leaders who steward well create conditions for great things to happen, for themselves and for those around them.
Five Ways to Practice Stewardship This Week
Even small actions ripple outward. Here are five steps you can try:
Check in with yourself - Take 10 minutes to honestly assess your balance and energy. Small pauses reset focus.
Small acts of care - Support one person or team intentionally. Recognition or help goes a long way.
Courageous reflection - Identify one situation you’ve been avoiding. Take a small, values led step to address it.
Contribution audit - Look at your impact on your community, team, and planet. Pick one deliberate action.
Share the mindset - Talk about stewardship with someone else. Discussing values strengthens your own clarity and influence.
Even one of these steps starts your stewardship journey - helping you feel more energised, focused, and satisfied while creating space for others to thrive.
Taking Stewardship Deeper
If you want to explore your stewardship more systematically, I have created a Self-Stewardship Diagnostic. It helps you reflect, measure, and act deliberately in ways that really matter.
It supports you to:
Reflect holistically - How well are you stewarding your personal, professional, emotional, and social life?
Measure your impact - Score yourself across ten facets of stewardship, from self-awareness and integrity to rhythm and legacy.
Act deliberately - Take small, consistent steps that align your time, energy, and influence with what matters most.
The goal isn’t perfection - it’s about feeling calmer, clearer, and more energised, while creating ripple effects for the people, teams, and environments you care about. In coaching, I’ve seen leaders make big changes from small, consistent actions once they understand where their stewardship is strongest - and where it could grow.
If you’d like a copy - drop me a note HERE.
Stewardship at the Team Level
Teams flourish when stewardship becomes a shared practice. A stewarding culture embeds care, equity, contribution, and courage into daily work - how decisions are made, how people are treated, and how value is created.
Without stewardship, people burn out.
Without stewardship, organisations lose trust.
With stewardship, energy flows to what truly matters, relationships deepen, and teams perform better.
A Coach’s Final Thought
Stewardship isn’t a theory - it’s a set of deliberate choices you make every day. It starts with one person. It starts with you.
When you steward well, you sleep better, feel proud of your impact, and bring energy to the work that really matters.
Looking Ahead
Next time, we’ll tackle some of the practical questions that often make stewardship feel challenging:
What does stewardship look like in day-to-day decisions?
How can we measure its impact without getting lost in complexity?
How do we navigate the trade-offs that make it uncomfortable at times?
Because stewardship isn’t just inspiring - it’s practical, measurable, and sometimes hard. Like the leadership I ask you to step on from, it requires reflection, courage, and deliberate action; action for the whole rather than the self.
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For now; thank you
I am…
An executive coach and the CEO of Be The Waves, growing stewardship for a thriving planet.
I helping good people lead great things; in other words - I empower Stewardship
Good people care about others, our planet and beauty. Great things are changes for the betterment of society and all that lives within an around it. It sounds big and fun - it is.
I'm also an endurance racing cyclist and a go getter.
You can read more about me and what I do; how I work here