Stop Leading. Start Stewarding.

A clear case for a mindset change, not a nomenclature refresh.

The email arrived at 2:47 PM on a Wednesday. "Leadership Development Workshop - Mandatory for All Managers."

Justin stared at his screen, feeling that familiar knot in his stomach. Another workshop. Another framework. Another set of competencies he'd be expected to master by Friday and implement by Monday.

He'd been managing people for eighteen months. He still felt like he was making it up as he went along.

The invitation promised to unlock "advanced leadership capabilities" and "strategic people development." Justin wondered if there was a session on "how to stop feeling like a fraud when people call you a leader."

Because here's the truth nobody wants to say out loud: most people managers aren't leading anything. They're following scripts, applying frameworks, performing authority they might not have even asked for.

We throw around words like leading and developing as if every people manager has the skills to do either. And not a dig on them, but many haven't been taught how to lead. Haven't experienced good leadership themselves. Haven't had someone truly invest in their own growth.

So when we say "lead your team" or "develop your people," we're often layering expectations on top of a foundation that was never built.

Watch what happens when someone gets promoted to their first management role. They panic. Not because the work is hard, but because suddenly they're supposed to be a "leader." They're supposed to have vision, strategy, answers. They're supposed to inspire and motivate and develop others when they're still figuring out their own career path.

So they do what anyone would do: they fake it. They attend the workshops. They memorize the frameworks. They perform leadership instead of practicing humanity.

The result? Managers who can recite the seven habits of highly effective people but can't tell when someone on their team is struggling. Leaders who know the feedback sandwich by heart but have never had an honest conversation about growth.

We've professionalized caring and turned it into competency models.

Stewardship is different. It's humbler. More honest. And that's exactly what people management should be.

But stewarding? That's something anyone can do the moment they decide someone else's growth matters more than their own comfort. It doesn't assume mastery. It doesn't require you to have all the answers. It just asks you to care. To pay attention. To take responsibility for someone else's experience, even while you're still learning yourself.

A manager doesn't need to be perfect to steward their direct report differently. They just need to care more about that person's potential than their own anxiety about change. A leader doesn't need advanced training to steward talent better—they need to question whether their comfort with conformity is worth their team member's excellence.

The word change matters because it removes the excuse. You can't say "I'm not trained to lead" when the ask is "will you steward this person's experience while they're under your care?"

And to be clear, I am not suggesting title changes in Workday. I'm not advocating for a roll-out of updated taxonomy that comes from HR. This is a mindset shift that you have permission to do, today.

Here's what changes when you think like a steward instead of a leader:

Leaders have followers. Stewards have people entrusted to their care.

The relationship changes. Instead of people who report to you, you have humans whose growth and experience you're responsible for tending. The power dynamic inverts. They're not there to make you look good. You're there to help them become better.

Leaders know the way. Stewards clear the path.

You don't have to have the answers. You just have to remove the obstacles. You don't have to be the smartest person in the room. You just have to make sure everyone else's intelligence can flourish.

Leaders achieve through others. Stewards succeed when others succeed.

Your wins aren't separate from theirs. Your growth isn't independent of their development. When the people in your care thrive, you've done your job. When they struggle, that's your work.

Jennifer could feel something was wrong with her team. Not dramatically wrong—productivity was fine, deadlines were met, no one was complaining. But the energy was different. Flatter. Less curious. Like they were all going through the motions.

Her leadership training told her to conduct stay interviews, implement engagement initiatives, create psychological safety workshops.

Her stewardship instincts told her to do something simpler. She closed her laptop in the middle of their weekly meeting and said, "Before we dive into project updates, I want to check in on how everyone's actually doing. Because something feels different in here."

The conversation that followed wasn't efficient. It wasn't structured. But it was real. For the first time in months, people talked about what they actually needed instead of what they thought they should say. Together they brought the energy back in to the work. Yet, what Jennifer did might have been viewed as "off script". Good.

That's stewardship. Not applying a framework, but trusting your human ability to see when people need something and caring enough to address it.

Stewardship is about attention, not authority. About responsibility, not recognition. About what you tend to, not what you control.

And maybe that's what we've been missing all along. We've been trying to make leaders out of people who just needed permission to show they care.

You don't have to be perfect. You just have to be present. You don't have to have all the answers. You just have to ask better questions. You don't have to know the destination. You just have to care about the journey.

That feels more honest. More possible. More human.

And that's something you can start doing today. Not when you complete the next training. Not when you master the next framework. Today.

Right now, someone is entrusted to your care. How will you steward them?

And the reality is that you are only the steward of one chapter of their career story. When they move on—and they will move on—what story will they tell about you?

Will they say you helped them build momentum? That you saw potential they didn't know they had? That you cleared obstacles and created space for them to grow? That you challenged them in ways that made them better?

Or will they say you stifled them? That you managed your own comfort instead of their development? That you were more concerned with process than their progress? That you were the chapter they had to survive rather than the one that helped them thrive?

You're temporary in their journey. They'll have other managers, other opportunities, other chapters. But the impact you have—positive or negative—becomes part of their story forever.

The question isn't whether you'll be remembered. The question is how.

Every person you steward will eventually work somewhere else. When they talk about their career—the managers who shaped them, the experiences that changed them—will you be the plot twist that accelerated their growth or the antagonist they had to overcome?

That's not a leadership question. That's a human one. And a legacy one.

You get to choose which character you play in their story. Choose to be the steward who helped them write a better next chapter.

Because when people give themselves permission to care, it changes everything.