Every healthy organization runs on care. Some care happens in the small moments at work. Some care happens in big choices that shape the future. Name both, design both in tending and stewardship, and people can do great work without burning out or breaking trust.
What This Means
There are two kinds of care.
Tending is care inside the work, right now.
Stewardship is care for the whole institution, across years.
You need both. If you only tend, you get short-term fixes. If you only steward, you get pretty words that never reach people’s daily reality.
Tending: Care in Daily Work
Tending is how teams keep work human and doable. It shows up when you notice a fraying handoff, adjust a deadline, or create space to learn from a mistake. It asks three simple questions:
- Are people carrying a fair load, and can they say when it’s too much?
- Are the touchpoints between teams clear and healthy?
- Are we having regular, short conversations that turn experience into better practice?
When Tending is missing, strain gets normalized, handoffs get political, and learning disappears under constant urgency.
Stewardship: Care for the Institution
Stewardship looks after the things that must last. It draws clear lines on ethics and risk. It protects the identity of the organization. It defends promises that should outlive today’s leaders. Stewardship asks:
- What do we stand for, even under pressure?
- What risks will we not take, even if a deal looks good?
- Which commitments must remain stable across leadership changes?
When Stewardship is missing, values become slogans, trust erodes, and people are asked to absorb contradictions they cannot fix.
How Tending and Stewardship Work Together
Think of a timeline.
- The momentary end: a tense meeting, a botched handoff. Tending has the most leverage here.
- The mid-range: a quarter’s worth of rework, a partner relationship slipping. Tending still helps, and Stewardship can change rules and resources.
- The enduring end: reputation, culture, license to operate. Stewardship leads here.
The bridge between them is translation. Local issues must travel up so decision-makers see real patterns, not sanitized reports. Big decisions must travel down as clear expectations, not vague statements.
Real-World Example
A growing software company kept missing release dates. Teams were exhausted. Customers were annoyed. The CEO split the solution in two.
For Tending, each team picked two fragile handoffs and named owners for each side. They ran a 15-minute weekly “repair” check: What slipped? What do we change this week? They also set a simple rule: no silent heroics — if you are at capacity, say so early.
For Stewardship, the top team drew three non-negotiables: truthful status reporting, clear criteria for “ready to release,” and a commitment not to promise features without team sign-off. They agreed to delay launches rather than ship broken work, and they said this out loud to customers.
Within two months, rework fell. Meetings got shorter. Within two quarters, customer trust recovered because daily care and long-horizon care reinforced each other.
How to Try Tending and Stewardship this Week
Map two fragile edges. List the top two handoffs where work often stalls. Name one owner on each side. Write the exact expectation for that edge in one sentence.
Run a 15-minute repair ritual. Once a week, ask: What frayed? What will we change next week? What do we stop doing?
Set clear load limits. Define what “full” means for each role. If someone is full, agree on what drops first. Make it safe to say “not now.”
Publish two guardrails. Choose two boundaries you will not cross, even when tempted—one about ethics, one about quality. Share examples of past decisions that honored those lines.
Create an upward path. Pick one forum where patterns from the front line get heard by senior leaders, unchanged. Pick one decision each quarter that shows you listened.
Translate big choices. When leaders set a policy, rewrite it into two or three plain rules teams can use tomorrow. Test them in one team before rolling out.
Final Thoughts
- Treat care as design, not sentiment—build it into roles, routines, and decision rights so it holds under pressure.
- Name the two disciplines: Tending keeps today’s work human and doable; Stewardship protects identity, ethics, and long-horizon commitments.
- Work both horizons on purpose—short, frequent Tending rituals; fewer, heavier Stewardship reviews that set real boundaries.
- Fix the edges—identify two fragile handoffs, assign owners on both sides, and run a 15-minute weekly repair check.
- Publish guardrails and translate them—state the non-negotiables, then rewrite them into two or three plain rules teams can use tomorrow.
FAQs
What’s the simplest way to start tomorrow?
Pick two fragile handoffs, name owners on each side, and hold a 15-minute weekly repair check to fix small issues before they spread.
How do I explain Tending and Stewardship to my team?
Say: “Tending helps us keep today’s work livable and effective. Stewardship protects who we are and what we stand for over years. We need both, and we’ll design both.”
What should we measure to know it’s working?
Watch rework trends, on-time handoffs, voluntary turnover in key roles, and a public log of decisions where you paid a cost to uphold ethics or quality.
Want the full playbook for designing organizational care—complete with role templates, forum rhythms, and decision thresholds? Read the full article and share it with your executive team today.
