In 2025, I thought a lot about

The world does not need more leadership.
It needs stewardship.

Leaders live in the now.
Stewards live across the past, present and future.

Leaders, as we know them, often extract, exploit, advance their own.

Stewards protect, nurture and give.

Leaders measure success through momentum and noise.

Stewards measure it in equity, courage, contribution and care.

Leaders chase headlines.

Stewards stay rooted in responsibility.

So can a leader be a steward? Yes, sometimes.

Former Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern showed stewardship in Christchurch, choosing compassion over optics.
Anthropologist Dame Jane Goodall showed it for decades through conservation and community.
Environmentalist Yvon Chouinard showed it by building Patagonia around responsibility.

But too many leaders forget the horizon, the generations after us, and the responsibility that comes with power.

That is why we need stewardship.
Unlike leadership, it is not tied to position or title.
It is a responsibility.
It asks the hardest question of all:
what is the right thing to do? The right thing for people,
for place, and for the planet? Not the easiest thing, not the most convenient, not the thing that just works for now.

I have thought a lot about what stewardship means, not just in 2025 but throughout my life.

Fighting bullies, childhood poverty, and months of abuse made me realise the urgent need for stewardship.
My awareness grew when I worked in corporations unwilling to consider their wider role and through leaders who coached and challenged me to contribute more than I believed.
In the teams I led, our mission to uphold the values of good stewardship prompted an ultimatum: if your choices are not made to serve our people and customers, you cannot hide, you will be held accountable. It became my responsibility to give my teams something that would serve them today and for the rest of their lives, because I had seen the life my father lived without it.

I see the reach for stewardship in the people I coach – they want to do what is right but lack courage or clarity, often told to sit down precisely because they dared to stand up. As someone who fought bullies, I cannot stand to see people silenced.
Being heard cannot depend on the money you place on the table.

That is stewardship.
It is the voice in the room that whispers, and sometimes shouts:
What is the right thing to do?
Not just for today, but for tomorrow and generations to come.

As I’ve grown older, the question of what is right has become heavier.
When I became a father, stewardship asked: who must I be for them?
When I lost my father, stewardship spoke in the language of legacy. 

And as the world burns, the question turns outward:
how can I use my remaining years to create a better world for my children? I cannot leave a world on fire – communities tearing at each other and organisations plundering our lands and time.
Politicians playing at power while the soil erodes.
Nations sacrificing the vulnerable who are hit hardest by climate change.

But, I have compassion.
Stewardship is not an easy path.
Nor is it reserved for the righteous.

I am not innocent.
I have made decisions for convenience, comfort, survival.
I have failed people.
I added to the bottom line when I wished better.

But I have rarely stayed silent when the room needed me to speak.
Rarely chosen comfort over courage.
And I have stood back up when I felt too tired to continue.

Stewardship is not about being right.
It is about standing up for what is right, together.

We are living in an age where the lack of stewardship is painfully visible.
It fuels marches, fear, disconnection.
Organisations paying less tax than the small businesses that keep our high streets alive.
Decisions made behind closed doors while the future drifts out of reach.

And yet, stewardship is everywhere if you look.
In the nurse who stays late, unpaid, to hold someone’s hand.
In the teacher who ensures every child belongs.
In the neighbour who quietly asks, “are you okay?”
In those who challenge their boards and play the game to change the game.

Small acts. Quiet acts.
Fragments that remind us it’s possible.

In 2025, one thought has stayed with me:
what if there were one steward in every boardroom, cabinet, and meeting?

Not a token.
Not a sideline voice.
But someone with the confidence and agency to stop the room and ask:
what is the right thing to do?
Not what we want.
Not what is easy.
But what must be done for our people, our land, our world?

Because if we had that, maybe our children could one day look at us and say:
thank you.
Instead of: what did you do?