Sadly, on more than one occasion I’ve been privy to organisations where their leadership team were more obsessed with their status than the well-being of the business. One former leader would brag endlessly about only flying “at the pointy end of the plane.” Another would happily swipe the company card to take their friends out for extravagant meals and purchase bottles of wine for the cellar.
Meanwhile, sales were close to zero, profitability was fragile and the horizon looked grim. These leaders were focused on their own comfort instead of recognising how their behaviour was dragging down both the business and the people working to keep it alive.
One of the most telling patterns is when leaders question investment in their team’s learning and development. It’s not uncommon to see entire L&D budgets go untouched through turbulent years of reorganisations and shrinking resources. Yet those same funds, if used well, can restore confidence and capability for teams suddenly carrying the load with only a fraction of their original headcount.
Too often, those budgets are “reallocated” to scrape over a line of profitability. Investing in people is treated as an inconvenient dent in short-term optics, when in reality it’s a critical step toward resilience and long-term success. Moments like these highlight the stark divide between status-driven leadership and stewardship-driven leadership.
Stewardship as a growth strategy
The concept of “stewardship” can easily be mistaken as simply “being careful with money”, but at its heart, stewardship is a growth strategy.
When leaders treat company resources as if they were their own, they make decisions that balance the short term with the long term. They understand that while perks, upgrades and expense accounts may buy fleeting comfort, investing in people and capability multiplies outcomes.
- A backfill doesn’t just cover work — it prevents burnout and attrition, which are far costlier than a salary.
- An L&D budget isn’t a discretionary perk — it’s an investment in productivity, adaptability and innovation.
- A leader who models restraint with company money signals discipline that cascades into every part of the business.
Stewardship is about building capacity to hit tomorrow’s goals, not just saving face today.
The hidden cost of status
Status-driven leadership corrodes growth in ways that aren’t always obvious:
- It distorts priorities. When the focus is on perks and optics, business fundamentals are ignored. That fragility shows up eventually in missed goals and flatlined growth.
- It drives disengagement. Teams quickly see when leaders spend more on their comfort than on enabling their work. Trust erodes, motivation drops and output follows.
- It kills resilience. Cutting capability investments for short-term optics might help a quarterly report, but it leaves the organisation brittle and unable to seize new opportunities.
You don’t scale a business by burning goodwill and hollowing out capability. Status may inflate a leader’s ego, but it shrinks the organisation’s future.
The multiplying effect of stewardship
By contrast, stewardship is an amplifier. Every thoughtful decision to prioritise investment in people, infrastructure or customer outcomes pays dividends:
- Resilience: Teams with the right support bounce back faster from disruption.
- Loyalty: Employees who see leaders backing them are far more likely to stay and give their best.
- Performance: Businesses that invest in learning, backfills, and growth unlock productivity and innovation.
When leaders model stewardship, they create alignment: employees, shareholders and customers all see that decisions are made for the health of the business, not the ego of executives. That alignment is the foundation of sustainable growth.
What this means for aspiring leaders
If you’re on the path to leadership (engineering or otherwise), it can feel like these are problems only executives need to solve. But stewardship begins long before the C-suite:
- Be intentional with your time. Don’t chase prestige projects, chase business impact.
- Protect your team’s energy. Push for backfills or sustainable workloads rather than short-term heroics.
- Spend as if it’s your own. Every dollar should connect back to business value.
- Ask the right question. Is this decision amplifying the company, or extracting from it?
The leaders who rise fastest are the ones who show they can balance discipline and growth – people who steward resources to deliver outcomes, not just optics.
Amplify, don’t extract
When leaders chase status, they corrode trust and weaken the organisation. When they practise stewardship, they inspire loyalty, resilience and sustainable success.
The job of leadership isn’t to extract from the company, it’s to amplify it. Success is written in the receipts leaders sign.
