Care

THE TENSION

Care. In technical leadership, care tends to land on the product - on the accuracy of the dataset, the quality of the deliverable, the integrity of the output. That care is real and it matters. But there is another kind of care that most technical leaders are slower to access: the care that is directed at the person, not the work.

“What you care about shapes what you pay attention to. What you pay attention to shapes what your team becomes.”

THE SCENARIO

Sofia Papadopoulos has been Geographic Information Team Lead at the Australian Bureau of Statistics for nine months. Her team produces the geographic classification frameworks that underpin how census and survey data is spatially disseminated across the country - precision work, low margin for error, high consequence.

One of her senior analysts, James, has been producing work that is technically sound but noticeably slower than usual. His quality hasn’t dropped. His pace has. Sofia has noticed. She’s been noting it in her head for three weeks.

In their one-on-one this morning she opens with the backlog. She works through four items on her list. James works through them with her, carefully, professionally. She asks about two deliverables that are behind schedule. He gives her a timeline. She accepts it.

She does not ask how he is.

As James leaves the room, Sofia’s manager - who has been passing the glass-walled meeting room - stops and knocks. “How’s James going?” she asks. “He’s had a hard few months personally.”

Sofia didn’t know. She’d spent nine months caring deeply about the work. She had not yet learned to care about the people doing it with the same intention.

WHAT’S DRIVING IT

Care is considered the epicentre of being - the aspect that shapes what you pay attention to, what you prioritise, and what ultimately gets produced. The challenge for technical leaders is that their care is often genuine and appropriately directed at the quality of the work. What shifts in leadership is that the scope of care must expand.

Sofia is not indifferent to James. But she has not yet made him a priority - not in the way that manifests as an intentional question, a moment of genuine curiosity, a willingness to spend time on the person rather than the product. The work that is produced by any team is always a downstream consequence of the people producing it. Sofia is managing the downstream. She hasn’t yet invested in the source.

Care without breadth produces excellent outputs and exhausted people.

A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP WITH CARE

A healthy relationship with care in leadership means you have clarity about your value structure - what matters, and who matters, and in what order. You give your team members the requisite consideration and attention as whole people, not just as producers of outputs. You are moved to act when they are struggling, not because it affects delivery, but because it matters.

You can hold care for quality and care for people simultaneously, without one eclipsing the other. Others experience you as someone who sees them - genuinely and with interest - and that experience is the foundation of a team that brings its best work willingly rather than because it is required.

REFLECTION PROMPTS

• Who on your team are you currently managing through their outputs rather than knowing as a person?

• When did you last ask a team member how they were, with the intention of actually listening to the answer?

• What would change in your team if the people in it felt genuinely cared for, not just managed?

• Is there someone in your team right now whose pace or quality has shifted - and have you asked why?

If you recognise the gap between caring about the work and caring about the people doing it - the Being Profile explores exactly this: the structure of what you care about, and what becomes available when that structure expands.

Get in touch at hello@mappingbeing.com.au

While the organisations referenced exist, the team lead, other people and the team name have been used for demonstration purposes only. Any resemblance to real-life people, teams, organisations or situations is purely coincidental.

Reference: Tashvir, A. (2021). BEING (p. 203). Engenesis Publications.

[Published 13 May 2026]