Leading with Accountability and Care: Why People Foundations Matter

In this episode of the Leaders Who Coach™ Podcast, I speak with Kate Lawson, Founder and Director of tHRive Partnership, about people, culture, psychological safety and what it really takes to support teams in fast-moving startups and scale-ups.

Kate brings over 20 years of experience across people and culture, HR operations and executive support. She has helped build people functions from the ground up, including supporting a scale-up journey from four people to more than 80 across the UK, US and Latin America. Her passion comes through clearly: fairness, transparency and putting people at the heart of business success.

This is a conversation about the practical side of care. Not care as a nice idea.

Care as structure.
Care as clarity.
Care as regular conversations.
Care as the foundations that help people and businesses grow well.

All businesses are people businesses

One of the strongest themes in this conversation is simple: if you look after your people, they are far more able to look after the business. That does not mean making everything soft or overcomplicated. It means paying attention to the people foundations early enough, before the pressure of growth makes everything harder.

In startups and scale-ups, there is often huge passion. Founders are carrying the product, the vision, the hiring, the funding, the delivery and the day-to-day firefighting. That energy can be inspiring. But it also creates pressure.

And when people processes are left too late, the cost can show up in confusion, poor onboarding, unclear expectations, difficult exits, legal risk, performance issues and unnecessary stress.

Kate’s point is not that every early-stage business needs heavy process. It is that they need the right foundations for the stage they are at. Light-touch structure can still make a huge difference.

People and culture cannot be an afterthought

One of the challenges Kate sees in senior leadership teams is time. People and culture can be seen as something to come back to later, once the product is further along or the business is bigger. But by then, some of the habits, gaps and risks may already be embedded. This is where leaders can find themselves constantly firefighting.

They are too involved in the day-to-day. They want to be more strategic, but do not have the time. They are trying to solve immediate problems quickly, without always building the resilience the team needs for the next stage of growth.

That is where people foundations matter.

Simple hiring processes.
Clear onboarding.
Good contracts and offer letters.
A scalable HR system.
Performance and development conversations.
Values and behaviours that actually connect to how people work.

These are not just admin tasks. They create stability.

Psychological safety and accountability belong together

A really important part of this episode is the relationship between psychological safety and accountability. Sometimes leaders worry that if they create too much safety, they will lose performance standards. But Kate’s view is that people should be able to feel safe and still be held accountable.

Those two things do not need to compete. In fact, they support each other. When people feel safe enough to speak honestly, leaders can understand what is really going on. A drop in performance, attendance or engagement may have a reason behind it. If no one creates the space to ask, the issue can easily be misunderstood. This is why regular check-ins matter. Not as a tick-box exercise. As a leadership practice.

A simple “How are you doing?” can open up a conversation that helps a leader understand where someone is, what support they may need and what might be getting in the way.

Mental wellbeing has to live in the conversations

Kate makes the point that mental wellbeing cannot just sit in a policy.

It has to show up in how leaders behave.

In the regular check-ins.
In the willingness to ask how someone is doing.
In the ability to have honest conversations when they feel uncomfortable.
In creating a culture where people can speak up before things become much harder to support.

This is particularly important in fast-paced environments. When pressure is high, leaders can be tempted to focus only on output, delivery and deadlines. But if people are not in a good headspace, they may not be able to contribute in the way the business needs them to.

That is not a reason to lower standards. It is a reason to understand what is happening. Care and performance need to be in the same conversation.

Check-ins can unlock what leaders cannot see

One of the useful reminders in this conversation is that leaders often do not know what the wins have been for a team member.

They may not know what has felt difficult.
They may not know what someone is proud of.
They may not know where someone is quietly stuck.

A short check-in can reveal a lot. It does not always need to be a long conversation. Sometimes five or ten minutes is enough to help someone feel seen, name what is happening and move forward with more clarity.

Questions like:

  • “How are you doing?”

  • “What has been a win this week?”

  • “What has felt more difficult?”

  • “What support would be useful?”

These questions create a rhythm of communication. And that rhythm helps performance issues, wellbeing concerns and growth conversations happen earlier, rather than becoming heavier later.

Performance processes need to mean something

Kate also makes an important point about performance and career development. There is no value in having a process that does not go anywhere. If performance reviews, development plans or career conversations are disconnected from real opportunities, people can become disheartened. They may have the conversation, but nothing changes. No growth follows. No pathway becomes clearer.

That can quietly damage trust.

People in startups and scale-ups may be adaptable and hungry for the pace, but they still want to understand where they are going. They still want to grow. They still want to know what opportunity looks like. So performance and development conversations need to be meaningful. They need to link to values, behaviours, expectations, opportunities and practical next steps. Otherwise, they become another conversation that sounded good but did not change anything.

Leaders need support too

A strong thread in the episode is the wellbeing of leaders themselves. People situations can be emotionally charged. Supporting performance concerns, difficult conversations, conflict, exits, restructuring or sensitive personal issues can take a real toll.

Leaders need somewhere to think.

They need sounding boards.
They need community.
They need people who understand the pressure without needing every confidential detail.
They need space to process their own approach, especially when they are holding difficult responsibilities.

Kate speaks about the importance of community and physical wellbeing for her own resilience. Running, walking, stepping away from the laptop, being present with family and creating boundaries all help her reset.

That matters because leaders cannot support others well if they are constantly depleted.

NB point: wellbeing is not only mental

Kate’s reflections on wellbeing are helpful because she does not separate the mind from the body. Mental wellbeing matters. So does physical wellbeing. Moving, getting outside, stepping away from the screen, sleeping, closing the laptop and honouring personal boundaries all affect how a leader shows up.

This is not always easy.

Especially for working parents, founders and leaders in high-pressure roles, the boundaries can blur quickly. There is always another message, another issue, another decision, another concern. But leaders need to practise the discipline of pausing. Sometimes the work can wait.

And sometimes the most responsible thing a leader can do is to look after themselves well enough to return with more clarity, steadiness and capacity.

Psychological safety supports wellbeing

Kate draws an important connection between psychological safety and wellbeing. When people feel safe at work, they have more space to speak honestly. They are less likely to hide concerns, worry alone or carry stress back into their home life without support.

A healthy culture gives people different places to turn.

That might be a line manager.
It might be HR or people support.
It might be a member of the executive team.
It might be another trusted person in the organisation.

The point is that people should know there are safe routes for conversations that matter. Because when people feel they cannot speak, the pressure does not disappear.

It goes somewhere else.

Final reflection

This conversation with Kate is a reminder that accountability and care are not opposites. Leaders can be fair, transparent and human while still holding people to high standards.

That begins with the foundations.

Clear processes.
Regular check-ins.
Meaningful performance conversations.
Early feedback.
Psychological safety.
Wellbeing that is lived in practice, not only written in policy.

In fast-moving organisations, it can be tempting to leave the people work until later. But people are the business. And the earlier leaders build the right foundations, the easier it becomes to grow with more clarity, confidence and care.