Be the waves: Our manifesto
Updated 14/10/2025
Be the waves: Our manifesto
Growing stewardship for a thriving planet…
Everywhere we look, we are told to lead.
To step up, to stand out, to be strong.
And yet, for all this talk of leadership, the world still feels restless, fragile, unfinished.
What we are missing is not leadership itself.
What we are missing is stewardship.
Stewardship Is Different
We don’t need more leaders.
We already have plenty of them.
What we lack is stewardship - the act of holding responsibility with conscience.
It’s knowing that your work, your choices, your energy, and your play all ripple out beyond you.
Like waves meeting the shore, every action touches something larger than itself.
It’s leadership that asks not just what can I achieve, but what am I leaving behind? And what are we building?
The Ecology of Stewardship
Stewardship isn’t a single act or a single role.
It’s an ecology - between people, place, and planet - that keeps life and work in rhythm.
It asks us to serve not just ourselves or each other, but the wider others - the unseen, the future, the planet itself.
It’s how leadership evolves:
from control,
to care,
to collective consciousness.
Stewardship often begins quietly.
The colleague who tends to culture when no one’s looking.
The parent who teaches care through how they rest, not just how they work.
The citizen who prepares to act, even before they feel ready.
These are ripples - in work, in life, in rest, in play.
In Practice, Stewardship Is
• In work → tending to culture, people, and performance as something entrusted, not owned.
• In life → caring for family, health, and relationships as foundations of our impact.
• In rest → protecting energy and cycles so we regenerate rather than exploit.
• In play → creating space for imagination, joy, and renewal — the sparks that fuel real change.
Stewardship starts in place - the workplaces, communities, and ecosystems we inhabit.
When we honour place, we create belonging.
And belonging is where legacy begins.
From that belonging, systems can grow that truly serve the people within them.
Across STEEPLE, Stewardship Reminds Us
That progress without conscience isn’t progress at all.
🌊 Social → dignity and equity.
🌊 Technological → innovation with conscience.
🌊 Economic → value that is fair, not extractive.
🌊 Environmental → regeneration, not depletion.
🌊 Political → trust and accountability.
🌊 Legal → justice and fairness.
🌊 Ethical → courage, integrity, care.
This is not abstract.
It is the practical ethic that can hold our fragile world together -
if we choose to weave it into everything we do.
Stewardship in Every Room
Stewardship must live in our institutions, not just our intentions.
Every board, every team, every room where decisions are made deserves a steward —
someone, or a shared conscience of someones,
tasked with holding the long view.
Their role isn’t to preserve the status quo,
but to challenge it with care -
to ask, with equity and consideration:
Do we need the courage to change,
or the courage to sustain what already serves?What if it’s both?
Those are the questions a steward brings.
What We Build
This is what we build.
Not just leadership programmes.
Not just coaching.
But a culture of stewardship that can carry us into the future.
That’s the heart of Be the Waves -
a collective space to grow stewardship,
and those who grow it,
across life, work, and planet.
Because confidence, clarity, and boldness are not the end goals - they’re the foundations we grow stewardship from.
Because stewardship is not reserved for the powerful - it’s the right and responsibility of anyone who cares enough to act.
If these words resonate, you are already part of this movement.
Stewardship begins in how you choose to show up today.
Join Us
Join us.
Share your story. Share your stewardship ambition.
Add your ripple.
Stefan Powell
CEO of Be the Waves | Executive Coach | Father | Citizen
As an executive coach, my role is to help those who are stewarding - or wish to steward -
to find the clarity, confidence, and courage to make their contribution to a thriving planet.