Care is not sentimental. It is a discipline, and like many disciplines, it has an aesthetic dimension.
Leadership often brings to mind action: setting direction, making decisions, solving problems, driving results. Yet some of the most important dimensions of leadership are less visible. They concern not what leaders do, but how they attend. Care is one of those dimensions.
In organizational life, care is frequently misunderstood. It is sometimes reduced to kindness, empathy, or emotional support. While it may include these things, care is ultimately something deeper. It is a sustained commitment to the flourishing of people, institutions, and purposes entrusted to us. It is the willingness to notice, to attend, and to respond appropriately.
We can often sense the presence or absence of care before anyone explains it. A neglected building, a poorly maintained public space, or a hastily designed product communicates something immediately. The same is true of organizations. Some workplaces feel attentive, thoughtful, and humane. Others feel neglected, even when they function efficiently. The difference is often not resources but care.
Murdoch and the Discipline of Attention
Few philosophers understood the connection between attention and moral life more deeply than Iris Murdoch.
Murdoch believed that moral life begins not with willpower but with perception. Before we can act well, we must learn to see well. The challenge is that our vision is often distorted by self-interest, vanity, anxiety, and habit. We do not encounter reality directly; we filter it through our own concerns.
For Murdoch, goodness involves a patient effort to overcome these distortions. She described this effort as attention: a just and loving gaze directed toward reality.
This insight has profound implications for leadership. Many leadership failures begin not with bad intentions but with failures of attention. Leaders become absorbed in metrics and overlook morale. They focus on quarterly performance and miss signs of exhaustion. They become attached to a strategy and fail to notice that circumstances have changed.
Care begins when leaders resist these tendencies and learn to see what is actually before them. This requires more than observation. It requires a willingness to be corrected by reality.
A caring leader does not merely look. They attend.
The distinction is meaningful. Looking gathers information. Attention allows something to matter.
Buber and the Encounter with Others
While Murdoch emphasizes perception, Martin Buber emphasizes relationship.
Buber is best known for his distinction between I-It and I-Thou relationships. In an I-It relationship, we treat others as objects—functions, roles, resources, or problems to be managed. This mode of relating is sometimes necessary. Organizations require systems, procedures, and forms of coordination. But problems arise when this becomes our dominant way of seeing.
An I-Thou relationship is different. Here we encounter another person not as a function but as a person. We recognize their irreducible humanity. We meet them not merely as a means to an end, but as an end in themselves.
Leadership constantly risks slipping into I-It relationships. Employees become headcount. Customers become market segments. Colleagues become stakeholders. Even leaders themselves can become little more than productivity machines.
Care interrupts this reduction.
A leader who cares remembers that organizations are composed of people whose lives extend beyond their roles. They recognize that performance and humanity are not opposing values. In healthy organizations, each supports the other.
This does not mean abandoning standards or avoiding difficult decisions. Care is not permissiveness. Sometimes the most caring action is also the most demanding. What distinguishes care is not softness but orientation. The leader remains attentive to the person even when addressing the problem.
Care as an Aesthetic Capacity
Seen through this lens, care is not merely a moral virtue. It is also an aesthetic capacity.
Care shapes the feel of an organization. It influences how meetings are conducted, how feedback is delivered, how spaces are maintained, and how decisions are communicated. It appears in details that are easy to dismiss individually but powerful when accumulated over time.
Consider the difference between a leader who rushes through conversations while glancing at their phone and one who gives undivided attention for five minutes. The information exchanged may be identical. The experience is not.
Care changes the form of an interaction.
People are remarkably sensitive to these forms. They notice when leaders are present. They notice when questions are genuinely heard. They notice when decisions reflect thoughtful consideration rather than convenience.
In this sense, care resembles craftsmanship. A master craftsperson leaves evidence of attention in the finished work. The same is true of leadership. Organizations shaped by care bear the marks of thoughtful attention; they feel inhabited rather than merely operated, shaped by someone who noticed rather than someone who passed through.
The Courage to Care
Care also requires courage.
To care about something is to become vulnerable to its condition. It is easier to remain detached. Detachment protects us from disappointment, frustration, and responsibility. Care exposes us to all three.
This is one reason genuine care is rarer than it appears. Many organizations speak the language of care while structuring themselves around indifference. They celebrate people rhetorically while treating them instrumentally. Over time, the discrepancy becomes visible.
Authentic care cannot be performed indefinitely. It must be practiced.
The leaders who leave lasting impressions are often those who consistently demonstrate this practice. They remember what matters to others. They pay attention to details that seem beneath their position. They create environments where people feel seen rather than merely utilized. And over time, something follows from this: authority deepens not because it is asserted, but because the attention behind it has been trusted.
Looking Ahead
Care represents an important development in leadership. It reminds us that authority is not justified merely by competence or position. It must be directed toward the flourishing of something beyond the self.
Yet care alone is not sufficient. Leaders must still determine how competing goods should be balanced, which responsibilities deserve priority, and what ought to be done when every available option carries a cost.
These questions point toward the challenge of holding multiple goods together without losing sight of what matters most.
For now, it is enough to ask:
Where in your leadership has attention become routine rather than deliberate? What or whom have you begun to see primarily as a function rather than as something worthy of care?
Because leadership is not only a matter of directing action. It is also a matter of learning how to attend.
And what we attend to ultimately shapes what we become.
I work with organizations and individuals who want to think more carefully about judgment, meaning, and the conditions that shape everyday decisions.
If that sounds like your situation, you can reach me at michaelrspicher@gmail.com or learn more at michaelrspicher.com.
Reorienting through Aesthetics
My latest for Fast Company: Are You Part of the ‘Distraction Economy’?
“The Aesthetic Edge” is a free ebook, co-written by myself and Hannah Spicher. Download your copy today!
I appeared on Jeffrey Shaw’s podcast to talk about beauty, luxury, and the aesthetic advantage.
Michael’s interview with NeuroArts Resource Center.
Digital Fashion: Theory, Practice, Implications, edited by Michael R. Spicher, Sara Emilia Bernat, and Doris Domoszlai-Lantner, is available for purchase! (Our book was featured in a BeautyMatter article.)
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