What happens when something goes wrong?
A sharp word in a meeting. A mistake that lands on someone you serve. A new team member who never quite felt welcome. What happens next?
In most workplaces, one of three things. It gets ignored, and quietly festers. Or it gets dealt with to people: a warning, a procedure, a quiet word that leaves someone feeling judged. Or someone smooths it over for them, usually the leader, so nobody has to feel uncomfortable.
All three are understandable. All three cost something. People stop raising things. Problems surface late, and bigger. Trust wears thin, and good people leave without ever saying why.
The restorative cycle
Restorative practice starts with a simple idea, mapped by Ted Wachtel and Paul McCold. When leaders hold high expectations and offer high support, they work with people. High expectations with low support becomes punitive, done to people. High support with low expectations becomes rescuing, done for them. Neither leaves people on their own.
Working with people has a rhythm to it. I teach it as a cycle with four stages.
Recognise. Noticing when something is out of balance, in the team and in yourself, while it's still small.
Raise. Naming it, with care, so it can be understood together.
Repair. Rebuilding trust: hearing what happened and how it affected people, owning your part, and agreeing on what's needed.
Restore. Getting back to balance, and learning from what knocked you off it, including what needs to change around you.
It's a cycle because relationships are never finished. Every team goes round it again and again. The question is whether we go round it well.
Why it's harder than it looks
Written down, the cycle sounds simple. Under pressure, it's anything but. Each stage asks something of us inside.
Recognising needs presence: paying attention to what's actually happening, right now, in the room and in yourself.
Raising needs courage and steadiness. The pull is either to avoid it, or to come in too hard.
Repair needs patience and humility: listening when you'd rather defend, and staying in the conversation when it's uncomfortable.
Restoring needs resilience and self-tending: enough left in the tank to actually get back to balance.
When we're depleted, we skip stages. We notice late, raise badly, skip the repair, and never quite get back to balance. That's what sustained pressure does to people, and many leaders, especially in care work, are leading under exactly that pressure.
So restorative leadership starts on the inside. You can teach someone the four stages in an afternoon. Growing the capacity to live them is a practice. The two tools I come back to are self-reflection, to notice the link between our thoughts, feelings and actions, and kindness towards ourselves, in both its soft and fierce forms.
Notice: Where are we in the cycle?
Think of something in your team right now that feels slightly out of balance. Write down:
Where is it in the cycle? Recognised, raised, repaired or restored?
What has kept it from moving to the next stage?
What would the next step ask of you?
Answer as a neutral observer. No judgement, no fixing. Just notice where it sits, and what it's asking of you.
An invitation
The restorative cycle sits at the heart of my work with leaders and teams.
Restorative leadership programmes help leaders steady themselves, raise issues early and rebuild trust across their teams. [Explore support for leaders]
Team reset workshops help a team under strain work through the cycle together, often for the first time. [Explore support for teams]
If you'd like to talk, get in touch at heather.bailey@thinkfresh.nz. I read everything.
Warmly,
Heather
When we thrive, our people and the mission thrive too.
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