When Leaders Hesitate, It’s Usually Not Because They Don’t Care

In clubs and hospitality, when leadership issues involve safety, respect, or someone speaking up, they’re rarely discussed openly or confidently. More often, they sit in the background - mentioned quietly, revisited after the fact, or avoided altogether - and not because people don’t care, but because many leaders aren’t entirely sure what they’re meant to do next or how far they’re expected to go. 

You can usually see this playing out in everyday ways. A manager delays a conversation they know they should probably have. A team becomes quieter instead of raising concerns. Standards start to vary depending on who’s on shift. Small issues get brushed aside, not out of malice, but because dealing with them feels uncomfortable or unclear - until one day they’re no longer small. 

When something eventually escalates, the explanation tends to be blunt and familiar: “They just don’t have what it takes”. But that explanation has never quite sat right with me. 

What we don’t acknowledge often enough in this industry is that many middle managers are being asked to lead situations they’ve never actually been taught how to handle. They’re given responsibility without much clarity, authority without the language to use it well, and accountability without a shared understanding of what good leadership looks like when things get uncomfortable or messy. 

So when a boundary is crossed, or a concern is raised, or someone says they don’t feel safe, hesitation creeps in. Not because the leader doesn’t care, but because they’re unsure - unsure what to say, how direct to be, or whether they’ll be supported if they step in and address it properly. 

This week on The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast, I spoke with Karen Maher about exactly this dynamic - what happens when leadership expectations around safety and respect are assumed rather than taught. One of the things that really stayed with me from that conversation is how often issues don’t disappear because they’ve been resolved; they disappear because they’ve gone quiet. And quiet issues, as we know, tend to do the most damage over time - to people, to teams, and to trust. 

Under pressure, managers fall back on what they know. They avoid conversations because they don’t want to make things worse. They work harder instead of addressing behaviour. They stay on top of tasks but struggle when it comes to people - not because they’re bad leaders, but because no one ever clearly showed them what leadership should look like in those moments. 

Strong leadership doesn’t come from personality, seniority, or how long someone’s been in the industry. It comes from clarity. Clarity about how to respond when someone speaks up, clarity about what taking a concern seriously actually looks like, and clarity about how expectations are reinforced even when it feels awkward or uncomfortable. 

When leadership behaviours are clear and consistently supported, you start to see a shift. Managers feel more confident in their decisions, teams are more willing to speak up, accountability feels fair rather than personal, and pressure stops landing on the same exhausted people in the middle. 

This is the kind of work that changes culture quietly, not through policies or posters, but through everyday leadership moments that are handled well instead of avoided. 

So if you’re leading people in hospitality, here’s the question I’ll leave you with this week: are we expecting leaders to just know how to handle these situations, or are we actually building that capability? Because in this industry, leadership doesn’t fall apart because people don’t care - it falls apart when we assume instead of develop.