What Happens When Good People Stay? The Leadership Value of Retention

Lately, as a lifetime learner, I have found myself thinking more about my doctoral work in Organizational Leadership, and more specifically, about a simple question: What does good leadership look like in an organization? 

The first thing that comes to my mind is my phenomenal staff at the community where I spent 18 years. I miss them! I miss the relationships, the laughter, the hard conversations, and most of all, the people who showed up every day and cared deeply about the residents we served. 

As I reflected on those years, I started thinking about what made that team work and why so many people stayed for so long. That led me to do a little research on psychological safety and organizational learning.

In her seminal 1999 article, Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams, Amy Edmondson takes a different approach to understanding learning in organizations buy examining, "to what extent and under what conditions learning occurs naturally in organizational work groups."  

This sentence made me stop and think.

Maybe organizational learning is not always something that happens in a classroom, a training session, or a leadership retreat. Maybe some of the most important learning happens in the everyday work of an organization, between people who have been there for years and those who are just finding their way.

And perhaps that is one of the less obvious responsibilities of organizational leadership: creating an environment where people want to stay, feel safe enough to learn and speak up, and have the opportunity to pass what they know on to others. 

My staff and I created this kind of environment. We communicated every day, often all day. We worked hard, counted on one another to get the job done, laughed together, cried together, and vented to one another in a way that was honest, supportive, and trustworthy. We genuinely cared about each other. Looking back, I realize that what we created was more than a productive team; it was a psychologically safe environment where people could ask questions, share concerns, admit when they needed help. learn from one another, and know that their contributions mattered. That sense of safety and connection helped people stay, grow, and continue showing up for one another and for the residents we served. 

Perhaps this is what good organizational leadership ultimately looks like. It is not simply about setting goals, managing performance, or getting the job done. It is about creating the conditions in which people feel safe enough to speak up, valued enough to stay, and connected enough to learn from one another. When people experience that kind of psychological safety, organizational learning becomes part of the everyday culture rather than something that happens only in a classroom or training session. And when people are supported in that way, they are more likely to bring their best selves to work, and in turn, provide the quality care that those we serve deserve. Looking back, I realize that the environment my staff and I created was not just something that made our work easier; it was an important part of what made our work meaningful. I truly miss my team. ❤️