Before We Say, “They Should Know By Now”
A warm early childhood leadership scene showing a program leader pausing over planning materials in a calm workspace, representing the reflective questions behind clarity, support, capacity, and ownership.
#WhatRaCheSaid Journal
“They should know this by now.”
I have heard that sentence plenty of times over the years.
And if I’m being real, it makes me cringe a little.
Not because I do not believe people should remember expectations.
Not because I think leaders should have to explain the same thing forever.
And definitely not because accountability does not matter to me.
It makes me cringe because of the assumption that can sit underneath it.
We said it, so they should know it.
But how do we actually know?
Did the person understand what we meant?
Did we give an example?
Did we show them?
Did they have a chance to try it?
Were they even present when it was originally explained?
Has something about the process changed since then?
“I already explained this.”
“They do not care enough to follow through.”
Experience has taught me not to move through that space too quickly.
Time passing does not automatically create clarity.
I Have Had the Same Thought Too
I do not say any of this from a place of never having made the assumption myself.
I have.
When I was an education manager, assessment was one of the areas we spent a lot of time supporting.
There were child assessments, classroom assessments, and teacher-practice assessments.
We trained.
We provided resources.
There was coaching.
We revisited different parts of the work.
So yes, there were times when questions came back and I caught myself thinking:
Wait a minute.
Didn’t we already go over this?
I explained this.
We gave a resource for this.
Somebody supported this.
Why are we back here?
But when I slowed down and looked at the situations individually, the answer was not always the same.
Sometimes the person did not understand it as well as we thought they did.
Sometimes the example we gave made sense to the people presenting it but was harder to follow when someone tried to apply it.
Sometimes there had been turnover.
Sometimes somebody was new.
Sometimes a person had not been present when the original information was shared.
Sometimes other priorities had taken over and the person needed a reminder that, yes, this still mattered too.
And sometimes they actually knew more than they thought they knew.
The gap was confidence.
That changed something for me.
It reminded me that rolling something out is not the same as knowing how it is going once people start using it.
That is why I believe in checking back.
Ask:
How is this going?
What is working?
Where are you getting stuck?
What part still feels unclear?
What feedback do you have now that you have actually tried it?
Because the people using the process may show us something we could not see when we were creating or explaining it.
Clarity is not something we give once and check off.
Pay Attention Before Everybody Leaves the Room
There are times when you can almost see uncertainty while you are explaining something.
The room changes.
Somebody’s face changes.
People get quiet.
You see the look.
You can feel the worry.
You may even sense that people are already trying to figure out what they are going to say to each other after the meeting.
I have learned that I would rather talk about it while we are together.
Because once everybody leaves and goes back to their separate spaces, different versions of the same conversation can start developing.
“This is what I heard.”
“Well, I thought she meant this.”
“No, our group understood it this way.”
And now we are trying to correct three different messages when we could have spent a few more minutes clarifying one.
That does not mean every person will leave every conversation feeling completely confident.
Sometimes people need time to process.
But leaders can create room for the questions.
And we can check back.
Maybe two or three days later.
Maybe during an individual check-in.
Maybe after someone has actually attempted the process.
Sometimes you do not know the real question until you try to do the work.
That is worth remembering too.
When Everybody Has to Come Find You
I have also been the person everybody came to for answers.
At the time, I did not automatically see that as a problem.
I was the leader over that area.
Of course they needed me.
I wanted my team to know I was available.
I wanted them to feel comfortable coming to me.
And, yes, there is a part of being needed that can make you feel valuable.
You know the system.
You know the background.
You know why the decision was made.
You know where the information is.
You can usually answer the question quickly.
But after a while, that can get exhausting.
And as I grew as a leader, worked with other leaders and mentors, and reflected on my own practice, I started seeing another side of it.
If I go on vacation and somebody still has to call me so the process can move, that tells me something.
If I created the system and taught people what buttons to push but never helped anyone understand enough of the background to carry it without me, that tells me something too.
That does not mean I intentionally kept information from anybody.
But it may mean too much of the system still depended on what I knew.
Clarity should not depend on one person remembering everything for everybody.
I still believe leaders should be available.
I still believe people should be able to knock on the door and say:
“RaChe’, you got a minute? I need some help with this.”
But I also believe part of leadership is helping people become confident enough in their own role that my presence is not required for every next step.
Those are two different things.
Sometimes They Know the Answer
This was another lesson for me.
Sometimes a person would come ask me something, and while we were talking, I would realize:
You know this.
You actually know the answer.
You just do not trust yourself enough yet to say it.
That is a different support need.
Sometimes the question is not:
“Can you explain this again?”
Sometimes it is:
“Can you help me feel confident that I am applying this correctly?”
That is why I want people to become comfortable being specific about where they need support.
Instead of:
“I don’t get it.”
maybe it becomes:
“I know we introduced this last week. I tried it. I understand this part, but I’m getting stuck when I try to connect this piece to the next one. Can you walk through that with me?”
Now we have somewhere to start.
That specificity helps the person asking for support.
It helps the leader too.
Because if I do not know where you are stuck, I may start explaining everything again when you only needed help with one piece.
Questions are not the enemy of accountability.
Sometimes asking the question is part of taking responsibility for getting the work right.
Clarity Still Requires Ownership
This is where I think we have to be careful.
Because I do not want the message to become:
Just keep explaining.
Just keep reminding.
Just keep doing it with them.
Just keep carrying it.
That is not what I mean.
Needing clarity and avoiding responsibility are not the same thing.
I can clarify the expectation.
I can answer the question.
I can show you.
I can give you the resource.
We can walk through it together.
I can give feedback while you try.
I can check back with you.
I can create space for you to come back and say, “I still need help.”
But at some point, you still have a role.
If we have talked about it, walked through it, checked in, and you are telling me, “I got it,” then I need you to follow through.
If you do not have it, tell me.
If you are stuck, tell me where.
If something has changed, communicate that.
If the timeline is going to be different, own that conversation.
I believe in that personally too.
I am not afraid to ask questions.
And if I say I am going to do something, I believe I am responsible for following through—or communicating when the status changes.
Support and accountability belong in the same relationship.
We can make expectations clearer and still expect people to own what comes next.
Before We Call It a Performance Problem
There is still another question I think leaders need to ask.
What is underneath the gap?
If I have clarified.
We walked through it.
I gave feedback.
I checked back.
The person had an opportunity to ask questions.
And the work still is not happening.
Now we need a different conversation.
But even then, I do not think the only possible answer is:
They do not care.
Sometimes it may be performance.
Sometimes it may be follow-through.
Sometimes it may be skill.
Sometimes it may be confidence.
And sometimes it may be capacity.
That last one matters to me in early childhood.
I have seen people expected to wear so many hats that it becomes hard to do any one thing thoughtfully.
You may have somebody helping with food.
Driving the bus.
Covering before- or after-care.
Stepping into a classroom.
Handling an administrative task.
Cleaning something that needs to be cleaned.
Then we wonder why the project we also gave them keeps getting started, stopped, picked back up, and stopped again.
That does not mean every missed expectation is a workload issue.
But workload deserves to be part of the conversation.
Did the person have protected time?
Were priorities actually clear?
Did leadership keep adding new responsibilities without revisiting the old ones?
Are we asking one person to carry five roles and then evaluating them as if they spent uninterrupted time in one?
Those are leadership questions too.
Sometimes the next step truly is an accountability conversation. Sometimes it is a coaching conversation. Sometimes it is a capacity conversation. Sometimes a leader has to make a hard decision. The important part is that we do enough looking to understand which conversation we are actually having.
Children Need Us to Think This Way Too
This conversation is not only about staff.
A child can know the classroom routine and still pause when something changes.
They can know where to put their belongings and still need support on the morning the usual place is different.
They can understand what happens after breakfast and still need a reminder after a long weekend or break.
We usually understand that development and context matter.
We can bring some of that same curiosity into the way we look at adults without lowering professional expectations.
A pause is information.
A question is information.
A repeated need for support is information.
The information does not tell us the whole answer.
It tells us where to look.
Sometimes the pause is showing us where to look.
Clear From Whose Side?
Families experience this too.
Programs live inside their systems every day.
We know which person handles something.
We know who usually responds.
We know what form goes where.
We know what happens after someone asks.
Then a family asks a question we think we already answered.
Before we decide they were not listening, I want us to consider the pathway from their side.
Could they find the information when they needed it?
Would they know who to contact?
Was the next step actually obvious to someone who does not work inside the program?
Clear to us does not always mean clear to families.
That is not about making excuses for anyone.
It is about checking our assumptions before we turn them into judgments.
One Place to Begin
You do not have to redesign every system this week.
Pick one expectation or process that keeps generating the same question.
And instead of starting with:
“They should know this by now,”
look at the whole path.
What was communicated?
How was it communicated?
Did people get an example?
Did they have an opportunity to try it?
What happened when they actually used it?
Where did they hesitate?
What questions came back?
Did somebody miss the original conversation?
Did something change?
Does the information live somewhere people can find it?
Is the person asking because they do not understand?
Because they do not remember?
Because they need confidence?
Because they need more time?
Or because the expectation is clear and they simply have not followed through?
Those answers will not all lead to the same response.
And they should not.
That is part of leadership.
Clarity and Ownership
I do not believe clarity means leaders carry everybody forever.
And I do not believe accountability means we get to say something once and then wash our hands of what happens next.
Both things can be true.
We can explain.
We can demonstrate.
We can invite questions.
We can notice hesitation.
We can check back.
We can make information easier to find.
We can help somebody practice.
We can look at workload and capacity.
And we can still say:
This is your responsibility.
I need you to own your part.
Maybe that is why “they should know by now” bothers me so much.
It skips over too many questions.
I would rather know:
Is it clear?
Is it usable?
Was support available?
Do they know what they own?
And if the answer is yes, then what does follow-through require now?
Before you ask someone to own something, make sure they have something clear enough to own.
And once they do, ownership matters.
That’s what RaChe’ said.
#WhatRaCheSaid
