How do I grow? A question that plagues every leader. No matter the person, personal and professional growth is an important piece of the puzzle. As the new year is upon us, our eyes turn to what is to come. We dream of the next steps in our lives that lead to us towards accomplishing our big audacious leadership goals.
Paw Paw
While the turn of the page into the new year is always exciting, it’s also cold! Winter is gloomy and at times lacks life. Not much grows in cold weather.
I much prefer Spring and everything that comes with warmer temperatures. One of my favorite parts of the season is the ability to garden and grow things.
My Paw Paw taught me the value of growing things at a very young age. I would spend the weekends as a young child working alongside him in his backyard garden in Marietta, Georgia. When I was in middle school, he purchased nine and a half acres in Canton, Georgia that gave him the ability to have a MUCH larger garden. We affectionally referred to it as, “The Land.” I was able to help him get it established.
After high school, life happened. Between going to college, volunteer coaching year around, starting a career, and building a family I didn’t make it to the land as much. Fortunately, I was able to spend the last two summers of his life getting back into the gardening business.
He passed his passion for growing things down to me. Just like the heart of a gardener, it is natural for people to desire growth. The question is, how do I grow? Here are three lessons from the garden:
Grow Where We Are Planted
The first thing a good gardener does is find a good location for the plant. A place that receives good sunlight and has quality soil. They put the plant in the ground and patiently await the fruit to be born. The plant does not get transplanted unless it becomes an unhealthy environment that deters growth.
Most leaders desire positional growth and understandably so. To move up the proverbial ladder. It is a naturally occurring desire in all of us. Very few people in this world aspire to start at the bottom and stay at the bottom.
Impatience is built into our human nature as well. Our best growth comes in seasons of waiting. It can be difficult to see through the fog of the season, but waiting teaches us lessons and prepares us for the next level of positional growth.
The best place to grow is where our feet are currently planted. Prepared properly through patience, our careers will bear its intended fruit.
Weed Out Ambition Through Service
A good gardener feeds their crops by providing the necessary nutrients they need to grow. The process of fertilization can also provide weeds with an opportunity to grow as well. That is why it is necessary to remove the weeds that prove unhealthy to the crops. When the weeds are removed, the plant receives all the nutrients it needs for healthy growth.
To grow in leadership, we also need to weed out the unhealthy things. Ambition is that unhealthy thing. Ambition is one of the words commonly associated with a leader who desires to grow. The problem with ambition is that we are the only beneficiary, not others.
We can weed out ambition by feeding service. A friend of mine and occasional guest blogger for Leadership and Main, Dr. Georgia Manners says, “Those who serve the most, grow the fastest.” If we want to grow, it must be in Unconditional Service to others. Growth absent of service to others is self-serving. Serving others provides the necessary nutrients for future positional growth.
Do What Others Won’t
Part of producing an environment for growth was preparing the land. This required doing things that were hard and few desired to do.
The first thing that needed to be done was to improve the drainage. I became gainfully employed as a ditch digger. Next, someone had to follow Paw Paw on his tractor as he plowed to pick up large, heavy rocks and remove them from the garden. My youthful strength at the time made me a prime candidate.
None of it was fun, it was all hard work, and very few desired to do it. But, it was necessary to prepare the land.
The further we go in leadership, the more we must be willing to do those things others won’t. People seeking positional growth mistakenly think that when they arrive at their desired destination things get easier. Wrong.
Great leaders do what others won’t.
Conclusion
The younger version of myself used to love to plant radishes in his backyard garden. Why? Because they grew the fastest and we harvested them first. Nothing more, nothing less. I didn’t even like the taste of radishes!
Now…A nice, plump, juicy red tomato. Now we are talking! It was the fundamental ingredient to my favorite summertime treat, a tomato sandwich. Bread, mayo, salt, pepper, and that freshly harvested tomato…yum!
Here was the problem. I thought success was getting to the finish line as fast as possible…the radish. Focusing on quick growth and the easiest way to bear fruit the fastest.
What I found was, true success lied within the tomato. One of the last items in the garden to bear fruit every summer. The one that I was patient in the process of growing, the one that we kept weed free for months, and where we worked our tails off to prepare the plant to have the right environment for growth.
How do I grow? Simple…grow where planted, weed out ambition through service, and do what others won’t. It’s the perfect recipe for growth.