Have you ever stepped away for a week, only to come back and realize… things kind of went sideways?
That was me — and my garden — last week (we went on vacation). And it got me thinking: leadership and life aren’t all that different.
LEADERSHIP: Tend the Garden. Sweep the Floor. Repeat.
While I was away, my cucumber plants started strangling two of my tomato plants.
(No long-term damage — just a quick haircut for the cucumbers.)
But here’s the thing: this little garden drama was a not-so-subtle metaphor for leadership.
When you’re not actively tending to your “garden” — your team, your culture, your KPIs, your 1:1s — things start to shift in unexpected ways.
Not because you’re doing anything wrong. But because growth is messy. It’s uneven. It’s always in motion.
I often tell new leaders:
Leadership is like sweeping a slightly dirty floor.
By the time you’ve finished one corner, another is ready to be swept again.
That doesn’t mean you’re behind — it means you’re paying attention. Like a good farmer (hey, I’m from Iowa, I get to use that analogy!), you keep tending your field.
I hear people say:
“We just worked on that last year.”
“I thought we fixed that.”
Sure — and now it’s probably time to revisit it.
Leadership isn’t about fixing things once and forever.
It’s about continuous care. It’s making sure no one’s hogging all the sunlight, nothing’s quietly choking progress, and no one’s being overlooked.
Keep tending. Keep sweeping. That’s how healthy cultures grow.
So… what in your world needs tending?
LIFE
I stumbled on an addicting video series recently where a woman asks: How long does it really take?
She picks a task she’s been putting off — organizing the junk drawer, cleaning the garage, wiping down the car — and films herself doing it. Then she reveals the time.
And it’s almost always… way less than she expected.
Naturally, it got me thinking.
How many things in life and leadership do we delay because we assume they’ll take too long?
- We don’t clean the storage room because we don’t have the energy.
- We avoid organizing the garage because it’ll “take half a day.”
- We hold off on sorting closets because we don’t know where to start.
But what if we flipped the script and asked:
“How long will it really take?”
Chances are, it’s not that long.
The biggest unlock isn’t always a new strategy — it’s a mindset shift.
A reminder that progress often starts with simply starting.
So the next time your brain says, “You don’t have time,”
whisper back:
“Let’s just see how long it really takes.”