Are You Growing Your People Like a Gardener?

Lately at work, I've been feeling like that dead office plant.

You know the one sitting in the corner, all wilted, dried up, and barely hanging on.

It's surprisingly easy to feel malnourished and deflated. For a plant, it's a lack of water and sunshine. For people, it's often a lack of encouragement, support, and motivation.

I love buying plants. I love when they're full, green, and thriving.

The problem is, I'm not always great at keeping them that way.

Recently, I came across a checklist for growing healthy plants:

1. Know your plants.
2. Make sure the containers or pots are big enough.
3. Provide the right amount of sunshine.
4. Water them only as often as needed.
5. Fertilize them.
6. Check on them regularly.
7. Keep pests away.

As I was reading the list, I realized how much of it applies to being a manager.

1. Know your employees.
2. Make sure they're in positions where they can grow and flourish.
3. Encourage and motivate them.
4. Provide constructive feedback.
5. Pay them fairly.
6. Check in with them regularly, even when everything seems fine.
7. Remove the obstacles that hinder their growth and success.

The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that managers should see themselves as gardeners.

If more leaders invested time and energy into cultivating their people, fewer employees would wither, disengage, and burn out.

Unfortunately, many managers don't want to get their hands dirty. Growing healthy, capable employees takes effort, patience, and consistency. Others make the opposite mistake. They start watering so much that they overwater through micromanagement, leaving employees just as unhealthy as those who are neglected.

Healthy plants don't grow because they're ignored.

They also don't grow because someone hovers over them every minute of every day.

They grow because someone intentionally creates the right environment and then gives them room to thrive.

The same is true of people.

If you're a manager, take a look around. Are your employees flourishing, or are they starting to look like the wilted office plant in the corner?

The answer might tell you more about your leadership than any performance metric ever could.