There’s a framing problem at the heart of how many leaders think about developing people.
Without realizing it, they approach leadership like carpentry. They’ve got a blueprint. They’ve got tools. And they set out to cut, shape, and sand the people around them until they fit the design.
The problem? People aren’t lumber.
While I’ve been in plenty of conference rooms where a few suits in a room pour over a spreadsheet discussing headcount, measure twice and cut once doesn’t work with a workforce.
The better mental model is gardening.
Leadership is less about headcount and more about heart count. While saying employees are a company’s most-important asset is well intentioned, where’s the first place they often look to cut costs in an economic downturn? Their human resources.
Simply put, assets and employees are significantly different on several levels. Employees are people who need to be nurtured and want to be seen, heard, and valued, ideally in the pursuit of something bigger than themselves.
I didn’t arrive at that idea from a book or a seminar. It came gradually, the way most real wisdom does, while working in my own yard.
What the Yard Taught Me
I’m not a gardener in the traditional sense, but I love nature. A beautiful, well-tended landscape brings me genuine joy, partly because I’m outdoors, and partly because I get to turn a vision into reality. Sometimes a project takes a weekend. Sometimes it takes a season. Sometimes it takes more than a year.
That process is deeply fulfilling, not because it ends perfectly, but because it moves forward purposefully.
One of the most grounding things I’ve learned working with plants and flowers is a concept Jessica, my oldest daughter taught me. She embodies the knowledge and passion for gardening, passed down to her from grandmothers on both sides of the family. Jessica introduced me to the phrase every experienced gardener knows: sleep, creep, leap.
It describes how perennials grow over three seasons. In the first year, a plant sleeps, pulling its energy underground to build a strong root system. In the second, it creeps, showing signs of life above the surface. By the third year, it leaps, reaching its full potential.
The impatient gardener yanks the plant in year one and calls it a failure. The wise one trusts the process.
That’s leadership.
The Acorn and the Oak
There’s a white oak on our property that I think about often. She’s 125 years old, maybe more. She stands majestically, watching over our home the way the best kinds of elders do: steady, generous, and deeply rooted. Every year, she drops some acorns. Every few years is a mast year, and she produces a massive yield of thousands.
When I look at each one of those acorns, I think about potential. Every single one of them, with a little time, attention, and the right conditions, could become something like her.
White oak trees can live up to 600 years. Their acorn productivity peaks between 80 and 120 years of age. Think about that. A century of investment before the fullest expression of contribution. That’s not a failure of efficiency. That’s the nature of deep, lasting growth.
The people in your care, your direct reports, your interns, your kids, your community, are acorns. Every one of them carries more potential than you can see from the outside. Your job isn’t to carve them into something. Your job is to create the conditions for them to grow.
The Biggest Mistake Carpenters Make
The most common version of the carpentry mindset I see in leaders is micromanagement. And I get it. It comes from a good place, usually. Leaders who micromanage often care deeply. They’ve got high standards. They want things done right.
But micromanagement is essentially a leader saying: I don’t trust your roots.
It crowds the plant. It blocks the light. It communicates, loud and clear, that the person in front of you isn’t capable of sleeping, creeping, and leaping on their own timeline. Over time, it stunts growth or drives talent elsewhere, toward leaders who give them room.
The gardener’s instinct is different. You prepare the soil. You water consistently. You remove the obstacles, the weeds, the things competing for nutrients. Then you step back and trust the process.
When you demonstrate restraint and trust the process, you’re making an investment in a person, not the project. When mistakes happen, and they will, creating a safe and supportive environment for someone to learn from them sends a message that outlasts any deadline: you value the person over the deliverable. That kind of leadership leaves a lasting impression. It ripples forward long after the project is over, showing up in how that person one day leads someone else.
That’s wisdom personified.
When the Mentee Becomes the Mentor
Several years ago, Alex Gagnon, one of my direct reports was managing Caitlin Marchant, a young intern. She wasn’t on my team directly, but through coaching him as a new leader, I started to notice her work and how she approached it. Both were great. Over time, I began mentoring her informally. Trust grew. The relationship deepened.
She started reading what I was writing on alviller.com. And she saw something I hadn’t fully seen myself: that the ideas I was putting out could reach and resonate with her generation in ways I wasn’t fully leveraging.
So, on her own initiative, on her own time, she developed a full proposal, scheduled a meeting with me and made the pitch. She thought my content should come alive through short video reels designed for today’s audience.
Here’s the thing: I’ve spent decades helping leaders communicate with more impact using video. I’m comfortable behind the camera, coaching and directing others. Being in front of it? That’s a different story!
She challenged me to get comfortable being uncomfortable. She inspired me to step in front of the lens and package my ideas in a format built for the next generation of leaders. The mentee became the mentor.
That moment didn’t happen because Alex or I managed her tightly. We didn’t hand her a blueprint. It happened because she had a safe space to grow, and when she leaped, I was paying attention.
That’s gardening.
Progress Over Perfection
Here’s one more thing the yard has taught me: the result is never perfect. Not once.
There’s always something that didn’t take, a plant that didn’t thrive, a section that needs more work next season. In our yard, which backs up to woods, the deer are always hungry and eagerly eating what I’m working to grow.
But perfection isn’t what gardening is about. It’s about progress. It’s about showing up season after season with a vision, with patience, and with care.
The same is true in leading people. You won’t develop everyone perfectly. Some seasons will be harder than others. Some growth will surprise you, and some will humble you. But if you keep preparing the soil, if you keep removing the obstacles, if you trust the sleep and the creep, the leap will come.
“Go” through the hard seasons or “grow” through them. That choice is yours; it belongs to every leader.
Lead with Light
To Lead with Light™ means illuminating the path forward for others, even when you can’t see the end of it yourself. It means believing in the potential of the acorn even before there’s any visible evidence of the oak.
Carpenters often need to see the final shape or the blueprint before they begin. Gardeners trust that, with the right conditions and enough time, something magnificent will emerge.
Which one are you?
How are you cultivating your character, like a gardener or taking another approach?
What seeds are you planting in the people around you?
I’d love to hear your story. Drop a comment below.
Be clear. Be kind. Lead with Light! ✨
My YouTube Channel
For those interested in watching a few of my reels, below is a sample. For more, check out my YouTube channel.
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