Growth You Can’t See

Jun 16

A Leadership Lesson from My Living Room

About six months ago, I decided to take on a challenge that I had never really experienced and honestly had very little interest in—house plants.

I purchased a money tree, a bonsai jade plant, and a tropical indoor plant that required the most attention. Everyone I spoke with told me it would be the most difficult of the three to keep alive.

A few weeks into this experiment, I was proving them right.

The tropical plant that had started as a vibrant, colorful, healthy plant was quickly turning into a shriveled, leafless, lifeless object sitting in a flower pot. Every day it seemed to get worse. What had once looked healthy and full of life now looked like it was beyond saving.

So I did what most people do when faced with a problem they don’t understand. I started researching. I wanted to know how to save it. What was I doing wrong? What did it need? How long would recovery take?

The first lesson I learned was one that applies to leadership, culture, and life.

Recovery takes longer than decline.

The plant didn’t deteriorate overnight, but it certainly felt that way. What I learned was that rebuilding its health would take far more patience than watching it decline. Growth would be incremental at best. There would be no dramatic overnight turnaround.

Leadership is no different.

Trust takes time to build and moments to destroy.

Culture takes years to create and only months to erode.

Teams rarely fail overnight. They decline gradually through small compromises, poor communication, inconsistent accountability, and disconnected relationships.

The second lesson I learned was that more effort isn’t always the answer.

Initially, I thought the solution was simple: water it more—Wrong.

Too much water can be just as damaging as not enough.

Then I moved it into direct sunlight—Wrong again.

The plant wasn’t dying from a lack of effort. It was suffering from a lack of understanding.

As leaders, we often make the same mistake. We respond to every challenge with more meetings, more policies, more oversight, more pressure.

Sometimes the answer isn’t more - Sometimes it’s better.

Better communication. Better accountability. Better connectivity.

The third lesson was perhaps the most important.

Growth happens beneath the surface before it becomes visible.

For weeks, nothing seemed to happen. The plant looked exactly the same.

No new leaves. No visible progress. Nothing that would make me believe the effort was working.

Then one morning, I noticed a small green shoot emerging from a branch I had assumed was dead.

Then another.

The roots had been recovering long before I could see the results. People are the same way.

The teammate who seems disengaged. The employee struggling with confidence. The leader learning a new skill. The culture you’re trying to improve.

Progress is often happening beneath the surface long before it becomes visible to everyone else.

The final lesson was simple.

Consistency beats intensity.

The plant didn’t need heroic action. It needed the right actions repeated consistently.

Water when appropriate. The proper amount of light. Healthy soil. Patience.

Leadership works the same way.

Culture is not built through one great speech. Trust is not built through one great decision. Teams are not transformed through one great event. They are built through consistent actions repeated over time.

Looking at that tropical plant today, it still isn’t perfect—But it’s alive.

It’s growing.

And every new leaf is a reminder that growth rarely happens as fast as we’d like, but it almost always happens when the conditions are right.

The lesson wasn’t really about a house plant. The lesson was about leadership.

Create the right environment. Stay patient. Trust the process. Remain consistent. And never confuse the absence of visible progress with the absence of growth.