Not Every Season of Your Leadership Is Meant to Bloom Yet

We never look at bare trees in winter and decide they failed.

Right now where I live it’s cold and gray. The high has averaged around 20 degrees for over a week. The branches are empty. Nothing looks like it’s growing. 

But no one stands at the window and says, “That tree is underperforming. It should really be pushing out leaves by now.” We know that it’s the season of winter and don’t expect growth. 

Unfortunately, we’re not that generous with ourselves.

Most leaders, including myself, feel pressure to be in permanent spring. New ideas. New projects. New energy. New goals. Every week needs visible growth or it feels like something is wrong.

The reality is that our lives and leadership have seasons too.

Some seasons are about visible output. You are shipping things, hiring, building, making decisions that everyone can see. Other seasons look more like winter. You are thinking more than you’re planning. You’re setting foundations that aren’t visible to anyone else. You’re dealing with health, family, or other changes that don’t fit neatly in a status report.

The problem isn’t that these seasons exist. The problem is how we label them: as stuck, a lack of motivation, that we’re failing. 

Trees don’t grow that way. People don’t grow that way. Organizations don’t grow that way either.

As leaders, we’re also setting expectations for the people around us.

It’s easy to look at someone else’s winter and call them disengaged, less productive, not motivated.

Sometimes that’s true. Often it’s not.

You might be leading someone who is rebuilding right now, learning a new skill, or carrying a heavy load outside of work that you can’t see. On the surface it looks like less, but underneath they’re doing the work that will make the next season possible.

This doesn’t mean you lower the bar forever or ignore performance issues. It does mean you slow down long enough to ask which season they’re actually in before you label them. It means you stay curious. You ask different questions. You look for a way to match expectations, support, and timing to what is really happening in their life, not to what would be convenient for you.

Leading well isn’t only about managing your own seasons. It’s about recognizing that your team is not all in the same one at the same time, and still finding a way to move forward together.

Sometimes growth looks like sprouting some new leaves. Sometimes it looks like pruning, saying no, and removing what no longer works in our lives. Sometimes growth looks like doing nothing at all, resting and recharging, and doing the unglamorous work that allows us to survive the winter snow and make the next spring possible.

If you looked at your last few months like you look at a tree in winter, what would change about how you judge yourself or those around you?

You probably will still want more leaves. But you might stop calling yourself a failure for not blooming in January.