Unlikely Roots
This blog is part of Renee’s Loving Leaders email series, where she shares insights and strategies for Leading with Love every week. To receive these reflections directly in your inbox, sign up for the series here.
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I had such anticipation yesterday because I returned to speak to a leadership development program I’ve spoken to nearly every year for more than a decade. It's the Capstone Leadership Cohort at the Washington State Department of Labor and Industry.
Years ago the facilitators invited me to speak on leading culture change and continuous improvement at the Department of Enterprise Services. I did share about that but ended up vulnerably sharing much more.
You see, all those contributions at DES and my leadership journey writ large are rooted in my early experiences as a young wife and mom whose husband crashed his small plane and suffered a traumatic brain injury. I was 27; he was 31.
Like a strong and promising cedar tree falling in a storm in a temperate rain forest here in Washington State, our lives fell to the ground in 1992. Everything seemed lost. The tree that was our family life was uprooted and would not survive as we knew it. He was changed. I was changed. We were changed. Our children’s lives were changed.
But something more happened. It took a long time and a lot of struggles, the pain of loss and letting go. Finding how to go forward to something else.
Then in 2013 after 21 years, I’d finally lived enough life beyond these experiences and made sense of what had happened, as much as anyone can, to talk about it to the Capstone group.
You see, that fallen tree became the nurse log of new life. New strong seedlings sent down roots in and around the remains of the old tree. I found my voice, reclaimed my life, and with lots of support, had the courage to change and grow.
Fallen tree nursing new life
My unlikely tree that stands today for making work and leadership more loving and human, that tree is rooted in that early tragedy. It has its roots in loving my husband, and then loving my children and myself, then loving my teams, and loving the world. I shared about this with Capstone. And as always happens, it struck a chord and opened up space for love to be poured out to someone in the room whose tree has fallen down.
Why am I telling you this today?
Because either your tree has fallen in tragedy, or it is right now, or it will someday. This is part of being human and living in this challenging world.
And what I want you to know is that when your tree falls, there is the hope for the life that can eventually grow from that. We mourn the loss. We feel lost and hurt for a time. And some of that never goes away. But then seedlings will naturally drop on that tree and take root. And something else unexpected and unlikely will grow.
And if you are intent on being a Loving Leader, then loving yourself and embracing your life is part of the journey. Only then can we love our team members, accept them, and meet them in whatever happens in their lives while they work with us.
Message me if you think you might be ready and want to talk more about support for loving yourself as a Loving Leader.
Every time I see a tree growing from a nurse log in the forest it is stunning and beautiful. Our lives are too.
Sending you love from unlikely roots.
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