Growth Starts Below The Surface

One of the things I’ve learned growing lavender is that healthy growth starts long before you see the reward of the blooms.

Young lavender needs to be pruned early and consistently. It can feel counterintuitive to cut back a plant you’re trying to grow, but doing so encourages strong roots and helps prevent the plant from becoming woody and difficult to reshape later.

It’s a good reminder that growth isn’t always about adding more.

LEADERSHIP REFRAME

I see a version of this all the time in growing companies.

There are good people on the team. Capable leaders. Maybe an EA, an operations leader, managers and plenty of expertise. And yet, important things continually still come back to the founder or senior leadership. So the instinct is often to add something: another hire, another layer, another tool, another meeting.

But sometimes the real problem isn’t usually a lack of capacity. It’s the conditions.

Is ownership clear?
Do people know what decisions they can make without asking?
Is delegation happening consistently across the leadership team?
Do people have enough authority to actually own the work they’ve been given?

Without those habits and structures, organizations can become a little like unpruned lavender: patterns get established, dependency becomes harder to unwind, and reshaping things later takes much more work.

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NOTICE THIS WEEK

Look for one place where something routinely comes back to you or another senior leader.

Instead of asking, “Who else do we need?”, ask: “What would need to change for the people we already have here to fully own this?”

The answer might be clearer authority, better context, a stronger handoff, more trust—or simply breaking a habit your organization has developed over time.

TRY THIS

Delegation becomes much more powerful when it stops being something a few individual leaders are good at and becomes a shared capability cascading across the organization.

That’s exactly what our Let It Go Certified Advisor (LIGA) program is designed to help build. LIGA equips internal leaders, coaches and practitioners with the framework, tools and language to teach effective delegation—and keep reinforcing it long after a single training ends.

Our next cohort begins this fall. If your organization has someone who could become the internal champion for this work—or if that person is you—I’d love to have you join us.

Because sustainable growth isn’t just about how much a plant grows. It’s about shaping it so it can keep growing well.

Helping you lead with less,

Your favorite lavender farmer- Emily