Besides my biggest passion, leadership, I have two hobbies to which I give attention and effort, cooking and gardening. The reason I love to cook is because my favorite thing to do of anything in the world is feed people. I’ll spend days preparing for a dinner party and I absolutely love to watch as people enjoy the food. Gardening is my therapy. I get some of my best ideas and work through tough issues while I’m mowing, weeding, planting, and building. I love to take care of my yards and gardens and create environments which offer my family and my guests an oasis from the stress of life. Whenever I can, I’ve got a pot of soup on the stove and I’m outside building something to make the back yard better. My family calls my outdoor time “yard therapy,” and they like to eat what I cook!
The reason I’m telling you all this is because leadership, cooking, and gardening share many of the same requirements if you’re going to be successful at any of them. Each require that you have the right resources, a plan to use them correctly, an end in mind, and the time to invest to make it all come about. The other thing which is absolutely necessary is tending. Whether one is a leader, cook, or gardener, all have the responsibility to tend to the ongoing needs of the task at hand while in the process of making something happen. A cook can’t just throw things in a pot, turn up the heat and walk away; they must occasionally give it a stir and adjust the seasoning, just as gardeners can’t plant seeds and never water or weed. Both must stay with the project and guide, nurture, and tend to the needs of the dish or plant.
It’s the same with the leader of people, particularly volunteers. It’s a great thing when you are able to recruit a fantastic new member of the team. They have enthusiasm, focus, and excitement as they get started, however, if you merely get them moving and give them the tools needed to get started, then walk away, you will have trouble on your hands quite soon. It’s up to us as leaders to tend to our people. This may mean periodic meetings over coffee, a weekly encouraging phone call, regular email updates, gatherings of the team, or a host of other easy-to-do activities, but though easy, they can also be easy to forget, especially when your volunteer team has been faithful and successful. Just as a soup will burn without a stir, and a plant will die without water, volunteers and employees will wither and disappear without consistent attention and sincere gratitude from their leader. You must tend to the people. You’ll be really glad you did.
Lead well.