The Bonsai Plant of Executive Leadership
The Bonsai Plant of Executive Leadership
At the beautiful Denver Botanic Gardens, rather close to the VIM Executive Coaching offices, we were recently thrilled to attend their annual bonsai competition. We understand the shaping, nurturing and display of these magnificent plants is not (please pardon the pun) not everyone’s cup of green tea, nevertheless each plant is a testament to the same factors that influence and shape an outstanding executive leader.
Slower than a snail
There is, of course, no reason for a bonsai shrub or tree to exist. They are confined to ceramic containers, they must be trained, fed, watered, receive just the right amount of sunlight, at the correct temperature range and conform to an acceptable shape. One serious slip-up will usually cause the plant to perish.
With few exceptions, the plant can be most any plant of the bonsai artist’s choosing. Those who cultivate the bonsai must be willing to work with the specimen and to mold it to an image. It is no surprise that it usually takes years, decades and even generations to produce a prize-winner. In terms of change and seeing changes, even the slowest of the slowest snails is a speed demon compared to a bonsai’s transformations.
The cultivation of bonsai is a lifetime pursuit. Sadly, one act of forgetfulness such as neglecting to mist or water or to leave a plant exposed to the elements or to fail to recognize the plant has outgrown or overgrown or become rootbound can kill decades worth of work.
The question that emerges is “Why bother?”
Surely bonsai enthusiasts could fill the hours with quests that are sedentary to racing planes or riding the towering waves of Portugal or Hawaii. So why bother?
To answer the question, we must move away from nurturing bonsai and return to the passion we derive from business coaching. For surely, the two pursuits are similar.
I feel your potential
The best executive leaders are not necessarily clairvoyant or the Mensa Society’s award winner for the highest IQ. They, like the person who wanders in a forest for an interesting specimen or is handed a scraggly plant or sees a thrift shop potted plant in a $1.29 ceramic pot. The best executive leaders feel and appreciate the potential in established employees and new hires alike.
In their task, executive leaders see qualities in an employee many others ignore. The best executive leaders look beyond “appearance” or the other inconsequential but appreciate the end result of nurturing, teaching, being patient and bringing out the best in someone.
Obviously, the art of executive leadership, like the art of bonsai requires mindfulness, intention and authenticity. It requires the executive leader to listen, to feel, to correct and to not neglect a vision.
Of course, we humans are more complex than a plant in even the most elegant of ceramic containers on magnificent, carved wooden stands. However, to fail to appreciate what a person can be if given the time and caring, or can embrace if allowed to flourish, or can inspire if allowed to blossom, is tragic.
We live in a time when speed, digitalization and celebration of fluff often replaces what is truly and humanly important. We see it in society and we clearly see it in the workplace. We humans often mistake what is real and heartfelt for easy answers that satisfy no one, and expediency in favor of seeing and listening. In 2021, when hundreds of thousands of valued workers walked off jobs, many executives “stood there” and wondered why?
There are hundreds of answers the executives might have been given in the moment. Far better to have led them to a display of bonsai, and asked them to consider what they were actually seeing and experiencing.
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VIM Executive Coaching offers dynamic, highly effective coaching programs for executives and entrepreneurs. Our unique approach combines ancient wisdom and techniques with modern approaches. We would be happy to offer you a FREE, NO OBLIGATION coaching consultation! Please click on the link below.