It is time to start planting our garden here in Maine, and the process of doing so has me thinking a lot about, what else, leadership! Stay with me, because I think this metaphor really works. Leadership is a lot like tending a garden. You must nurture the soil that feeds everything while also caring for each individual plant that struggles to thrive. Ignore the soil, and even the hardiest plants will wither. Focus only on one struggling seedling, and the entire garden suffers neglect. Success lies in the art of doing both, simultaneously and thoughtfully.
The Army captures this paradox perfectly in four simple words: "Mission first, people always." On its surface, this seems contradictory, or at least paradoxical. How can the mission be first if people are always the priority? But spend time with soldiers, and you discover the wisdom embedded in this phrase.
The mission comes first because it represents the greater purpose—the reason the organization exists, the commitment made to something larger than any individual. Soldiers understand they may be asked to make tremendous sacrifices in service of this mission. The mission is what guides decisions and priorities.
Yet "people always" means exactly that. Always. The mission may change when circumstances shift, but you never abandon your people. A patrol might begin as a raid or ambush but transform into a medical evacuation mission when casualties mount. The mission adapts because caring for people isn't separate from accomplishing the mission, it's integral to it. After all, no mission succeeds without the people who execute it.
This dynamic extends far beyond military contexts. Every organization, every community, every family faces this same fundamental tension: How do we serve the greater good while caring for individuals who don't fit neatly into our systems?
Principals need to balance school-wide policies with the unique needs of a student facing extraordinary circumstances. CEOs must uphold company standards while recognizing that a valued employee requires flexibility during a family crisis. Parents try to maintain household rules while adapting to each child's different temperament and developmental needs.
This is very difficult to do, and too often, we approach these challenges from only one perspective—either the forest or the trees.
When we see only the forest, we become systemically rigid. We prioritize efficiency, consistency, and scalability above all else. Our organization might run like a well-oiled machine, but will struggle to accommodate outliers, learn from exceptions, or adapt to changing conditions. We lose the innovation and insights that come from those who don't fit the mold. The systems may be efficient, but they're also brittle.
Conversely, when we focus only on the trees, we become paralyzed by individual cases. We make exception after exception, each one seeming reasonable in isolation. But collectively, these exceptions erode the very standards and structures that serve the broader community. Eventually, we lose our ability to maintain systems that function effectively for the majority while trying to accommodate every individual circumstance.
Both approaches ultimately fail because they're incomplete and don’t embrace the inherent messiness of people and life. Real leadership requires holding the tension between these perspectives—seeing both the forest and the trees simultaneously.
This isn't about finding some mythical middle ground or splitting the difference. While both of those approaches would be nice, neither exists. Rather, it's about developing the capacity to think systemically and individually at the same time. It means understanding that making an appropriate exception doesn't invalidate the underlying policy, but demonstrates the wisdom to recognize when circumstances may require different treatment.
The keyword is "appropriate." Not every situation merits an exception. Leadership involves discerning when individual situations are significant enough to warrant deviation from standard practice, and when they're not. This requires judgment, not just policy manuals. As we often say, you cannot manage your way out of leadership. And it requires effective communication in either case.
“What we know matters. But who we are matters more.”
Some leaders fear that making any exception opens the floodgates—that allowing one person special treatment means everyone will demand the same. We’ve all heard, “if I do this for her, then I HAVE TO do it for everyone”. No, you do not. This thinking reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of leadership. You don't have to treat everyone identically, in fact, you can’t. Context matters. Circumstances matter. Leadership means managing these distinctions thoughtfully rather than hiding behind inflexible rules.
Organizations that refuse to ever make exceptions necessarily forfeit their ability to be exceptional. They choose rules over adaptability, processes over wisdom. They may avoid some difficult conversations, but they also miss opportunities to demonstrate both strength and compassion.
The most effective leaders I've encountered operate with what I call principled flexibility. They hold core values and standards firmly while remaining open to how those principles might be applied in different situations. They understand that exceptions, when made thoughtfully, can actually strengthen rather than weaken organizational culture.
This approach requires intellectual honesty and emotional maturity. It demands that we resist the comfortable, though false, certainty of seeing the world in black and white. It asks us to embrace the more complex—and ultimately more human—reality that most situations contain shades of gray.
The forest needs the trees, and the trees need the forest. Neither perspective alone is sufficient. The gardener who tends both the soil and each individual plant creates something beautiful and sustainable. The leader who serves both the mission and the people builds organizations that endure and thrive.
I’ll spare you my diatribe about how this all relates to our current state of affairs, as I trust you are also painfully aware of how rare this kind of leadership is. It seems that most of us struggle to both feel AND think when it comes to social or political issues. But this is exactly what our communities, our organizations, and our relationships need. The work isn't easy, but it's essential.
Leadership isn't about choosing between the forest and the trees. It's about nurturing both.
