Planting is just the beginning. The real work of leadership starts when you stick around.

In Part 1 of Tending What You’ve Planted, we explore what it means to stay present with your team after the role is assigned and the shift has started. Like gardeners, leaders have to tend—through attention, encouragement, and care.

This episode covers:

👀 Observation – how noticing patterns, effort, and energy helps you lead better

💧 Watering – why everyday recognition matters more than we realize

🌿 Weeding – how small corrections early on can prevent bigger problems later

Because what you don’t deal with grows just as fast as what you do.

You can’t outsource this part. Leadership shows up in the daily tending.

In this episode of Your Preshift, we turn our attention to one of the most powerful questions a leader can ask:

“What am I cultivating here?”

Because like a garden, your team culture doesn’t grow by accident. It grows from what—and who—you plant.

We explore how planting isn’t just about putting people in roles—it’s about why you put them there, and what you expect to grow.

You’ll hear:

• Why intentional leaders don’t just fill spots—they shape ecosystems
• How seemingly small decisions (like who trains a new hire or greets at the front door) have lasting ripple effects
• How to recognize what you're really planting—clarity or confusion, support or pressure
• And why patience, timing, and internal growth matter more than quick fixes

Whether you’re leading a restaurant team, a project group, or a classroom—this episode reminds you that every planting decision is a cultural one.

It’s not just about getting the job done.

It’s about building the kind of place where people can grow.

Before anything can grow, a gardener prepares the soil. And the same goes for leaders. In this episode of Your Preshift, we explore what it means to create the kind of environment where growth is actually possible—for your team and for you. We talk about breaking up hard ground, removing what’s in the way, and tending to the condition of your own heart and mind. Because when your leadership starts to harden with cynicism, overload, or disappointment—your people feel it first. And if you want something new to grow, you have to start with the soil.

In this kickoff to the Lead Like a Gardener series, we explore why so many leaders default to pressure, control, and quick fixes—especially in fast-paced environments. Drawing on the contrast between mechanic-style leadership and gardener-style leadership, this episode unpacks how true growth doesn’t come from tightening bolts, but from tending to the soil people grow in. If you’ve ever felt like you're the only one driving results, or like you’re stuck being the fixer instead of the leader—this conversation is for you.

Because even in a mechanic-first world, you still get to choose how you lead.

In this opening episode of the Lead Like a Gardener series, we introduce a leadership mindset that trades control for cultivation. Inspired by years of learning and leading at Thrive, Ryan contrasts “mechanic-style” leadership—quick fixes and control—with the steady, intentional work of gardeners who prepare, plant, nurture, and wait.

Great leaders don’t force growth. They create the conditions for people to thrive.

This episode lays the foundation for the series and invites listeners to rethink how they lead: not by tightening bolts, but by tending the soil

In the final episode of our Fantastic Four series, we explore how curiosity keeps teams engaged, adaptive, and human.

We unpack what healthy curiosity looks like—and how unhealthy curiosity can subtly erode trust. You’ll learn how curiosity is rooted in trust, agency, and hope—and why cultivating it makes leadership easier, not harder. We offer practical ways to model and inspire curiosity on the frontline, including how to turn reactive moments into reflective ones.

Plus, we dig into how humility powers curiosity, and how staying open as a leader helps your team grow. Because when you lead with curiosity, you don’t just solve problems—you develop people.

In this episode of Your Preshift, we explore the quiet but powerful role of hope in frontline leadership. Hope isn’t just wishful thinking—it’s the belief that the future can be better, and that we have a role in making it so. We talk about how hope grows in gritty, everyday moments, how it connects to trust and agency, and why it can feel so out of reach when people are just trying to survive. You’ll hear how leaders can inspire hope through presence, truth-telling, and belief—especially when hope is hardest to find. And we’ll close with two practical challenges to help you give hope to your team and yourself this week.

Resources:

1. Workplace Stability by Ruth Weirich

What if the real power of leadership isn’t just about giving direction—but giving people the belief that they can lead too? In this episode of Your Preshift, we explore the second trait in our Fantastic Four of frontline leadership: agency.

Agency is more than motivation or job clarity—it’s the deep, internal belief that I can act, I can decide, and what I do matters. We’ll talk about how leaders inspire agency by giving trust, not just tasks—and why believing in someone’s judgment is what actually helps them grow.

You’ll learn how to spot the difference between low-agency and high-agency language, why connecting work to human impact is essential, and how the way you describe a job can either flatten or elevate a person’s sense of purpose.

Plus, we offer three practical challenges you can try this week to build agency on your team—one step, one conversation, one shift at a time.

Research Links:

1. Center for Self Determination Theory
2. Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2020). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation from a self-determination theory perspective: Definitions, theory, practices, and future directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 61, 101860. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2020.101860