🌱 What a Seed Taught Me About Building High-Performing Teams - Part 2

 

After the boy learned that digging up the seed every day would only prevent it from growing, he didn’t simply walk away. He still cared deeply about the seed. In fact, he cared more than before—only now, his care looked different.

He created the right conditions for it to grow.

He chose a spot with enough sunlight.
He watered it regularly—but not excessively.
He kept weeds away so they wouldn’t compete for nutrients.
He protected it from being trampled.
And then… he waited.

That’s leadership.

In engineering teams, creating the right conditions looks very similar:

🌱 Sunlight = Clear Direction

Just as a seed cannot grow without sunlight, teams cannot perform without clarity. Sunlight doesn’t tell the seed how to grow—it simply provides the energy needed for growth. Leadership works the same way.

Clear direction means teams understand what problem they are solving, why it matters, and how success will be measured. It is about setting outcomes and priorities, not prescribing solutions. When leaders replace direction with detailed instructions, teams stop thinking and start waiting. Growth slows.

In practice, lack of sunlight often shows up as confusion:

• Engineers debating implementation details without understanding the customer impact
• Teams delivering work that technically meets requirements but misses the real business goal
• Constant rework because priorities were never explicitly aligned

Providing sunlight means doing the opposite.

For example, instead of telling a team how to design a service, a leader clarifies:

• The customer pain being addressed
• The reliability, latency, or scale expectations
• The trade-offs that matter (speed vs. quality, cost vs. resilience)
• The success metrics that will define “done”

With this clarity, teams make better decisions independently. They can adapt when constraints change without waiting for approval. They can prioritize work intelligently because they understand what truly matters.

Clear direction also creates focus. When priorities are explicit, teams don’t waste energy second-guessing or context-switching. They know where to invest effort—and where not to.

Sunlight isn’t about control. It’s about alignment.

When teams are given clear direction and trust, they grow stronger, more confident, and more productive. Like a seed reaching toward the sun, they naturally move in the right direction—without being pulled.

That’s how leaders enable growth rather than manage every step. 🌱

💧 Water = Support and Enablement

Water is essential for growth—but too much water can drown a seed. The same is true for teams. Support enables progress; over-involvement slows it down.

In leadership, water represents the support systems that allow teams to move forward: removing blockers, providing the right tools, offering guidance, and giving timely feedback. When done well, it fuels momentum. When overdone, it creates dependency and frustration.

Support begins with removing obstacles. This might mean resolving cross-team dependencies, pushing back on unrealistic timelines, or clarifying conflicting priorities. Teams are most productive when leaders focus less on watching the work and more on clearing the path for it.

Enablement also means equipping teams properly. Outdated tooling, missing documentation, or fragile infrastructure quietly drains productivity. Investing in developer experience—CI stability, observability, test environments—often delivers more impact than adding more people or more process.

Coaching is another form of water. Great leaders don’t jump in to solve every problem; they ask questions that help teams think through trade-offs and arrive at better solutions themselves. This builds confidence and decision-making muscle over time.

Feedback matters too—but timing and intent are critical. Feedback should be frequent, specific, and focused on growth, not delivered late or only when something goes wrong. When feedback becomes constant interruption or public correction, it stops being enabling.

Where leaders often go wrong is overwatering:

• Too many meetings to “stay aligned”
• Excessive approvals for small decisions
• Constant status checks that interrupt deep work

This kind of support feels helpful—but it actually floods the system, slowing progress and reducing ownership.

Effective leaders know when to water—and when to step back.

When teams receive the right level of support, they move faster, think clearer, and build resilience. They don’t need to be pushed. They grow naturally—because the conditions are right. 💧

🌿 Weeding = Focus

A healthy plant doesn’t just need water and sunlight—it needs weeds removed. Weeds compete for nutrients, space, and attention, and if left unchecked, they slowly choke growth. In teams, weeds show up as distractions.

Focus is one of the most fragile and valuable resources a team has. Yet it’s often the first thing leaders unintentionally take away.

In practice, weeds look like:

• Constant priority changes driven by the loudest stakeholder
• “Quick asks” that interrupt deep work
• Meetings that exist out of habit rather than purpose
• Side projects that feel urgent but don’t move outcomes
• Fire drills that become the norm instead of the exception

Each distraction may seem small on its own. But together, they fragment attention, slow progress, and exhaust teams. Productivity drops—not because people aren’t working hard, but because their energy is being scattered.

Weeding is the leader’s responsibility.

Great leaders protect focus by making deliberate trade-offs. They are clear about what will not be worked on. They absorb external noise so teams don’t have to. They push back on last-minute requests that don’t align with priorities, even when that pushback is uncomfortable.

For example, when a stakeholder asks for an “urgent” change mid-sprint, a leader evaluates its true impact and urgency. If it doesn’t materially affect customers or critical outcomes, it waits. This signals to the team that their time and focus are valued.

Weeding also means simplifying work. Reducing unnecessary processes, eliminating redundant reporting, and canceling meetings that no longer serve a purpose can free up hours of productive time each week.

Focus doesn’t mean rigidity. True focus allows teams to respond to real emergencies without living in a constant state of interruption.

When leaders consistently remove weeds, teams gain clarity, momentum, and confidence. They can concentrate on what matters most—and that’s when meaningful progress happens. 🌿

🪵 Protection = Psychological Safety

A young plant needs protection while it’s still fragile. A careless step, a strong wind, or repeated disturbance can damage it before it ever has a chance to grow. Teams are no different.

Psychological safety is the invisible fence that protects growth. It’s the confidence people have that they can speak up, ask questions, admit uncertainty, and make mistakes—without fear of embarrassment, blame, or retaliation.

In teams without this protection, warning signs appear quickly:

• Engineers stay quiet in meetings even when they see risks
• Problems surface late because no one wants to deliver bad news
• Mistakes are hidden instead of discussed
• Innovation slows because people avoid anything that might fail

This isn’t a people problem—it’s an environment problem.

Creating psychological safety starts with how leaders respond in moments of stress. When something breaks, do we ask “Who caused this?” or “What allowed this to happen?” When an engineer challenges an idea, do we shut it down or explore it?

Leaders who protect their teams treat failures as learning opportunities, not character flaws. They encourage experimentation within clear boundaries and make it safe to say, “I don’t know,” or “I think this might not work.”

For example, in post-incident reviews, the focus should be on systems and processes, not individuals. Blameless retrospectives don’t lower standards—they raise them by uncovering root causes and preventing repeat failures.

Protection also means making it safe to disagree. Healthy teams challenge decisions early, when it’s cheap to do so. Leaders who welcome dissent build better outcomes than those who mistake silence for alignment.

Psychological safety doesn’t mean lack of accountability. High-performing teams are both safe and rigorous. People are held to clear expectations, but they’re supported as they learn and grow.

When teams feel protected, they take ownership. They innovate. They surface problems early. And they move faster—not slower—because fear no longer gets in the way.

That’s how leaders guard growth until teams are strong enough to stand on their own. 🪵

⏳ Time = Trust

One of the hardest lessons the boy learned was that growth doesn’t announce itself every day. For a long time, nothing changed on the surface. No green shoots. No visible progress. Yet beneath the soil, roots were forming—quietly and steadily.

Team growth works the same way.

Learning, confidence, and capability often develop out of sight. A new engineer absorbing the codebase. A team slowly improving how they collaborate. Better judgment forming through small decisions and mistakes. None of this shows up immediately on dashboards or weekly status reports.

When leaders lack trust, they try to compensate by accelerating visibility:

• Daily status checks
• Premature performance judgments
• Constant course corrections before learning settles

These actions don’t speed up growth—they interrupt it.

Trust means giving teams time to learn before expecting mastery. It means allowing space for experimentation, knowing that early inefficiency is often the price of long-term excellence. It means resisting the urge to jump in at the first sign of discomfort.

This doesn’t mean being passive or lowering standards. Trust is paired with clear expectations, feedback, and accountability. Leaders set the bar—but they don’t panic when teams need time to reach it.

For example, when a team takes ownership of a new system, initial delivery may be slower. Bugs may surface. Decisions may be imperfect. A trusting leader uses this period to coach and observe, not to reclaim control.

Over time, something shifts. Decisions get faster. Quality improves. The team begins to anticipate problems rather than react to them.

That’s when the sapling appears.

Growth requires patience. Patience requires trust. And trust is often the difference between teams that merely function and teams that truly thrive.

Leaders who understand this don’t rush growth—they make room for it. ⏳