We have a thirty-foot rubber tree growing in the middle of our living room. About every six months we have to get up on the ladder and cut back the branches that push into the ceiling and the window.

Leading is akin to gardening, where we co-create an environment around us that enables the flourishing of life. Any gardener knows that pruning is a part of tending to a garden. A plant that is overgrown, gangly, or unhealthy needs to be thinned, cut back, or dug up. In its exuberance to grow, it seems to be the nature of growing things to get overgrown at times. In our case, we prune in order to manage the size of this tree. When it’s overgrown, it will crowd out the very light of the window it’s reaching for.

Like pruning a garden, our lives periodically need some cutting back.

What, in your life or your leadership, needs pruning?

• What relationships that you have outgrown need to end?
• What habits need to be re-evaluated and discarded?
• What clutter in your life needs to be let go of?
• What needs to end in order to allow for new growth?
• What people on your team are holding you back and need support to move on?
• What difficult conversations are needed now?