Do You Care to Lead?

Chapter 3Nurture

When leadership is personal, people will respond in deep and personal ways.

A farmer and his workers had just finished harvesting a full truckload of sugar beets. The route to the refinery was a bumpy dirt road. While making the journey some of the beets fell off the truck. Most farmers would have continued the journey and not thought much about those that had fallen. However, this farmer was different.

He pulled over to the side of the road and instructed his workers to retrieve the fallen beets. They looked at him confused; so much work for so few beets. But this farmer explained to them that there was just as much sugar in most of those that had slipped as those that had remained.

Each beet on that truck and most every beet that had fallen from the truck had value. Your ultimate goal as a Care to Lead Leader is to find and tap into the value of every person you lead. This means you are helping them discover their unique gifts and talents and supporting, developing, and encouraging them to realize their full potential. Your people need you to deeply care, and you, your team, and the organization need what they provide. This is nurturing, the third part of the Care to Lead Leader Formula.

I have always loved the word nurture and its relation to leadership. Nurture by definition is the process of caring for and encouraging the growth or development of someone ...