What is your leadership philosophy? If you were to take a hard look at your approach to the organizational unit you give leadership to, which of these images best portrays your style?

A Jabuticaba (left), a Coconut Palm (middle) or an Orange Tree (right)?

My leadership style is more like the orange tree. I don’t believe leaders are fruit-bearers, but fruit-cultivators. Let me explain.

My board says that the performance of the organization is equivalent to the performance of the president. That’s a huge job! Certainly it’s a heavier load than one person can carry. So my job is to peel parts of the role away and delegate them to competent people. Then my primary role becomes serving them and making them successful.

As I’ve reflected on this view of leadership, I realized a few things.

1. Fruit shouldn’t grow on the trunk. In a smaller organization or unit, a leader might be busy doing a lot of the work himself or herself. There may be exceptions, but my experience is that even in early stages of organizational growth, a successful leader will not hold onto activities long. Even the youngest orange trees don’t produce oranges next to the trunk. I constantly catch myself engaging in activities I enjoy doing, but which hold up the work of my leadership team, who need my help or energy to fulfill their roles. If I’m really successful at building my team, they will ask me why I’m doing a job rather than delegating it.

2. Building trust is my main line of work. As the primary trunk of the organization, I am uniquely able to spot healthiness and manage communication and resource flow so that I starve or prune leafy limbs and branches that demand resources without producing fruit, while feeding limbs and branches that are capable of producing results (Luke 13:6-9). Any activity that strengthens the cohesiveness of the tree and empowers the supporting limbs is well worth my attention. People often ask me how I get any work done with all the meetings I have to go to. My response is that my real work happens in meetings, because meetings are often the vehicle by which trust is built, communication flows best and a group can move forward together.

3. Leadership grows limbs. Any time I can create a new junction of smaller branches that spread out, the chance of fruit is highest. If I can spur ideas or get people together who can spark new thinking, I’ve best fulfilled my role.

I don’t know about you, but I think that Jabuticaba tree looks wrong. As a metaphor, it reflects an inverted leadership style where the limbs and leafs simply exist to bring resources to the fruit-bearing centre. That centralized style of leadership will leave followers feeling used while wearing out the leader who, as central to every initiative, will become the limiting factor.