Tear Down the Fortress, Tend the Garden - Transform Your Leadership Growth

How I Accidentally Built Distrust—and What to Do Instead

A while back, I stepped into a leadership role at a company that had just started to find its stride. After years of scraping by, fighting for survival, the business was finally growing and appeared to be thriving.

But underneath the momentum, the culture was a mess.

People didn’t trust each other.

They avoided hard conversations.

They protected their slice of the pie.

And they talked around one another instead of to one another.

I could feel the tension in every meeting. People smiled in public and vented in private. I knew something was off, but I didn’t know how to break the cycle.

At first, I genuinely believed it was fixable with structure—better processes, clearer roles, a stronger rhythm. I told myself, “Let’s just get organized and push through. What got them here can still work.”

But it wasn’t working.

The harder I pushed process without addressing the real problem, the more things slipped through my fingers.

I was solving the wrong problem—and it was costing me. I believed process could fix what was really a mindset problem.

Culture doesn’t change through process. It changes through mindset. And it starts with the leader.

The Two Mindsets That Shape Your Leadership Growth

Every person sees the world through a lens—a mental framework shaped by experience, environment, and belief. That lens determines how we interpret challenges, how we show up for others, and what we believe is possible. The key to transformation is not just recognizing the lens we’re wearing—but being willing to change it.

After years of reflection and research, I’ve come to believe that all leaders operate from one of two core mindsets:

🛡️ The Fortress Mindset

“If I don’t control it, I’ll lose it.”

A fortress is designed to protect—a city, valuable resources, people. It’s built for survival, with high walls and narrow gates, hardened by past battles and seasons of threat. And in times of crisis, it works. It keeps danger out and preserves what matters most. But over time, what once served as protection can become isolation. When a business begins to grow, the same mindset that built the fortress becomes a liability.

It shows up as:

• Hoarding control

• Closing off collaboration

• Avoiding hard conversations

• Winning at the cost of trust

• Relying on a few to carry the weight for all

In the fortress, everything feels urgent—but nothing feels safe.

🌱 The Garden Mindset

“My role is to create the conditions where growth can happen—even when I can’t control the weather.”

A garden doesn’t grow itself—it needs thoughtful, consistent attention. Tending, pruning, and protecting are part of the work. But the gardener doesn’t force growth; they cultivate the conditions for it to happen. They steward the soil, prune what’s unhealthy, and create space for healthy things to thrive. And even then, they know some things—like weather, timing, or disease—will always be outside their control. Still, they keep showing up. Not to force growth, but to make growth possible.

It shows up as:

• Trusting before it’s earned

• Investing in relationships, not just results

• Delegating with care, not fear

• Creating space for people to grow—and sometimes fail

We all have a story. Life shapes us, no doubt—through childhood, past workplaces, early mentors, and crises we didn’t choose. But as human beings, we hold a unique power: the ability to rise above our default patterns and choose a new path. We don’t have to be confined by the culture we inherited or the story we’ve always told ourselves. We can change the narrative.

This isn’t just a hopeful idea—there’s real science behind it. Studies in neuroscience and psychology consistently reinforce that we have the ability to rewire patterns and reshape the stories we live by. Research on neuroplasticity shows that our brains can form new pathways at any stage of life. Carol Dweck’s work on growth mindset proves that belief in our ability to change impacts our actual development. And narrative psychology teaches us that we can redefine our identity by rewriting how we see our past. This capacity to choose a new lens is the first step toward cultivating a different kind of leadership.

But what really convinced me was my own experience—when I began shifting from Fortress to Garden. I felt less fear. I started holding things with a little more openness, and a little less control. A few brave conversations surfaced. Ownership slowly spread beyond the usual few. It wasn’t a transformation overnight, but the internal shift created space for something better to take root. Not everywhere. Not all at once. But enough to know I was on the right path.

Why the Usual Fixes Don’t Work

Here’s what I tried first—and why it didn’t move the needle:

The Fix	Why It Failed
"We just need to win!"	Winning doesn’t heal dysfunction—it hides it. Until it doesn’t.
New processes	Good systems can't overcome bad trust. They just expose it.
Stronger performers	Even A-players get drained in a low-trust environment.
Team-building efforts	You can’t out-retreat a mindset problem.

None of those things are bad. They all have their place and are important parts of a business. But without the inner shift, they don’t stick.

How the Shift Starts (with You)

If you’re a leader stuck in the middle of broken trust, here’s the path I wish I’d followed sooner:

1. Interrupt the control reflex.

   Ask yourself: What am I afraid will happen if I let go a little?

2. Replace certainty with curiosity.

   You don’t need to have all the answers. You need to create space for better ones to emerge.

3. Lead with trust—not a test.

   Extend belief before it’s “earned.” Trust is a seed, not a reward.

4. Celebrate how, not just what.

   Highlight courage, honesty, generosity—not just metrics.

5. Be patient with yourself.

   You didn’t get here overnight. You’ll slip. Old habits will resurface. The goal isn’t perfection. It’s progress.

The Bottom Line

In this experience I didn’t make the shift soon enough. I saw the signs. I felt the tension. But I held onto the belief that process would save us—and I avoided the real conversation for too long. In the end, I left the organization with regret. Not because of failure (or maybe it was...that's a discussion for another day), but because I waited too long to lead differently.

Maybe you’ve had a similar experience. Maybe there’s a tough season still weighing on you, or a moment you wish you could go back and handle differently.

You’re not alone.

We spend so much time trying to fix teams. But looking back at that season, I realized the team wasn’t the only thing that needed fixing—I was. I needed to unlearn old patterns, let go of control, and lead in a way that cultivated trust, not just efficiency. The deepest, most sustainable change always starts with us.

If you want to build the kind of culture where trust runs deep and people bring their best—don’t start with a new strategy. Start with a new mindset. The rest will follow.

If you’re navigating similar questions, you're not alone. I'm building a community of leaders committed to doing the inner work that makes external success possible.

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