Here’s a random story and thought from my drive into the office today, likely sparked from my current audio book, Humanocracy: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them by Gary Hammel and Michele Zanini.

My wife and I have long desired to cultivate fresh vegetables for our family. We’ve tried numerous times. One year, we put a few small pots out with tomato seedlings, which promptly withered and died in the Georgia summer sun.

The next year, we cleared a plot of our yard, lightly tilled it, and planted seeds. Some of those seeds sprouted, and we got a handful of undersized bell peppers, but nothing like the cornucopia of garden-fresh vegetables that we dreamed about.

Several more years went by with no attempt until my wife finally decided she was going to make it happen. She did a ton of research and learned about “square foot gardening.” She learned how to amend our soil, the benefits of a raised bed, and how cultivating some plants next to others would help both thrive. That year, every dinner featured fresh vegetables from our garden. Once we learned that the success of a garden laid in preparations, not in the act of planting seeds, we were successful.

Many leaders fail to understand this at times. We chase things like innovation, team member morale, or growth without ever realizing that those things are emergent properties. You can’t achieve those results without first creating the conditions for them to thrive.

True leadership is in the back-breaking work of tilling the earth and slinging manure—doing the work that creates the conditions for good things to grow.