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Consider three separate experiences I recently went through that point to the law of growth.

I finished my career as a lay missionary on university campuses. My students bought me a wonderfully small money tree as a goodbye gift. Unfortunately their goodbye notes that hung from the tree killed it the next day. The leaves drooped down and died. After trimming the plant in sadness, the money tree grew back about two days later. It has now grown ten new leaves in just over a month.

My new career is investment management. I studied for a licensing exam and was reminded about the key principles of growing money. No one invests in a particular fund expecting it to lose value. Sure, there are tactics like short-selling where you can profit from a decline in a stock, but the principle of investing is to buy low, sell high, and make a return, a growth, on your investment.

And thirdly, I met with a spiritual director who advised me in my faith journey. We talk about several things that are going on in my life. He encouraged me, “You can grow slowly away from God or slowly towards God. You have to choose.” He exhorted me to learn and grow from my mistakes and experiences, and to grow more deeply in my relationship with God.

Nature, business, and faith. Those three examples relate with different domains of life and yet the principle behind each of them is what I consider to be the law of growth.

In every area of life, the law of growth is at stake. This means that life is geared towards growing. Yes, this law does have its limitations: growth itself has an expansion, peak, and eventual decline. Yet this law protects nature from falling into an abyss of greater misery and sorrow. There is more to growth, more to life.

In the area of leadership, this principle is no different. As leaders, we can ask ourselves if we are growing personally and professionally. Growing personally is about developing and nurturing our character; we are always a work-in-progress, never having fully arrived. And there is a thing about grace—we are in need of a higher help, God, who can give us the grace to grow in virtue and charity, for our nature is in complete misery and is in need of help. For this is a great mystery: we who can grow in virtue and in character need grace to overcome our own deficiencies and weaknesses.

Growing professionally is the other area. Performance evaluations are key. We bring to our work areas of strength and areas of weakness. Developing our trade is key and imperative to leadership growth. We would think that over time we will be able to grow our skills, improve our attitudes, and learn more knowledge about our given field.

Let us not forget the growth of relationships as well. This would be most important for leaders, for we never work alone. Consider the relationships that are near and dear to us: our spouses, children, family members, and friends. Then there are co-worker relationships and customer relationships. A leader has to look inward and see what relationships need more cultivating. And remember: there is a limit to growth. We can’t tend to everyone, only a select few.

Why is growth important? Like I said, I believe it is a natural law. If we don’t follow the law of growth, we will fall into misery rather than rise to greatness. Within each of our hearts is the capacity to do great good and accomplish a personal mission that only we can fulfil. Growth helps us to journey onwards and upwards—aspiring to greater things and higher heights.

Self-reflection and self-awareness is key. A leader can’t grow unless they know. Here are a few prompting questions to get us thinking. 

What virtue do I struggle with most? What virtue have I most been blessed with? This could be a good starting point for reflection.

If I was intentional about developing that one area in my life or work that would yield the most amount of fruit, what would that area be?

Where do I need to grow personally and professionally right now?

What relationships do I need to cultivate more?

This article is part of the Leadership section. Check out more entries here!