04/12/2026
They didn’t wait for permission...
Yesterday, I stopped by our Student Health Center to check in on my team. Three staff members were outside, on their knees, pulling weeds and planting flowers near the entrance. No one told them to do it. It was not in their job descriptions. Facilities had consistently bypassed that side of the building yet, and they decided not to wait. They hadn't informed me about this issue.
Under the overgrowth was a buried drainage grate, something essential hidden beneath neglect. The flowers they chose were intentional too, selected to help keep insects away from a doorway where students arrive.
That moment reminded me that leadership is not always loud. Sometimes it looks like tending. Sometimes it looks like noticing what is buried, clearing what is in the way, and choosing to care for a space because you understand who will walk through it next.
That moment stayed with me. So much of leadership, care, and stewardship looks like this: noticing what is buried, clearing what is in the way, and tending a space so others can enter it with a little more ease.
There is something deeply powerful about people who do not just occupy space, but steward it.
In a time when many of us are waiting for systems to catch up, this was a reminder: we are not always powerless while we wait. Sometimes the most meaningful thing we can do is tend what is right in front of us.
I wrote about that reflection in my latest piece:
They Didn’t Wait for Permission: A lesson in tending what you’ve been given!
What in your life or leadership are you being called to tend, even if no one assigned it to you?
https://open.substack.com/pub/drsherra/p/they-didnt-wait-for-permission?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=4g6mea
Stewardship HealingCenteredLeadership
