Written by Elisabeth Kauffman
“Other jobs have less freedom. At Garden Spot, they let you take a project and run with it,” says Brandon Adams, visual storyteller for Garden Spot Communities. Brandon took on a small renovation project at the Garden Spot Farmhouse and used this line to describe the process. He used this to not only describe the process but also to describe Garden Spot as a community and organization.
Garden Spot is working to implement distributed leadership. Briefly, this process empowers employees to better the community around them. It gives them the opportunity to see a need and meet it. Distributed leadership has five steps: take initiative, gather input, seek advice, make a decision, and solicit feedback. Brandon’s small project is an excellent example of this process.
An empty porch is what initially inspired Brandon to take on this project. He noticed that the farmhouse porch looked vacant. He spoke with his supervisor, Juanita Fox, about possible renovations. This was the first step: taking initiative. He followed through by gathering input and seeking advice.
With some research and help from fellow team members, he discovered rocking chairs from the main entrance were available. They were brown, but he was inspired to paint them orange, to match the front door. He fixed and painted the chairs to be a perfect fit.
Brandon described it as a sense of “freedom” doing this project. He states, “Supervisors are there to help, but if you don’t need it, they totally trust you.” Even as he made the last-minute decision to paint the chairs to match the farmhouse front door, he felt like he had their trust completely.
Garden Spot’s sense of innovation and freedom is what most employees appreciate about this community. It allows them to share their thoughts and ideas and not feel bound by their position. This level of trust is sustained by the distributed leadership initiative and wouldn’t be possible without this foundation. This provides space then for a tighter community and a place where people can speak up about issues or ideas. Making a change doesn’t just fall on one person in leadership, it takes a team and the proper steps to truly make a difference.