When I took over management of a small market in Leiper’s Fork, I inherited one of the most challenging leadership situations of my career.

The systems were weak.

Accountability was inconsistent.

Policies existed mostly in theory.

Leadership was disconnected from daily operations.

And much of the staff had adapted to a culture where dysfunction had become normal.

One assistant manager routinely showed up late—sometimes by an hour or two—despite being responsible for creating the schedule for everyone else.

Another couldn’t be scheduled with a certain employee because they couldn’t get along.

There were conflicts, rumors, power struggles, and issues that had gone unaddressed for years.

Some people had simply learned to work around the problems.

Others had learned to survive them.

When I arrived, I didn’t have a grand strategy.

I had a whiteboard.

And on that whiteboard, I wrote four words:

PEOPLE.

PROCESS.

PRODUCT.

PRICING.

In that order.

Not because I was some brilliant leader.

Because I had learned enough by then to know that most struggling organizations try to solve problems backward.

They focus on revenue before relationships.

Growth before culture.

Performance before trust.

They look at the numbers and wonder why things aren’t working.

Meanwhile, the people responsible for producing those numbers are exhausted, frustrated, confused, or disengaged.

So I started where I always start.

People.

I got out from behind the desk.

I worked alongside the team.

I listened.

I paid attention.

I learned who carried the culture and who undermined it.

I learned who took ownership and who avoided it.

I learned where people were struggling and where systems were failing them.

Then we started building processes.

Not complicated ones.

Just the kind that create clarity.

I took over scheduling.

I implemented systems that helped me identify attendance issues quickly.

Expectations became clear.

Accountability became consistent.

Grace was extended.

Conversations were had.

Warnings were given.

And eventually, difficult decisions were made.

One employee had been with the company for thirteen years.

When her employment ended, I became the villain in some people’s eyes.

That’s one of the things nobody tells you about leadership.

Sometimes people confuse accountability with cruelty.

Sometimes the people who benefit most from dysfunction are the people who resist change the hardest.

And sometimes doing the right thing costs you popularity.

I lost staff members.

Some left voluntarily.

Others left reluctantly.

The culture shifted.

And for a while, things felt messier, not better.

But over time, something interesting happened.

People who wanted a healthy workplace began to thrive.

New team members joined.

Relationships improved.

One of the assistant managers who had left eventually returned.

Trust grew.

The culture stabilized.

And many of the people who had been skeptical of me when I arrived came to respect what I was trying to build.

Not because I was perfect.

I wasn’t.

Not because I got every decision right.

I didn’t.

But because people eventually realized that I cared.

Deeply.

I cared about the customers.

I cared about the staff.

I cared about the experience people had when they walked through the doors.

I cared about creating an environment where people could succeed.

When I think back on my time at the market, I still remember the conflict.

I remember the criticism.

And I certainly remember the ending.

For a long time, those memories overshadowed everything else.

But time has a way of widening the frame.

Now, when I look back, I can also see the lessons.

I can see the relationships.

I can see the culture we built.

I can see the risks I took, the mistakes I made, and the growth that happened because of them.

Most of all, I can see what the market taught me about leadership.

When I arrived, it felt like being handed a fertile but wildly overgrown field.

There was good soil underneath.

Potential everywhere.

But years of neglect, avoidance, and inconsistency had left it tangled and difficult to navigate.

So I started pulling weeds.

Building systems.

Planting new things.

Creating structure where there had been confusion.

Cultivating trust where it had been damaged.

I worked my heart out in that field.

Some things grew beautifully.

Some didn’t survive.

And I learned that cultivating healthy environments requires more than vision and effort. It also requires sustainability.

What I failed to recognize at the time was that while I was tending the field, I wasn’t tending myself.

I knew how to care for the culture.

I knew how to care for the team.

I knew how to care for the customers.

I wasn’t nearly as skilled at caring for the person doing the caring.

The ending of that chapter was painful.

I wouldn’t choose to relive it.

But neither would I erase it.

Because hidden inside that season were lessons about leadership, stewardship, boundaries, sustainability, and self-awareness that continue to shape me today.

The field is no longer mine to tend.

But I’m grateful for the time I spent there.

And grateful for what it taught me about growing things.