"The most respected leaders are the ones that fight alongside their men." I said that to every crew I ran, and I meant it the way a tree guy means it. Not a speech from the truck. In the pile, dragging brush, keeping the pace up, where everyone could see.
Most owners already know this part. You were probably the hardest worker on your crew before you owned one. What most owners miss is the second half, and it's the only part that gets you out of the pile for good.
Say it, then do it
Start with the bar. I never expected my crews to do anything I wouldn't do, and I told them so. Then I showed them. When there was hard work on the site, I didn't point at it. I got in it and did it the way I expected it done.
Saying it is half of it. Doing it where they can see is the other half. A standard you only talk about is a suggestion. A standard the crew watches you hold on the third job of the day, when everybody's tired, is a real one. Nobody has to wonder what you meant, because they just watched you mean it.
Saying it is half of it. Doing it where they can see is the other half.
And if you get in the dirt with your team and keep the pace up without complaining, you've set the bar. Not with a rule. With your own back.
It's not the work, it's the speed
It's one thing to do the work. It's another thing entirely to do it fast, and in tree work speed isn't about looking good for the customer.
It's the trade's own logic. In tree work it's often less total work to work harder in the moment. Let the brush and chips pile up and the job gets far harder than it needed to be. The pile you drag now is a pile. The pile you let sit is a wall. The crew that keeps the pace up finishes with less sweat than the crew that paced itself. Hustle isn't a personality trait here. It's how the work gets easier.
Hustle isn't a personality trait here. It's how the work gets easier.
So when you lead from the front, lead on pace too. The crew needs to see you do the work. They also need to see you do it fast, and that it's not a show of strength. It's how the job stays manageable. The opposite of all this is the easy-job dodger, and your crew already knows which one you are.
The trap in leading from the front
Now the honest part, because this is where most of the advice out there stops.
Leading from the front is how the bar gets set. It is not how the bar stays set, because you can't be in every pile on every job forever. If the standard only exists while you're standing in it, you haven't built a standard. You've built a performance, and it ends the minute you drive away.
Leading from the front is how the bar gets set. It is not how the bar stays set.
A lot of hard-working owners fall into this trap without noticing. They lead from the front, they're proud of it, and they stay there. Then one day they look up and they're the hardest-working guy in a company that can't run for a week without them, and they think the answer is to work harder still. The crew works hard because the boss is there. Take the boss away and the pace goes with him.
That's not a crew problem. It's a design problem. You set the bar in person, which is right, and then never moved it off of you, which is the mistake.
Find who carries it without being told
Here's the turn, and it's the whole point. Once you've set the bar by example, your job changes. It stops being "outwork everyone" and becomes "find the person who carries the bar when I'm not here."
You'll know him when you look for him. He's the one already in the pile when you pull up. He keeps the pace up on the last job the same as the first. He doesn't complain about it, and nobody told him to do any of it. That hustle and tenacity isn't just a good work ethic. It's a leadership quality, and it spills into everyone under him. A crew follows the guy who's in the pile, whether or not his title says so.
That hustle and tenacity isn't just a good work ethic. It's a leadership quality, and it spills into everyone under him.
He doesn't have to be your most skilled guy. Skill you can train. What you're looking for is the bar, and the bar lives on the ground, in the brush, in the pace someone holds when nobody's watching.
When you find him, give him more. More opportunity, more education, and promotion. Send him to the training you'd have gone to yourself. Hand him the judgment calls that used to route through you. Every bit of that moves the bar off your back and onto someone who'll carry it on jobs you'll never stand on.
One plain line on the promotion itself: if it comes with a title and a pay change, put it in writing, and check with an employment attorney or HR professional on how you handle it. You're the HR department in a small company whether you wanted the job or not.
Freedom first, growth second
A crew with its own bar-carrier is a crew that holds the standard whether or not your truck is in the driveway. The pace doesn't drop when you leave the site, because the pace was never yours alone. That's freedom first: the standard survives you stepping out of the pile, which is the first step toward it surviving you stepping out of the business.
Growth comes second, and it's real. Every bar-carrier you develop is another crew that can run at your standard, and more crews at your standard is more work done right without you adding an hour. It's just not the reason to do it. It's what happens after.
Find the rest of your bottlenecks
Leadership is one place the business leans on you. The Bottleneck Scorecard finds the rest in five minutes: seven questions, a score, and the one thing to fix first. No email required to see your result.