Beyond leadership as plumbing and poetry

Not too long ago, I came across the book On Leadership by James G. March and Thierry Weil, a leadership classic from 2005, coming to the conclusion that leadership is both plumbing and poetry. The big idea still resonates, but something feels a bit off.

Let’s take a look at an excerpt from the book, which is, by the way, still relevant.

Leadership as plumbing & poetry

The book continues with the virtues of leadership as poetry.

The authors’ distinction is deceptively simple — and precisely because of that, enduring.

When they speak of plumbing, they are not speaking in metaphor alone. They are pointing to leadership close to everyday life in an organisation. But leadership is never only plumbing. If so, we are missing the point.

So, the notion of poetry is introduced — the leader’s capacity to find and offer meaning. Not as performance or rhetoric, but as interpretation. The ability to frame reality in ways that make collective action possible.

Poetry shows up when leaders take the time to articulate why a strategic shift matters beyond short-term performance. When we name trade-offs honestly rather than hiding them behind optimistic language. When we help people see how today’s difficult choices connect to a longer arc of responsibility — toward customers, society, or future generations.

When poetry is absent, organisations may continue to function, but something essential is lost. People comply, but they do not commit. They deliver, but without vitality.

Still, leadership is something beyond both plumbing and poetry.

It’s about nurturing the soil and being a steward of continuous renewal – and of the future.

Beyond plumbing and poetry: nurturing the soil

Plumbing and poetry are not quite enough to describe the full scope of leadership — at least not as it is lived today.

Leadership is equally about nurturing the soil.

About caring for the relational, cultural, emotional, and ethical conditions that determine whether anything healthy can grow at all. About tending to trust, psychological safety, honesty, and the quality of relationships — not as “soft” factors, but as the very ground on which performance, innovation, and resilience depend.

This kind of work is often invisible. It rarely shows up in metrics. And yet, when the soil is depleted, no amount of plumbing or poetry will compensate.

Nurturing the soil requires attention, patience, and presence. It asks leaders to sense what is happening beneath the surface, to notice early signs of depletion or vitality, and to respond before problems harden into crises.

Stewarding renewal across cycles

This gardener–steward role also carries responsibility for renewal.

I am sometimes struck by how many assume that everything old must die before anything new can grow. My experience tells me otherwise. In living systems — including organisations — new seeds can be sown continuously. They may lie dormant for a time, quietly taking root, until conditions allow them to grow.

Growth, maturity, decline, and emergence do, however, not follow a single timeline. They coexist in time and space.

Wise leadership recognises this and works with parallel processes – or portfolios – of decline and renewal. It understands that multiple “gardens” can exist at the same time — some flourishing, some maturing, some completing their cycle, and others just beginning.

As leaders, we are stewards and nurturers of the soil, responsible for these parallel gardens (or portfolios) and their lifecycles – from seeding to pruning.

Seeding is about sensing what wants to emerge and creating space for it without forcing premature performance. Pruning is about discernment — recognising when something that once served a purpose is now constraining growth. Not because it was wrong, but because its time is passing.

Again, seeding and pruning are not sequential acts. They can happen in parallel in different parts of a firm.

Leadership, seen through this lens, is not a linear project or a series of dramatic transformations. It is an ongoing, cyclical practice. One that involves tending what is growing, harvesting what has matured, composting what no longer serves, and planting seeds for futures that may not fully unfold on our watch.

A quieter understanding of leadership

This understanding of leadership is less heroic than many of the stories we tell. It is also more demanding.

It asks leaders to hold multiple time horizons at once. To stay present under uncertainty. To act with care rather than control. And to take responsibility not only for outcomes, but for the conditions under which people and systems live, work, and evolve.

Leadership, as I have come to live and understand it, is not about choosing between plumbing and poetry. It is about holding them together — while also tending the soil and stewarding renewal over time.

This is quieter work than most leadership myths suggest.

But it is precisely this kind of work that enables organisations to remain coherent, humane, and future-fit in a world that is anything but stable.

A closing inquiry

If you are in a leadership role today, it may be worth pausing to ask:

• Where am I currently focused on fixing or explaining — and where might the soil itself need more care?
• What am I seeding quietly, without yet knowing when it will grow?
• And what might need gentle pruning, not because it failed, but because it has already served its time?

These are not questions to answer once, but to return to — season after season.

If this perspective on leadership resonates — or feels quietly challenging — you may want to explore the Leadership Evolution Lab.

It is a space for reflection, dialogue, and learning for leaders who are curious about how inner development, systemic understanding, and lived leadership practice come together in times of change.

Elisabet Lagerstedt

Elisabet Lagerstedt is the founder and director of Future Navigators. As a trusted advisor, consultant, and Executive Coach, she helps business leaders navigate beyond business as usual to build Better Business and co-create a better future - through insight, strategy, innovation, and transformation. Elisabet is also the author of Better Business, Better Future (2022) and Navigera in i Framtiden (2018).