Lead Through the Season, Don't Fight It:Acadia

The season on your team is already changing.

The question isn't whether. The question is whether you're going to lead through it or keep pretending it's still summer.

The old model told you strong leaders keep things the same.

Hold the team together. Keep the roster. Keep the rhythm. Keep the vibe.

If somebody needs to move on, hold on a little tighter. If a chapter is ending, extend it. If a season is shifting, pretend it isn't.

Stability, the old model said, is your job.

Change is failure.

So you gripped.

You talked people out of decisions that were right for them.

You kept structures in place past their season because letting them go felt like loss.

You made change the enemy.

And then I went to Acadia in October.

Acadia is one of my favorite parks.

I go up to New England every fall, and this is one of the places I spend the most time.

The Beehive is one of my favorite spots. The Precipice is amazing. You're basically climbing a granite wall on metal rungs, walking the ledges in between. It's about determination, having a vision, knowing where you're going, trusting your equipment, and trusting the people around you.

But the lesson I want to tell you about came from the color.

I pulled into Acadia on a Tuesday in October.

Maine was in full surrender.

That's the only word for it.

Surrender.

Every maple on every ridge was on fire.

Reds so saturated you have to see them to believe them.

Oranges. Yellows that sang against the dark green of the spruce that don't turn.

And the blue of the ocean right there.

I drove Park Loop Road slow.

Pulled off at Jordan Pond. Walked up Cadillac. Stood at the top and looked out over an island that was, in a word, releasing.

That's what fall is.

Release.

Every one of those leaves is a tree letting go of something it grew on purpose.

And it's not a tragedy. It's the plan.

The tree doesn't fight the season.

The tree drops what's finished so the structure underneath can survive the winter.

The leaf was always going to leave. That was the deal.

What hit me standing on that mountain is that Acadia is the most beautiful in the exact moment it is letting go.

Not before the letting go.

Not after.

During.

And I thought about every team I'd ever led where I'd tried to hold a season past its shelf life.

Every person I'd quietly tried to keep from making the move that was right for them.

Every structure I'd kept in place because changing it felt like failure.

And I realized I'd been trying to stop a thing... that was never mine to stop.

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Acadia's fall doesn't fight to keep its leaves. It lets them go. And what remains is stronger for the release.

You've got someone on your team right now who is in a season of change and you've been pretending they're not.

You've had the conversation in your head about a role that has outgrown itself, or a role that has outgrown the person in it, and you've put the conversation off.

You've known a partnership was wrapping up and held onto it because ending it felt like admitting something.

You've watched a team member start to stretch toward something you know is right for them, and you've felt your grip tighten instead of loosen.

You've had a part of your own leadership outgrow its season and kept doing it anyway because stopping it felt like giving up.

You've looked at a structure you built three years ago and known it's done, and kept it because dismantling it felt bigger than you had energy for.

None of that is failure.

All of it is you trying to keep summer going in October.

Here's something I didn't want to accept.

The seasons on your team don't ask permission.

They come whether you're ready. They come whether you've planned. They come whether it's convenient or fair or timed well with the quarter you're trying to close.

Somebody outgrows a role.

Somebody's life changes and they need different things from work.

A product matures and needs different leadership than it did when it launched.

A team hits a new stage and the rhythm that got them here stops working.

You hit a new stage yourself and the version of you that built this doesn't want to keep running it.

The old model says resist.

Hold the line. Keep it the same. Don't let anything tip.

But Acadia in October is the reminder.

You don't get to vote on whether fall happens.

You only get to vote on whether you lead through it or get dragged by it.

What season is your team in right now that you've been acting like isn't happening?

Let me tell you what the mountain handed me.

I used to think resisting change was a form of leadership.

I called it stability. Consistency. Staying the course.

I made the speech about how "we don't chase the shiny thing here."

I wore my resistance like a uniform.

And some of that was real.

A good leader doesn't flinch every time the wind shifts.

But a lot of it wasn't stability.

A lot of it was just fear dressed up as discipline.

Fear that if the team changed, I wouldn't know how to lead the new version.

Fear that if I let the season shift, I'd lose my identity as the person who had held it together.

Fear that change meant everything I'd built hadn't been enough.

Resistance felt like strength.

It was actually the old model's last stand.

Because here's what the grip never gets you.

You can keep someone in a role. You can't make them want to be there.

Control can hold a roster together. It has never once produced commitment.

The new model doesn't romanticize change.

It also doesn't romanticize the frozen version of your team from two years ago.

It just stays honest.

This worked. It stopped working. We adjust.

This person was a fit here. They've outgrown it. We help them land well.

This structure served us. It doesn't anymore. We redesign it.

Where are you still calling it stability when it's actually the old model refusing to release?

This is the quiet one.

The leaders I watch most closely don't run from change.

They don't celebrate it either.

They treat it the way Acadia treats October.

With respect. With honesty. With a kind of steady letting-go that most of us haven't learned yet.

They notice what's finished.

A meeting cadence that's run its course.

A role that needs to be re-drawn.

A person who has given everything they can to this chapter and needs a different one.

A part of their own leadership that served them at one scale and is costing them at the next.

They don't pretend those things are still alive.

They also don't rip them out in a panic.

They let the season do its work.

A maple tree doesn't just drop its leaves one morning and call it done.

It changes color first. It signals. It gives the whole forest a few weeks to see what's coming.

Then it releases, one leaf at a time, until the structure underneath is the only thing left.

The best leaders I know lead change the same way.

They signal it. They name what's shifting. They give people time to see it. Then they release what's finished and let the structure that was underneath the whole time carry the winter.

What season is asking you to release something right now that you've been holding on to out of loyalty to a version of your team that isn't coming back?

If you lead like it's still summer when it's clearly October, here's what it costs.

It costs you trust.

Your team can see the season. When you pretend you can't, they stop trusting your read of reality.

It costs you people.

The ones who are ready to move on will move on anyway. You'll just be the leader who wouldn't talk about it, instead of the leader who helped them land well.

It costs you the structure underneath.

If you never let the leaves fall, you never get to see what's strong enough to hold the winter.

You end up dragging last season's meetings, roles and rhythms into May, long after they stopped doing anything but taking up room.

And it costs you the chance to lead beautifully.

Because there is a kind of leadership that shows up only in seasons of change.

The grounded kind. The clear-eyed kind. The kind people tell stories about years later.

You can't do it in July. You have to do it in October.

Your team is in a season right now.

Maybe it's summer and you've got months of growth ahead. Good. Lead like it.

Maybe it's fall and something is asking to be released. Also good. Lead like that too.

The mistake isn't being in any particular season.

The mistake is leading like you're in a different one than the one you're actually in.

Acadia is the most vivid it will ever be in October.

Not because it's clinging. Because it's releasing.

The colors are the letting go.

Your leadership in a season of change can be the same thing.

The most alive it's ever been.

The clearest it's ever been.

The most trusted it's ever been.

If you stop treating the change like an enemy.

And start treating it like the season that it is.

This week, do one thing that honors the season your team is actually in.

Start by naming it.

Out loud. On paper. To yourself first.

Ask three questions... and actually sit with the answers.

What's alive right now that needs room to grow?

What's finished and deserves a respectful release?

What's the structure underneath that will carry us through whatever is next?

Then pick your one thing.

Maybe it's the conversation you've been putting off.

Maybe it's releasing the structure that's done.

Maybe it's naming the chapter you've been pretending isn't ending.

You don't have to rush.

The leaves don't rush. They signal, they change color, they release, one at a time.

You just have to stop pretending it's still summer.