Walking the Fence Line

July 24, 2026

“Around a ranch, the brand stays with the ranch. The herd never does. Good ranchers know cattle come and go. What endures are strong fence lines, good stewardship, and a place worth coming back to.” — Halcyon Ranch

Earlier this week, someone suggested I had been recruiting their employees.

I’ll admit, it bothered me. Not because someone questioned my integrity. While no one enjoys that, it wasn’t really the point. It bothered me because it revealed two very different views of leadership.

One asks, “Who’s recruiting my people?” The other asks, “Why are my people looking?” That question has been rattling around in my head ever since.

Over the last thirty years, I’ve had hundreds of conversations about careers. They started in classrooms with students trying to figure out who they wanted to become. They continued with teachers wondering if they were ready to lead. Today they’re with executives, former colleagues, friends, and sometimes complete strangers trying to navigate a difficult career decision. I try to make time. The reality is that LinkedIn makes that impossible for everyone, but if someone is in my network or I genuinely believe I can help, I almost always say yes.

Those conversations rarely begin with compensation. They usually begin with something much deeper. A leader who stopped listening. A loss of trust. A lack of autonomy. A mission that no longer feels like their mission. The feeling that they’ve stopped growing. Money may influence where someone ultimately goes, but in my experience it rarely determines why they started looking.

Ironically, when someone reaches out, my first instinct isn’t to help them leave. It’s to help them slow down.

“Give it a week.”

I’ve probably said those four words hundreds of times.

One frustrating meeting shouldn’t determine your future. One difficult season shouldn’t erase years of investment. Clarity is a much better career advisor than emotion. Sometimes the right answer is leaving. Sometimes it’s staying. But almost always, the first step is having the conversation.

If I’m being honest, that lesson took me years to learn. Earlier in my career, it often felt easier to leave than it did to have the difficult conversation. Walking away can feel safer than risking disappointment or hearing an answer you don’t want. More recently, I chose differently. I had the conversation. It created clarity. It strengthened trust. It reminded me that good leaders can’t solve problems they don’t know exist.

Leadership is stewardship, not ownership.

The best leaders I’ve worked for never made me feel like they needed to keep me to validate their own success. They made me feel like they were investing in me. They understood that my career wasn’t something they owned. It was something they were privileged to influence. They cared more about helping me become a better leader than they did about adding another year to a retention report. Ironically, that’s exactly what made me want to stay longer.

When I became a principal, I tried to build that same kind of culture. Safety didn’t mean lowering expectations. Safety meant transparency about what the future looked like. It meant telling people early when change was coming. It meant making sure teachers knew how much they were valued. It meant being present. It meant advocating for them. It meant making sure they knew someone had their back.

Did everyone stay? Of course not. Nor should they have. Some became curriculum directors. Others became principals. Some found opportunities our district simply couldn’t offer. Watching them grow wasn’t a loss. It was part of the job.

The same is true today. Whether someone works with me now, worked with me years ago, sat in one of my classrooms, played on a team I coached, or reaches out through someone we both know, I try to make time because someone once made time for me. Those investments have a remarkable way of paying dividends years later, sometimes decades. Former students. Former colleagues. Former employees. Sometimes the greatest compliment isn’t that someone wants to work with you again. It’s that they still trust you enough to ask for your advice.

Stewards don’t measure success by possession. They measure success by what they leave better than they found it.

So when I hear leaders talk about competitors recruiting their people, I understand the concern. But I would encourage them to ask a different question first. Have we created an environment where talented people feel trusted, challenged, heard, and valued? Do they know where they stand? Do they believe someone is invested in their future? Have we had the conversations we’ve been avoiding?

Because if several people are quietly exploring opportunities, the first place I would look isn’t LinkedIn or a competitor’s recruiting strategy.

I’d start by walking the fence line.

Every rancher knows that when one cow gets through a fence, you repair the fence. But when the herd keeps pushing against the same stretch of fence, experienced ranchers stop blaming the cattle. They walk the fence line. They look for the weak spot. They ask what changed.

Leadership isn’t much different.

The first place I’d look is the mirror.

Because leadership isn’t about holding on to people as tightly as possible. It’s about helping them become the best version of themselves. If you do that well, many will stay. Some will leave. A few will outgrow you.

That’s not a failure of leadership. It might just be its greatest success.

Because the measure of a leader isn’t how many people they keep.

It’s how many people are better because they crossed paths with them.