Growing Weeders into Leaders

Leadership Lessons from the Ground Level

By: Jeff McManus

Narrated by: CJ Mullin

One of America’s most accomplished landscaping professionals reveals his methods for cultivating greatness.

Nowadays, greatness tends to be measured by shortest or longest times, highest heights, medals won, honors given. But as Aristotle taught us, greatness is what we can do every day, without recognition or reward, for the satisfaction that comes from meeting the challenge, creating a team, and overcoming the odds.

Under Jeff McManus’ leadership as Director of Landscape Services, the Ole Miss campus has won professional awards—and been cited by Newsweek and Princeton Review as America’s “most beautiful campus”. In Growing Weeders into Leaders, he relates the principles behind his team’s success. It is an entertaining and thoughtful look into the hearts and the workday lives of ordinary people who tapped into their inner greatness in pursuit of a vision. Creating one of America’s most beautiful college campuses at the University of Mississippi did not happen overnight and, inside these minutes, McManus describes the joys, the defeats, the brilliant problem-solving, and the best laid plans that are proven worthless...until the bigger picture appears.

This is the bigger picture as viewed from the ground level—taking you through the practical applications of empowering people to experience not only what it means to grow outstanding landscapes, but also to grow greatness in themselves and encourage it in others.

©2018 Jeff McManus (P)2022 Morgan James Publishing

Critic reviews

“A straightforward approach to problem-solving and methods to grow individuals into a team.” (Susanne Woodell, CGM Historic Gardens Manager, Biltmore)

Jeff is the Real Deal

I worked for Jeff as a student worker back at Ole Miss. Even though he ran three major departments on campus, he took the time to personally invest in his people, including me. He would sometimes take an hour or more out of his week just to talk to me, and encourage me, and help me identify the talents that I could use for my job that I had never thought to apply. He taught me the importance of taking ownership in my work, and to have faith in the concept of buying into the team and taking pride in your work. He instilled the importance of recognizing the efforts of others, and what a big effect morale plays in the efficiency of an organization. I'm so glad that he's put these lessons into a book so that others can learn them. The lessons in this book can help you weed out negativity in your organization. I find satisfaction in my job 12 years later as a systems administrator at a university in another state, because I'm now growing a cyber landscape, and I know I'm helping future engineers that will go on to do many great things to benefit society. I highly recommend this book to any leader or employee looking to improve the morale and efficiency of their organization, big or small.