Really Big Trees

The coastal redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) in the Pacific Northwest are the tallest trees in the world—the record holder, Hyperion, stands at 380.3 feet. They are capable of reaching such heights due to several factors, with a significant one being their ability to absorb up to 40% of their water needs through their leaves. The theoretical maximum height redwoods could move water from the roots is about 400 feet, and it requires immense energy.

While visiting these magnificent trees recently, I was thinking about how the most amazing things have adaptations that enable them to overcome the limitations holding others back.

Every leader eventually hits their ceiling. For the redwoods, it’s the physics of moving water hundreds of feet against gravity. For us, it might be time, energy, expertise, or just the sheer complexity of leading a growing organization. The temptation is always to push harder through the same channels—working longer hours, attending more meetings, inserting yourself into more decisions. But, like a redwood trying to pump water 400 feet through its roots alone, there’s a hard limit to what brute force can achieve.

The redwoods’ genius isn’t in their root system but in the way they’ve adapted: water doesn’t have to come from just one direction. When the fog rolls in along the Pacific coast, they drink it directly through their needles. They’ve developed an entirely different intake system that bypasses their primary constraint.

Great leaders do the same thing. When they can no longer be in every meeting, they develop people who can represent their thinking. When they can’t process all the information themselves, they create systems and cultures that surface what matters. When their direct influence maxes out, they build influence through others. They don’t just work harder—they work differently.

Redwoods also have relatively shallow root systems for trees of their height—rarely deeper than 10—12 feet. What saves them from toppling in Pacific storms isn’t depth; it’s breadth and interconnection. Their roots extend outward up to 100 feet and intertwine with the roots of neighboring redwoods, creating a collective stability that no single tree could achieve alone.

Many leaders rise through individual contribution—being the smartest person in the room, the hardest worker, the one with all the answers. But sustained leadership at scale requires a shift from personal capability to collective capacity. The strongest leadership teams aren’t collections of individual giants standing alone. They’re groves of leaders whose strengths interlock and compensate for each other’s constraints. When one leader’s roots don’t reach deep enough into finance, another’s do. When someone struggles with the political landscape, a peer helps them navigate.

Old-growth redwood groves also create their own microclimate. The canopy is so dense and the air so still that humidity remains high even when the surrounding area is dry. These trees literally shape the conditions that allow them to thrive. Leaders do this too, though we call it culture. The best leaders don’t just adapt to their environment; they actively shape it through daily behaviors, priorities signaled through resource allocation, stories celebrated, and standards maintained.

What strikes me most about the redwoods is this: they didn’t achieve their extraordinary height by ignoring their limitations. They achieved it by developing multiple, complementary strategies to work around them. Fog absorption. Interconnected roots. Microclimate creation. Fire resistance. No single adaptation made them the tallest trees in the world. The integration of many adaptations did.

Leadership works the same way. You won’t overcome your constraints through a single skill or strategy. You’ll overcome them by developing a repertoire of approaches—building through others, creating enabling systems, fostering interdependence, shaping culture, learning continuously. The leaders who reach the greatest heights aren’t the ones who ignore their limitations or pretend they don’t exist. They’re the ones who, like really big trees, find creative ways to draw strength from unexpected sources—and that’s the Bison Way.