5 Leadership Lessons for Trade Business Owners from Landscaper & Director Ashlee Hadden

Guest: Ashlee Hadden

Episode: Season 2, Episode 20

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Ashlee Hadden is the founder and director of The Girl Who Lifts Landscaping, a Mornington Peninsula landscaping business powered by a majority-female team. Before picking up the tools, she spent years in management, starting as a supervisor at KFC and later working as a store manager at Aldi, before starting her landscaping apprenticeship as a mature-age apprentice. Since launching her business in 2025, she has built a brand that combines trade grit with a focus on strength and mindset, all while raising a family.

Here's what she's learned about leadership as a trade business owner:

Lesson 1: Build your own leadership rulebook

Ash has led people since she was 18, but always within systems someone else had already built. At KFC and Aldi, the training and structure were in place before she arrived.

"I have had quite a lot of experience in management, but it's been other people's frameworks, not mine," she says.

Onsite, there's no manual that covers everything. Her crew can do five different jobs in one day, so she’s had to develop her own way of training, trusting, and backing people.

Borrowed experience from other businesses is a head start, but every leader eventually has to build a rulebook that fits their own team and style.

Lesson 2: Every new hire needs training to succeed

Going from sole trader to employer meant Ash's quality standard was no longer just about her own work. The hardest part was remembering that new starters don't always know what she knows, even when they've got experience.

Her solution is to always "spend the time with them, show them properly, teach them the why."

It's an early investment that pays off. Once people understand the standard she expects and the reason behind it, the day-to-day communication gets easier, and she can trust them to hold that standard without her watching.

Lesson 3: How to respond to mistakes without losing your team's trust

When something goes wrong, Ash starts with questions, not blame.

Was an instruction missing? Did they know what they needed to? Then she hands the problem back: "Okay, this mistake's made. Now, how can we fix it? What would you do to fix it?"

She admits it takes some pride-swallowing, because the boss's way isn't always the best way.

"Their input might look at it a different way, and that might be a way better way of doing it," she says.

Being curious before being frustrated keeps people on board, and it turns a mistake into a coaching moment instead of a telling-off.

Lesson 4: How daily meetings stop small problems from growing

Alongside fortnightly team meetings, Ash runs a five-minute huddle every morning. The crew agrees what needs to get done, who's doing what, and what each person needs from her to get there. Because she's still onsite nearly full time, she can jump in wherever someone is struggling.

The real value is catching issues early.

"It's a really good time to kind of address it then instead of it compiling and compiling and becoming a bigger problem," she says. A few minutes of planning each day saves a lot of cleaning up later.

Lesson 5: Why letting go of tasks helps you avoid burnout

Running a business, working onsite and raising a family means the work never really stops. Ash has learned to write things down, prioritise what matters most, and notice when the extra hours are adding up.

As she puts it: "If I keep continuing this way, I know I'm gonna get burnt out.”

Her answer has been building a team she can lean on, from an admin person handling client calls to a crew leader who can take on more.

Handing work over still doesn't come easily, but she says, “Knowing you do have those people and being able to ask those people for help, that's really helped lighten the load."

Letting go is uncomfortable, and that's usually where the growth is.

Ash’s Advice on Everyday Leadership

Ash keeps it simple: never ask your team to do something you won't do yourself.

"If I won't do it, like I won't ask my team to do it," she says. That's how she keeps a crew motivated in one of the most physical trades, and how her majority-female team wins over clients who weren't expecting them.

Her advice for every tradie comes back to the same idea: "Be the leader that you would wanna work for."

Catch the full conversation with Ashlee Hadden on Tradies Who Lead for more leadership lessons for tradies, out now wherever you listen to podcasts.