This Is Not Good For Business—Or Our Humanity

When Fear Shows Up at Work

This week, members of the Nathan Wright Landscape Design field team—one of the family-owned businesses I lead—were stopped by ICE while installing a project in Oak Park. Everyone is safe, but the experience has left our team, and our wider community, deeply concerned and resolute.

Our team members are U.S. citizens and permanent legal residents. Our team was doing good work in a garden in Oak Park until four unmarked vehicles with masked federal agents pulled up and started harassing and intimidating our team.

This was not a strategy. This was reckless and lazy work at the hands of the Executive Branch of the United States of America.

This is not a headline. It is not a debate on social media. It is the lived reality of people who show up every day to do their jobs with integrity, craftsmanship, and care.

At Nathan Wright Landscape Design, we are guided by values of dignity, humanity, and community. What happened this week stands in direct opposition to those values. As I shared with our team, clients, and community:

“Silence serves no one—and this is no longer just something we see in headlines or social media posts. It’s something our team was confronted with today. And it’s not okay.

We stand in solidarity with those most directly impacted by this climate of fear and instability. Our colleagues, friends, and neighbors should never have to navigate intimidation or uncertainty simply for showing up to work and contributing to our shared world.

We do not stand with this strategy or the abuse of power it represents. It is destructive, detrimental, and expensive for all Americans.”

Clean Anger and Conscious Power

When I got the call from our Crew Leader about what happened in the field, at a job site, I was angry. And that’s not an admission—anger can be holy. Anger, when clean, is a sign that something must end or change. It wakes us up. It sets a boundary. It says, “This is not okay.”

Most people confuse anger with reactivity. They are not the same. Reactivity is ego—it’s indulgent, performative, unconscious, and unsustainable. Clean anger, on the other hand, is rooted, present, and connected to purpose. It feels strong, not chaotic. It brings clarity, not confusion.

That is the anger I felt this week. Not fury for its own sake, but a deep, embodied “NO.” No to intimidation. No to fear tactics. No to the abuse of power that forces small businesses and their teams to absorb new costs, legal liabilities, and emotional burdens they did not create.

Clean anger requires regulation. Reactivity burns out quickly. But steadiness—the discipline to stay grounded while feeling deeply—is the real work of leadership.

A leader must know how to feel fully without spilling that emotion onto everyone else. Our nervous systems are part of the infrastructure of business. When we are steady, our teams, our clients, and our communities can trust us.

Truth Costs Less Than Silence

We received dozens of emails from clients and colleagues after we shared that our documented team had been stopped by ICE. Many thanked us for speaking out. A few unsubscribed. That is okay. What is risky is not speaking the truth.

I built my work—and my leadership at Nathan Wright Landscape Design—on telling the truth, taking responsibility for my influence, and acting in alignment with my values. That is what we did this week.

If a client or colleague does not align with those values, then we are not a match. But those who are aligned—the ones who care about humanity and justice—draw closer when you speak with clarity and conviction. Truth has gravity.

Let me be blunt: intimidation tactics like that of the current Executive Branch of the United States are not only immoral—they are bad for business. We have since retained an immigration attorney, our team members are documented. To engage immigration counsel for U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents makes absolutely no sense. Unanticipated and unwarranted legal counsel is an expense most small businesses cannot and should not have to absorb. Members of our team lost a full day of work dealing with the aftermath. My team was shaken. Our clients were disturbed. And the energy we could have devoted to serving people and planting beauty was redirected to managing fear and protecting a team that should not be at any risk.

This is the cost of manufactured drama. It drains effectiveness, trust, and the human spirit.

The Real Work of Leadership

Every leader I know is stretched right now. The news cycle, the economy, the uncertainty—it is a lot. But our job is to stay in it. To stay awake. To stay human.

Cynicism will kill you faster than fear. You may not be able to control the systems at play, but you can choose how you respond. You can keep showing up—with honesty, transparency, and courage. You can decide, over and over again, to make the contribution you are here to make.

Our commitment remains:

“We’ll continue to show up for our team and our community—with honesty, transparency, and courage.”

That is the work. That is the leadership. And that is the business I want to be in.

Email sent to the Nathan Wright Landscape Design community following the ICE incident, October 20, 2025.

Author’s Note
This reflection is part of my ongoing exploration of transformational leadership—the practice of leading with truth, consciousness, and courage, especially when the world feels unstable. For more essays on leadership in practice, explore Stop Navel-Gazing: Make Change Real or Make Work Sacred Again, and subscribe to my list to stay in touch.