Farm Succession Planning » Leadership Development

Farm Journal Legacy Project: Meet the Dell Family

admin — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 09:02:12 +0000

U.S. Farm Report chronicles conversations and developments as Legacy by Design guides the Dell family to achieve their succession planning objectives.

Duration : 0:4:26

For more information, please visit Farm Journal.com or Legacy-by-Design.com.

Farmers Must Have Leadership Heroes

admin — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 13:47:30 +0000

Who are yours? What make you want to follow their lead?

Leaders, those worthy of being our leaders anyway, always take the responsibility and privilege of leading us seriously.

They know that is we believe in them, based on their actions, we’ll follow them willingly.

As followers we trust them implicitly to consider our best interests when making decisions that effect us.

Today there must be leaders at every level watching out for any pot hole in the road between where you’re going right now and where you want to be in the future.

Leaders during good times – when everybody can see where they should be going are important but leadership and business management is even more important when things go bad.

That’s when we expect our leaders to be able to see around corners, through the trees, and over the horizon.

Here is an important leadership and business management article you should read!

Leadership and Business Management Heroes Inspire Us To Act

Loyalty – The Key Quality of Farm Leaders

admin — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 22:03:27 +0000

There is no quick way to develop business leadership management skill – either among the members of your organization or for that matter, within you.

It takes time to become a leader, you must learn through your life with the passing of time spent learning what real leadership is and what it means to be a leader.

To be a leader you must always be a student.

To be always learning keeps you in the loop with your youngest employees and will help you lead your veteran employees to more effective strategies. Your people expect their leaders to be on the cutting edge.

New ideas and insights, new procedures and new methods whatever their source must always be welcomed and integrated into what you already know and what’s already working for you and your people.

Your employees gain confidence when they know you are on the case – learning, not taking what you’ve done well in the past as an excuse to stop stretching yourself.

In order to be a 21st century business leader you and all the other leaders in your organization must possess the essential qualities of leadership. And it is only through experience that these qualities will be born and nurtured until they become master skills.

Every article, every book, and every training course devoted to business leadership management and its development have lists that claim to be “the” qualities and characteristics of leaders. I will not argue with any of them – they are all important, each is more or less important depending on the specific business where the characteristics are found.

If there is one characteristic of leadership that all gurus, experts, authors, and academics will agree on – it’s loyalty.

Above all a leader must be loyal. Loyalty to the mission, loyalty to your bosses, loyalty to your direct reports, and loyalty to your peers.

That loyalty is a critical element is not in doubt – however being loyal does not mean we should not disagree with one another. Disagreement is not the same as disloyally.

In fact the most loyal followers are those who disagree with their leaders and openly discuss their points of disagreement until a consensus is reached – one the followers and the leader can agree on and wholeheartedly endorse.

A follower who, in the best interests of the organization disagrees with the leader is someone to be listened to. That person embodies the notion that open discussion is allowed – that all relevant points of view are considered and that while a business organization might not be run like a true democracy, this one is closer to it than most.

Leaders must demonstrate loyalty by welcoming that discussion, by taking the input of their followers seriously and considering opinions other than their own. And not just the leaders in the Board room – this also applies to leaders whose business leadership management takes place on the shop floor or in the sales manager’s office. They must also encourage discussions between themselves and their subordinates.

The old days of “my way or the highway” are long gone in theory. It is up to leaders at every level of the organization to make sure theory and practice are one and the same in their workplace.

On the other hand, an employee – no matter how low or high in the pecking order, who takes part in or encourages others to take actions that are not in the best interest of the organization should be fired. That person’s ability to influence and as a result discourage loyal employees, managers, and executives is contagious.

It is a disease that will, left untreated cause the death of the organization. No one can serve two masters. The malcontent is more likely to be closer to the people being influenced that you are. No matter who this person is they must be removed and removed quickly.

It is essential to the health and prosperity of the business that the leaders at every level possess the skill, ability, attitude, and loyalty that will enable them to successfully carry out their responsibilities for the good of the organization as a whole.

Empathy, the Often Hidden Quality of Farm Leadership Success

admin — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 22:12:11 +0000

Historically we thought of successful leaders as General Patton types, with their chrome plated helmet with their riding crop slapping their tall shiny black boots.

They were our leaders because we were told they were.

Theirs was the “don’t do what I do, do what I say do” model. Command and control were usually what we meant when we thought of our leaders.

Farm leaders today have qualities we would not necessarily associate with leadership and business management – even though we have always been drawn to follow those who had them.

One of these qualities is empathy, a genuine appreciation and understanding of the values of others.

Today’s farm leaders appreciate the cultures, beliefs, and traditions of those who follow them, whether they are internal members of their organization or customers and prospects with whom they wish to have productive relationships.

Those who excel at farm leadership and management are sensitive to the needs of their followers, this is empathy – not to be confused with sympathy.

Sympathy often results in vacillation, being wishy-washy from side to side – while a true leader, with the good of the organization in mind, pursues hard diplomacy and makes the tough decisions.

Empathy allows for decisiveness and leaders are called upon to be decisive. They must know when to act and just as importantly know when not to act, objectively and empathetically taking into account all the facts bearing on the situation.

Decisiveness means a leader will not put off making the hard decisions. When a leader will not make decisions it is confusing and discouraging to their subordinates, their peers, and their supervisors.

An unwillingness to make decisions only serves their competitors, inside of and outside of the organization.

Leaders also develop the quality of anticipation. They learn, by observing the reactions and responses of others, this quality – to shape his or her instincts based on experience.

Excellent farm leaders learn to anticipate thoughts, actions, and consequences in ways that make them seem clairvoyant. They seem to “just know” the right way to approach a situation – leading to the glow we followers are attracted to.

It is true that anticipation brings with it a level of risk, but that risk is willingly accepted by the true leader, while those just pretending to be leaders do nothing and turn to the comfort and personal security of playing it safe.

With empathy, compassion, decisiveness, and anticipation comes timing. It really is always about the timing. Timing is essential to all acts of successful leadership and business management. And there is no magic formula for developing a sense of timing. That’s why becoming a leader takes time not school books.

Leaders learn timing, and many of the qualities of leadership and business management through trial and error, failure – and by applying the lessons learned as a result of each failure they hone their leadership skills.

Leaders know that failure is not fatal and failure is not a personal indictment of their character, in fact it is just the opposite. If you are afraid to fail you will not act and if you will not act you will not be called a leader.

Leadership and business management success takes an infinite variety of forms – one for every leader. Each of us is different and to be an effective leader we need to know who we are, are comfortable being ourselves, understand our motives, and our character – flaws and all.

Farm leaders embrace their own style, understand and are true to their own priorities, and honest about their ambitions.

These leadership and business management elements are critical when you, the emerging leader, are seeking approval and cooperation for even the most mundane of your recommendations and actions.

Farm Leaders Know That Loyalty Takes Time

admin — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 12:45:22 +0000

There is no quick way to develop business leadership management skill, either among the members of your organization or for that matter, within you.

It takes time to become a leader, you must learn through your life with the passing of time spent learning what real leadership is and what it means to be a leader.

To be a leader, a master of business leadership management – you must always be a student. To be always learning keeps you in the loop with your youngest employees and will help you lead your veteran employees to more effective strategies.

Loyalty The Key Quality of Business Leaders

Farm Succession Planning » Leadership Development

Farm Journal Legacy Project: Meet the Dell Family

Recommended Reading

Farmers Must Have Leadership Heroes

Leadership and Business Management Heroes Inspire Us To Act

Recommended Reading

Loyalty – The Key Quality of Farm Leaders

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Empathy, the Often Hidden Quality of Farm Leadership Success

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Farm Leaders Know That Loyalty Takes Time

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