Many articles have been written about leadership.
I can’t propose to be an expert on the topic of leadership, but I can share my observations particularly when it comes to leadership in the seed sector. From my perspective, it comes down to three focus areas: vision, unlocking peoples’ talents/synergies and decision making.
With a hungry planet of some 7.6 billion mouths to feed today — and a 2050 projection of 10 billion — current leaders in the seed industry must convey a vision of what needs to be accomplished to an ever-empowered workforce. We face many challenges from financial, economic, employment and climatic that a leader cannot solve alone in addition to addressing plight of the current 800 million malnourished and 2 billion who go to bed hungry.
Seed innovations require long term commitments that meet company objectives, constraints, and policies… yes policies are embedded in most companies. Knowing what each company’s strengths are is critical for a leader to provide a vision, objectives and tactics. The most critical and basic asset a company has is its people … the innovation driver.
In today’s pandemic crazy work from home shifts and “wanting to make a difference” culture, leaders need to onboard new employees with the right blend of mission, culture and of course renumeration packages. It is also important for leaders to retain productive talent. Finding talent that understands “value creation” increases chances of providing a good match. This shows up as “passion” that’s infectious by the leader and employees. Soft skills are also critical to teamwork which is where the real “unlocking of value” happens! People need inspiration to produce at peak levels along with experience building/training to become even more productive, vital to a company and self-fulfilling. Look around at successful seed companies and notice the camaraderie, the customer focus, the drive to always do better that sets them apart. This shows up as a strong “brand awareness” or what I like to call “customer experience”.
Leadership also involves networking and bringing groups together to solve unmet customer needs. Field sales reps must be heard by their leadership to pass unmet needs to agronomic services groups and eventually on to plant breeders, researchers, geneticists, and other scientific supermen(women). Seed companies commit 15-30% of revenues and seven to 16 years into new seed innovations ranging from germplasm, stress mitigators, traits, seed and soil protectants and professionally produced seed.
Teamwork is critical to be successful in the seed industry. In our transition from Boomers to Millennials/Gen Z learning how to weave everyone’s strength to provide team synergies is the ultimate goal of leaders. Leaders need to foster an open, approachable, transparent, curious culture that celebrates successes but also quickly corrects any “off the scent” behaviors for the benefit of the team.
Within any organization, there are both formal and informal leadership structures that help keep the wheels turning. When things get tough, the informal network is usually called on to help overcome barriers due experience, talent or even playing devil’s advocate. This all boils down to “trust”. Hard to earn but easy to lose, trust is the foundation of a well-oiled team and company.
Leadership is all about developing and nurturing trust whether with employees, customers, management or the public in general and taking all the great ideas and work that teams put forth followed by making tough decisions. Always give credit to others and humbly take responsibility for mistakes.
Successful leaders should always ask themselves these questions?
- Do they believe in you?
- Do they trust you?
- Will they follow you?
