Part of having an executive mindset on the farm is developing others. Developing others might seem like a basic function of management, which it is, but I want to emphasize that I’m not just talking about teaching basic farm skills but actually developing people’s judgment and ability to make good decisions independently — to effectively lead themselves.

Hiring for “fit” sounds ambiguous, but I have come to learn that “fit” is invaluable in creating a positive farm culture that persists even when I’m not around. “Fit” means the employee possesses and practises the core values of the farm that make everyone work together.

I want to share some of what I’ve learned and what experts have asserted.

People want (i.e. value) autonomy

The kind of people who are engaged and enjoy the unpredictable nature of agriculture enjoy the variety it offers. Leverage that, don’t suppress it. If people are willing to work extra hours and weekends, allowing them flexibility to partially control their own schedules is a huge perk and affords them the power to build in their own work/life balance.

This also goes for deciding how tasks should be executed. Allowing an employee (including a family member) to decide how to complete a task is part of having autonomy. So is solving their own problems.

If giving autonomy to employees seems idealistic and not realistic — check your mindset. If you believe your people won’t make good decisions or get the work done on time, or if you think they won’t be able to solve their own problems, ask yourself:

• What have I done to contribute to this situation?
• Have I been clear about what I want instead of what I don’t want?
• Have I clearly communicated the task’s importance in terms of its connection to the big picture?
• Have I clearly communicated what success looks like, and shared my positive experience of their success?
• Have I shared my wisdom?
• Does this person want what I want?

If you have negative feelings surfacing around trust, ask yourself, “Has this person given me a reason to not trust them? If so, why are they still working for me?”

If you are anxious about their safety or their knowledge and experience, think about ways to support them without making decisions for them. The cell phone camera in both still and video modes has been invaluable in supporting decisions remotely.

Not sure if the monitor is reading correctly? Send me a picture. Not sure if the outfit is doing the right job or sounding right? Record a video.

Allowing people to safely struggle is good. Let them know you are there for support, but they’re expected to figure it out and get it done.

Acknowledge, allow, accept and appreciate the learning vs. performing paradigm

When people are learning, they tend to not perform very well. Productivity will be lower, time will be wasted and mistakes will be made. The job of the farm CEO is to manage this paradigm.

I regularly ask myself, “How can I incorporate learning into this activity?” Bin checking becomes an inventory, marketing and cash-flow lesson.

High performance usually means mastery — and time to transition to higher responsibilities.

If all of this makes you tense, ask yourself, “What’s at risk if I don’t develop others? How am I going to be able to transition out and keep the business viable? What if I were hospitalized for six weeks?”

As the leader, do I have the right mindset?

Fostering autonomy and learning in others requires that I be able to let go of thoughts and beliefs around perfection, competitiveness, and “the right way is my way.” The benefit is that it creates a more flexible work environment and it frees the farm CEO to work on their business instead of in their business, including taking a break away from the action when we never thought we could. And yes, when the time is right, it will help us transition out too.

Kelly Dobson kelly@leader-shift.ca is chief leadership officer of LeaderShift Inc., powering the National Farm Leadership Program initiated by Farm Management Canada for farmers and farm advisors in January 2020.

– This article was originally published in the January 2020 issue of Country Guide.

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In my last article I described six characteristics of highly effective leaders. This article concludes this series and describes leader characteristics that can be expressed only by adequately possessing the previous six attributes. Here goes:

Highly effective leaders are capable of making bold decisions and abandoning the past if necessary

This is the next step beyond being curious. After hearing all the input, listening to the experts and the naysayers, highly effective leaders make a decision. They also act. I believe this ability “cuts the herd” as many leaders are not capable of taking a bold step forward into the unknown. Highly effective leaders have been described as being capable of looking around corners and seeing what few others see.

This is closely connected to their degree of observation and cognition and to their command of their emotions, as they have taken the hard journey of embracing, tolerating and finally decrypting uncomfortable feelings (X feeling = X emotion). They have made a leap of consciousness that the most important decisions can’t be made by lifting the lid of their lap top; they can only be supported. (Yes there is a limit to management.)

As decisions become complex and the data isn’t conclusive (I always make more money on spreadsheet farming than in reality), you still need to make a decision with inconclusive data and maybe not even “majority” support. Have you ever made the right decision and ignored expert advice? That’s what I’m talking about. I’m also talking about making a bold decision that your everyday peer group may not understand, because they don’t understand how you think.

Highly effective leaders are able to describe their thinking

This is a higher skill than being descriptive. It’s about having the capacity to describe complex ideas so others can understand your thinking. This is where executive coaching comes in. It is often helpful to have a trained person to assist the leader in processing executive level cognition, so they can understand themselves first; then they can explain their thinking to others. Professional leader development also plays a role here by introducing ways of thinking that help people engage in complex organizational learning. (Yes, I’m still thinking farms.)

Highly effective leaders cultivate diverse networks

This pursuit is essential to develop and support a leader’s thinking. Highly effective leaders keep company with other highly effective leaders because they can keep up with their thinking and are capable of challenging them. This includes leaders from disciplines that may appear unrelated (often some of the best).

Notice that to participate in this space, you must have the abilities that support this level of curiosity, particularly being challenged (to the point of realizing you don’t have a clue what you are doing) and being exposed to ideas that you may not agree with. Highly effective leaders understand the enormous utility in trying to understand all things, including ideas they strongly disagree with.

Highly effective leaders tolerate the anxiety of others

Highly effective leaders expect that when they act as they feel compelled to do, some will resist, and a few may become reactive even to the point of undermining their leadership. Leaders accept that as part of being effective. It has been said that anxious behaviour is a sign of leadership, because the opposite type of leader behaviour is pleasing and/or distance behaviours, which I would describe as basically anti-leadership behaviours.

Don’t conclude that a leader should ignore the reactivity of others. I’m suggesting they should expect it and manage for it. Above all, they shouldn’t back down from a decision solely because it might make someone upset. (How many family businesses does this describe?) Doing so, as a way of leading, basically puts the least emotionally regulated in charge.

Finally, highly effective leaders are a non-anxious presence

The objective of leadership is to actively and intentionally manage their own anxiety by neither holding other people or things responsible for their experience, nor holding themselves responsible for the experience of others.

Equally as important, when situations become tense or difficult, they don’t check out or disconnect.

This capacity has two benefits. First, it affords the leader the mindset to internally process their full experience, so they can clearly know what they want, and act. Second, supporting the emotional regulation of their followers maintains partnership and performance. This is supported in the neuroscience literature, and I hope to cover that in the future.

Mastering all 12 attributes is unlikely without first learning how to do so and having adequate support to continuously practice and develop them.

I’m continually amazed at the time business owners invest in controlling costs, quality, and productivity of the product or service they are producing. Most went to school for two to four years to understand the foundational knowledge that underpins what they produce. They regularly attend conferences and trade shows to keep up with the latest production innovations. I get it. It’s cool, often shiny, and it can be directly connected to the bottom line, because they have spent years learning how to do just that.

I want to emphasize that solutions to the greatest challenges and opportunities are not found in strategy or quick fixes, they are found within the people who have problems.

Kelly Dobson is president of LeaderShift Inc., a leader support and development firm serving small- and medium-sized enterprises (leader-shift.ca). Kelly is also an active fourth-generation farmer at Fairfax, Man.

– This article was originally published in the February 1, 2019 issue of Country Guide.

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Women make great farm CEOs. Did you hear that, Dad? Studies are showing that women have a lot to offer as executive decision-makers, and the reason why has some lessons to teach agriculture about what are the most valuable professional competencies needed on the farm, and why.

What does the research say? One global study showed that women hold about 38 per cent of senior leadership positions, which is not surprising from my experience.

What the study also showed, however, is that when they focused on identifying the most effective leaders within the sample group, women showed up at 52 per cent.

This is significant because it shows women are performing measurably better than men. Why? Well, thanks to analytics, the study was able to sift the data and come to one conclusion: Women are doing better because they are leading more relationally.

Collaboration, teamwork, forming caring connections, mentoring and interpersonal intelligence; these are all competencies where women were shown to be outperforming men.

I’m guessing you may not be surprised by this. I know I wasn’t. I’ve seen this throughout my work in the ag space and even as far back as grad school. Women are very effective in bringing people together and bringing out the best in individuals.

These findings support the need for farmers to develop beyond a technical, task-related focus. The study confirmed what is becoming more obvious all the time: intelligence, hard work and technical abilities are still necessary, but are now basic. They are not enough to set you apart. Indeed, while a strong work ethic and a robust farm skill set still matter, they won’t be enough to guarantee a successful farm.

Don’t get me wrong. I think the need to be a generalist rather than a specialist on the farm is still the right model for most farms in 2020, but the research is clear. The skill set of a top farm CEO is shifting to a balance between technical and relational competencies.

Finding the balance is critical since farmers need to focus their energies where they will have the most impact, and this will require delegating basic tasks to make space for broader demands. In turn, this means that as farm CEOs we need the ability to develop others so we can achieve success through them, not merely by our direct actions.

In my experience, this is a significant step for many growing farms.

As farms become more complex, the skills that are currently giving women an edge in leadership globally are going to be essential on the farm. Are you getting the most out of your external partnerships? Are they effectively working together to solve complex problems?

The Royal Bank of Canada’s “Farmer 4.0” report which describes farm CEOs as “the Deciders” shares this belief.

To be clear, these aren’t superpowers or even inherited talents — but high-impact, learnable skills based on a basic belief that people matter, and that how I interact with others determines the results I get.

Let’s also pause to reflect on how significant being at the top of a leader-effectiveness sample group can be. As I’ve mentioned in previous articles, as well as in workshops and podcasts, leader effectiveness has a strong, positive correlation to business results, and the size of those results aren’t incremental — but tend to be on a Pareto distribution.

That is, the small group at top is achieving way more results than the average, meaning the return on investment (ROI) on developing CEO competencies is also high.

I’m reminded of a TED talk featuring a former air force pilot who asserted the world may be competitive, but there is always room at the top, so focusing on being the best at what we do is a great investment of our time and energy.

Kelly Dobson kelly@leader-shift.ca is chief leadership officer of LeaderShift Inc., powering the National Farm Leadership Program initiated by Farm Management Canada for farmers and farm advisors in January 2020.

– This article was originally published in the March 3, 2020 issue of Country Guide.

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Leadership is the overlooked skill set that can explain why some farms move forward and grow, overcoming difficult periods to successfully transition from one generation to the next. It can also explain why some others don’t.

In recent decades, research into the fields of leadership, adult development and neuro-science have been converging. We now know that leadership can be developed at any age. When it comes to leader development, neuroplasticity is a six-syllable word for potential (I love big words).

We also know that leadership can be developed and that it can become a competitive advantage for your business.

According to a study of business performance and leader effectiveness, 37.6 per cent of the variation in business performance can be attributed to leadership. As leader effectiveness increases, so does business performance.

Small business has yet to tap into leadership as competitive advantage. How many farmers do you know who have been through a modern, science-based leader development program?

Leadership is the hard business of masterfully executing soft skills — skills that consistently develop and get the best out of others. Leadership solves complex problems by leveraging the collective expertise of our advisers without relinquishing control, and then enables us to make a bold decision without unanimous support.

Leadership means we get more of the things that matter done with better results. Its skills empower us to wade into difficult conversations with those most important to us, and to firmly stand our ground while staying curious because we know how. Leadership also means we know our own mind, and its skills make business plans a reality, again and again, in good times and especially in the tough ones.

As a kid, I was fascinated by leadership on the playground. How could a particular older kid achieve good results with his teams, a different one each recess, consistently? I was hooked, but it was a mystery to me. Half a life later, and I’ve decided to take my childhood fascination and all the leadership experiences and education in between, and support small- and medium-sized business leaders who struggle to access professional leader development, but need it just as much.

Leadership has existed since humans worked collectively to increase their survival odds but has only been formally studied over the last half-century. Today, what makes leaders effective is well known and can be accurately measured — you can have your leadership assessed and compared to a data base of leaders, by those who know your leadership best — those you lead.

I’ve heard effective leadership explained away as luck (which has been shown to be a significant and overlooked factor), a smart move (but how does it happen over and over), or strong management (which explains the smart moves, but how are these leaders consistently able to execute so well everywhere, all the time).

Leadership is an X-factor, an awesome sauce that can be applied to every aspect of your business and make it better. In that way leadership is soft, allowing capable leaders to make an impact everywhere because they positively influence at every encounter with a residual effect. It’s as if they’re everywhere in their business all the time, except some weeks they aren’t there at all, and smart decisions continue to be made. Leadership produces effectiveness in others and has nothing to do with good cell reception.

Over the coming issues, I want to share what research says about which leadership competencies are most strongly correlated to leader effectiveness, and what reactive tendencies kill leader effectiveness. Reactive tendencies are the behaviours we express everyday and that we adopted out of our childhood. They have served us reasonably well as adults. The problem with these behaviours is that they are an unsustainable way of leading and can be overused.

Like a narrow chemical rotation, overdoing a reactive tendency can have negative consequences, and without you realizing, turn a reasonable approach into a crippling life and business-limiting defect. It’s a limitation that can explain why some farm businesses fail to thrive and transition. Even if these reactive tendencies are kept in check, this level of leadership is insufficient today, and will be in the future what discers or the double-disc press drill are to seeding today. Just as seeding technology has a future, so does leader development — collaborative, differentiated, appreciative, and connected.

What does it take to build leadership to the point you can feel it and see it on the bottom line? I will share what professional leader development really is. I will also make my best arguments that developing your leadership is really the only answer we have to succeeding in VUCA world (Volatile, Uncertain, Chaotic and Ambiguous — i.e. farming) where our default desire is for an SCSC existence (Stable, Certain, Simple and Clear).

I believe that in our industry, where so many enterprises are undergoing generational transition, leadership is the overlooked factor that allows one generation to confidently step back, and another to step up. It’s also what makes choosing the right technical solutions for transition far smoother. What does each leader want and need from the plan? Can each of them describe it so everyone clearly understands?

Enter Leadership. Stay tuned.

– This article was originally published in the October 2018 issue of Country Guide. Kelly Dobson is president of LeaderShift Inc. where he supports and develops leaders of small- and medium-sized firms through coaching, leader development and advising. Kelly is a fourth-generation farmer at Fairfax, Man. You may contact Kelly at info@leader-shift.ca. Note: LeaderShift will be attending the Ag Excellence Conference in Winnipeg this November.

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The first is business results. Obviously at the end of the day if we don’t define success and achieve objectives that keep us in business, never mind grow our business, we are not going to be successful. Overall, I think agriculture is adapting and adopting the necessary business practices and technologies. But it’s how results are achieved that is shifting and challenging farmers.

What is so often missed is that how we achieve business results does matter. This was not the prevailing mindset a generation ago, which could have been described as — “get it done.”

Fair enough, but at what cost?

We now live in a world where effort doesn’t determine the result like it once did. I think for many, little or no consideration is given to thinking in ways to solve multiple challenges simultaneously, and to see everything as interconnected and therefore consequential, like the way that how I farm has an impact on global supply chains.

The research is clear. “Smart, technically savvy and hard-working” is now entry level for leadership ability. High-performing leaders are leading relationally. They see through systems and are in a state of continuous personal and professional practice.

Average leadership works okay in average circumstances, but only high leader effectiveness will effectively address circumstances of significant consequence. Otherwise VUCA (a business environment that is “volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous”) will take an enormous toll on the physical and emotional health of the leader, as well as those around them. Thus, understandably, well-being is the third factor of a complete leader.

Well-being is a theory of positive psychology developed in part by Dr. Martin Seligman. My understanding is that at the time, this theory turned psychology on its head by looking at what made people well psychologically, rather than focusing on the diagnosis and treatment of people when they present with mental health concerns.

Well-being is a proactive approach that, as I continually work to connect the research, seems to make an important connection for the ag CEO mindset. Positive psychology basically asserts that well-being is built up from positive emotions cultivated by positive relationships, and by actively engaging in the pursuit of what is meaningful and acknowledging achievement when we succeed.

It is quite possible that there is no sustainable personal and professional success if the well-being of people isn’t being maintained. Think about that. The competencies that describe high leader effectiveness (I use 18 in my work) are all underpinned by positive emotions. You can’t authentically perform them otherwise.

With their permission, I’ll share a comment from a client because it makes the point so well.

“For years I believed that success required me to be stressed out,” they told me. “I now understand that I can achieve more with less stress and have stronger relationships. I thought it was impossible, but I now see it is possible.”

This leader is seeing the sweet spot where business results, professional success, and well-being intersect to create higher performance.

The ring of common sense in the findings only reinforces my belief that a higher level of performance and success is accessible to all of us if we choose to step into it. Even more encouraging is that studies have shown that better business outcomes track positively with increases in leader effectiveness. One study even showed nearly double the profits when comparing an average leader to the most highly rated leaders in the study. If leader effectiveness is trainable, why settle for average?

I’m motivated by those who are evolving their thinking and acting more relationally to leverage the enormous experience and expertise around them. Once we do, there is a world of knowledge and skills available to increase our capacity to achieve more of what matters most.

Kelly Dobson kelly@leader-shift.ca is chief leadership officer of LeaderShift Inc., powering the National Farm Leadership Program initiated by Farm Management Canada for farmers and farm advisors in January 2020.

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Culture has reached cliché status as a management concept, and that’s regrettable because understanding what culture really is, its connection to leadership, how it is created and how it has an impact on business performance are all essential to successfully leadership at an executive level.

It’s why I want to make a case for paying attention to the culture of your farm or ag business.

Culture is the sum of the collective values, beliefs and behaviours of an organization. It’s the reason — often unspoken — why the group behaves the way it does to achieve what matters to it.

Culture includes the stories we tell and the words we use to tell them, and it’s what creates your farm’s cultural “norm,” or what could be described as, “how we roll around here.”

There’s a lot to this, though, so let’s break it down further.

We can’t see the beliefs, assumptions and values that create the culture that we do see. They are unobservable and often unknown, and the people who hold these beliefs, assumptions and values are often unaware that they hold them. That’s psychology.

This hidden world inside each individual is unique, yet it also connects group members to each other through their shared everyday experience working in that business. It becomes a kind of collective cognitive and emotional architecture, and it produces the culture we see.

Importantly, this is why culture and motivation are inextricably linked. Culture is how our values drive our action. It is how we satisfy our needs, which is really another way of saying what we value.

In short, if the culture meets the needs of its people, they will be motivated.

I say all this to emphasize how deep the roots of culture go. It is why the legendary leadership thought leader, Peter Drucker, was quoted as saying, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

It’s why you can take the most rational, evidence-based, best-practice laden, consultant-facilitated plan for moving a business forward to the next level or generation, and watch it stall when hitched to an under-developed business culture.

So let’s picture an owner who because of their position is the de facto leader of a farm. What if they have unconscious beliefs about staying safe by avoiding conflict? This creates a cultural norm of unaccountability. It encourages the group to avoid conversations of consequence, which inevitably leads to poor ethics and low standards.

On the surface, the leader may talk about the values of family harmony, but underneath the culture is all about the fear of being transparent. This culture stifles trust which impairs strategic thinking, action, business performance and ultimately survival.

Similarly, what kind of culture can we expect with a leader who continually criticizes, blames, and shames but who won’t delegate basic decisions? If you don’t provide a culture where people feel safe and respected, the only way they can satisfy their need for feeling those things is by being quiet, invisible or leaving altogether.

A business whose culture doesn’t support the values of its employees will see lower performance and higher turnover.

Leader effectiveness is determined by the values and beliefs of the leader. Those values, as experienced by those they lead, influence their motivation.

This is why no business performs above the effectiveness of its leadership in the long term. It’s why leaders influence culture and are ultimately responsible for it, and why culture matters.

Take a moment and imagine a culture whose source code is based on positive values and beliefs around learning, compassion and innovation. Sit with it. Did you feel the difference? Leader effectiveness can be developed to shape a culture for optimum business results, professional success and the well-being of everyone. Don’t settle.

Kelly Dobson kelly@leader-shift.ca is chief leadership officer of LeaderShift Inc., powering the National Farm Leadership Program initiated by Farm Management Canada for farmers and farm advisors in January 2020.

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If a farmer is successfully operating his or her business, why is transitioning from a manager mindset to an executive mindset an issue? Why should they read any further and not be content doing an excellent job managing the day-to-day operations of the farm? What are we really talking about?

Leadership is a broad idea. To picture this evolution of responsibility, it could be described as an executive mindset and evolving into a farm CEO.

Developing a CEO mindset and the skills to serve that mindset are essential if Canadian farms are to successfully operate in a globalized industry that functions nothing like it did a generation ago.

VUCA (or Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) is the increasingly common acronym for describing a globalized, digitized and data-saturated world. VUCA is, for example, being denied access to our largest canola market for reasons that have nothing to do with agriculture. It is acknowledging swelling global stocks of the commodities we are comfortable growing, and determining if we can keep growing them at prices well below what we’ve been used to, and to successfully do so where markets swing based on tweets.

A CEO mindset empowers farmers to lift their heads above the day-to-day and to make in-the-moment decisions for the benefit of their business in relation to global forces. It’s the ability, after having surveyed the global landscape, to engage the critical partnerships (both external and internal to the farm) to develop a plan that finds a way to achieve more with existing resources.

With a CEO in charge, everyone understands that what they do, and how they do it, matters like never before.

A CEO mindset also strongly correlates to the well-being of the farmer and the well-being of those who work with them. The mental health of Canadian farmers is inextricably linked to their CEO performance. As I continue to review the literature and research around high-performing leaders, the links are both astonishing and common sense.

The most significant link I’ve made so far is that leader effectiveness follows an 80/20 distribution. In other words, a very small group of leaders in any sample group produce a disproportionately large amount of the results.

One study showed the top group made twice as many total decisions as the middle group that was three times larger. In others, each leader in the top group made six times more decisions than the managers in the middle group.

How is this possible? The research into top leaders reveals behaviours and abilities that align with practices that support and develop well-being and high levels of resiliency, not only for themselves, but also for those they work with.

Executive-level behaviour is good both for the farm and the farmer, yet developing a CEO mindset is a practice, the opposite of a quick fix, that is attainable under the right circumstances.

As a startup leader-development business focused on serving the ag space, I’m asserting that the field of leader development is best equipped to prepare the current and next generation of farmers who will power this diverse industry.

Over this fall and winter, I will cover topics that I believe are significant if farmers are to evolve their performance (beliefs and behaviours) in order to thrive in global agriculture. My goal is to address complex ideas that are treated as clichés such as, “Culture eats strategy for lunch” (Peter Drucker) so that readers clearly understand the interconnectedness of the person, the role, and the farm. I hope you will stay tuned.

Kelly Dobson kelly@leader-shift.ca is chief leadership officer of LeaderShift Inc., powering the National Farm Leadership Program initiated by Farm Management Canada for farmers and farm advisors in January 2020.

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In my view, we are all busy, but this sentiment is the verbal equivalent of saying, “I know that clothes are warm, I’m running around trying to stay warm, I don’t have time to put on warm clothes, I’m busy.”

Since early October I’ve been describing leadership in agriculture, leadership development, leadership effectiveness and leadership attributes that collectively create high leader effectiveness. So, I want to address what is for some, and I’m not really sure the size of this group, the elephant in the organization — that leadership is soft and ideological, in contrast to management which is all about action and measurable results.

In other words, leadership is nice, management is essential.

Half true. I love management, or rather loved management. I used to spend endless hours hovering over my financials, creating my own spreadsheets for 12 months rolling cash flow. Management is measuring and controlling actions.

It took farming through some of the most financially difficult periods in my part of Canada (the most difficult in my life so far) to demonstrate with clarity, that management, while essential to farm success, is insufficient to produce success.

There, I said it. If farms have goals around expansion, diversification, intensification or transition, then management without leadership is like tightening a nut with no wrench on the bolt head. Put the biggest impact gun you have on that nut, it’s not going work.

It’s human nature that when things go sideways, the first and often only response is to clean up the mess and move on: a missed agri insurance or investment deadline, a big canola bin heated, a destroyed header or combine because a massive rock was ingested, a key employee leaving or employees leaving one after the other. I’ve heard some report proudly how they addressed the problem, sometimes not. Sometimes, I hear about how they engaged an expert to fill the gap and arrest the problem. Sometimes, I hear a tirade of blaming, shaming and criticism of employees, family members, and external partners

What is often overlooked is that I’ve heard stories like this from people of the same organization, even the same person before. The stories form a pattern, the pattern describes an underlying problem, and it’s persistent. It’s also costing that organization big dollars, much of which is invisible because for those on the inside, they can’t see the pattern — these stories are not connected, or if they can be, it’s rigidly asserted that they can’t be avoided. What is completely outside of their awareness, is that the factors that produce these kinds of problems can often be directly traced to the effectiveness of the leader.

Management tools can’t attribute the financial impact to sub-optimal leader effectiveness, they can only measure the consequences.

It’s often completely outside of the leader’s awareness (there are multiple studies that strongly correlate low leader effectiveness and low self-awareness). How do you connect leader behaviour to businesses results when:

• A tough load of canola was binned as a result of the leader pushing to get done?
• The bin sensors were defective prior to filling, but were only discovered after?
• The rock was too big to be hand-picked, but the leader’s insistence that the equipment was needed elsewhere — allowed the rock to be forgotten?
• Or if the over-extended, over multi-tasked administration side of the business simply missed the deadlines?

Overall, what if the people in the organization are just underperforming, and those who can are leaving?

What’s worse, this high-friction, one crisis-to-the-next approach, demanding that “others bend to the leader’s will,” is taking a mental toll on the leader and everyone around them. It’s unhealthy, unsustainable, unnecessary, and fixable. Everyone’s resiliency is eroded, and then a Black Swan hits — big trouble.

Sometimes others will bring up their observations in a way the leader can understand. This can be a spouse, business partner or key relationship. Sometimes the leader pursues development or coaching independently. They are driven to succeed, are executing their business plans, know that things can be better, and are not going to allow things to fail. They come looking for answers to get better results. Some come thinking they can be “quick fixed,” and some make that happen. (The same drive that got them there, can be redirected and focused.)

Individuals and situations vary, but an observable impact can be made in 12 to 18 months. Typically, the leader reports a significant breakthrough in busting a problem pattern. They also report how those closest to them are observing a change in behaviour that is favourable, steady, empowering and above all, effective.

The coolest part is that this is almost entirely done in real time — as they lead and work in their businesses. “Too busy” was just excusing poor focus on results.

The most gratifying moment is when each participant realizes how much influence they’ve had all along, and they’ve been creating their experience. Many report the development as life changing. All this was possible because the leader held themselves responsible, rose to the challenge and resisted the easy route of ignoring and blaming what can’t be delegated or outsourced — leadership.

Kelly Dobson is a fourth-generation farmer at Fairfax, Man. and is president of LeaderShift Inc., a leader development firm that offers leader development to small- and medium-sized businesses. Contact Kelly at leader-shift.ca.

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First, I also want to say that I do not share client stories even with the names redacted. Agriculture is just too small, and my work with leaders is grounded in the assurance that whatever they share will never be retold.

Broadly speaking, there are many very successful businesses. They have grown significantly over the last number of years, and some consist of multiple enterprises. In short, the owners had a vision, saw opportunities, made a plan and executed it.

From the outside, things likely look pretty good, even impressive.

On the inside, not so much, and at the level of owner/COO/CEO, it’s high unrelenting stress. Every circumstance is unique but there are trends:

• The farmers aren’t sure what’s really going and why — they have a story in their head, but it’s a story.
• They don’t know what the people critical to their business’s success are really thinking.
• Talented people are underperforming or leaving.
• External relationships are not meeting the needs of the business.
• It’s now affecting the performance of business — you can measure it in dollars.

The owners started at the bottom and learned the business, so they know at the granulated level what it takes to produce results. They still can roll under a truck and set a brake pot, operate a heavy piece of equipment like it’s an extension of their body, and do the books. Except that’s not their job anymore, it’s someone else’s and things aren’t going the way they would like.

In fact, by the time I get a call there is ample evidence that the plan is at risk, even serious risk, if things don’t change.

How each leader is reacting (and I do mean “reacting”) to this situation is unique to them, but falls within well understood behavioural frameworks:

• Controlling: In command and a perfectionist mentality of “my way or the highway,” or “just work harder and we will get through this.”
• Protecting: Heaps on the criticism, know it-all attitude, or just checks out. (This is sometimes called Easter bunny leadership, i.e. often talked about, seldom seen.)
• Complying: Full-on anti-leadership behaviours. Peace at all costs, friendship and family at the expense of results, indecisiveness, “who’s really in charge?” exemplified.

Now, contrast all that with a highly effective leader:

• They are results oriented and have a clear vision, think strategically, have numbers they want to hit (and avoid), and have little or no difficulty making a decision.
• They see and operate in systems. They get that there are patterns and processes at work and that they are interconnected. They accept their responsibility to lead in VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity).
• They work in and with relationships and can step into serious conversations without hesitation and often. In fact, they don’t wait until things are serious, they constantly share their full experience as both a currency and as an example of how the human systems part of the business MUST work to make everything else work. This way of being exudes courage, authenticity and creates followership. Everyone always knows where they stand — no guessing, gossip or cringing required. They understand that part of their job is to develop and support others.
• They are resilient — the epitome of mental health. They are the mental equivalent of an endurance athlete, which means they proactively develop their mental health as an essential element of business success. They read, have a personal development plan (like their business does), and they take care of themselves through fitness, hobbies, vacations, sleep, and nutrition. Just as important, they prioritize, develop and maintain relationships that support their well-being and make them better leaders.

What’s the difference to the business?

• Partnership: Everyone feels responsible for the success of whatever they are jointly involved in.
• It’s a business that learns: It’s a place where the collective talents of its members and relationships are leveraged to do more with the resources they already have.
• It’s more profitable.

What I emphasize to people:

• Their current circumstances are fixable, so don’t accept it.
• Developing high leader effectiveness is a game changer, the awesome sauce, and a competitive advantage — it’s worth it.
• Like their business, developing their leadership is a process, but they don’t have to go it alone, nor should they.
• What do they want to do?

It’s gratifying to work with business owners who are driven to succeed, including making themselves their next project. Their efforts will be well rewarded.

Kelly Dobson is a fourth-generation farmer at Fairfax, Man. and is president of LeaderShift Inc., a leader development firm that offers leader development to small- and medium-sized businesses. Contact Kelly at leader-shift.ca.

The post Leader effectiveness meets the leader appeared first on Country Guide.

Wrong. Studies have consistently found that leaders who think they are good leaders are typically not highly rated by those they lead. Also, leadership is not limited to “boss-employee” situations. As I asserted in my first article, effective leadership has a positive impact on all relationships.

So how can we measure leader effectiveness when leadership can be practised in so many different domains? I will clarify this and provide five questions that you can self-assess and ask your peers and employees to rate your leadership by. You won’t get a sense of what your evaluations mean relative to other leaders, but it will give you some feedback to think about.

So let’s get started.

Right off the top, I want to make an important distinction regarding leader effectiveness.

Effective leadership is contextual. Understanding this helps us understand why leaders can be both effective and ineffective at different times in their lives. A highly effective leader in one role can fail spectacularly in another. Take a 5,000-acre farmer who has been rated in 90th percentile in leader effectiveness against a norm data base of hundreds of thousands of leaders rated by millions of evaluators. Ranking in the 90th percentile means their leadership in their current role is a big part of the success of that operation. However, don’t think for a second they should consider applying for a CEO position at a multinational.

It also applies to moving into a leadership role with wider responsibilities. Managing the day-to-day on the farm isn’t the same as being accountable for long- and short-term business results.

Context also means that what is currently going on in their environment can radically influence their effectiveness. You might remember I asserted the importance of developing our leadership to meet the demands of a world that is increasingly being experienced as VUCA (volatile, uncertain, chaotic and ambiguous). What is your leader effectiveness in a low VUCA environment versus a high VUCA environment? How hard is it to lead in multiple years of low- versus high-priced crops? How about higher interest rates? How about low prices, high interest rates and low quality? (I could keep going.)

Today, farmers have the benefit of digital financial management tools that add clarity to the decision-making process in contrast to my parents’ generation which, for instance, learned the impact of 18 per cent interest rates without amortization tables, never mind mortgage and loan calculators on their phone.

Through all this complexity and access to information, we still must make a decision and successfully execute it. This is where management meets leadership. As I asserted earlier, leadership matters most in the tough times and I think there is a whole generation of farmers whose leadership hasn’t been tested.

It’s natural that leader effectiveness will decline as the burden increases. The question is, “Will we have what it takes, when we need it the most?” I will describe a pathway in future articles to explain what specific behaviours create high-impact leadership.

Leadership readiness is a big part of farm business succession that is under-emphasized and therefore under-actioned. Obviously, estate and financial considerations are important, but I wonder how many successions are delayed because of unspoken and unaddressed concerns regarding the readiness of the upcoming generation to take a firm and steady hand.

I’ve also noticed that most leader succession plans (if there is one) are largely “wait and see, give it time” based. Successful businesses are not operating their leader succession plan based on hope. They are actively planning and ensuring the next generation accesses the support and development necessary to be ready for a dramatically different world than the previous generation experienced.

How would knowing that the next generation has the “right stuff” influence your transition decision? What if the leadership learning curve could be made steeper without having a negative impact on the bottom line, but actually strengthening it? This is possible, but not probable without development and support.

Here are five questions you can ask those who know your leadership best. They’ll help you determine your effectiveness as a leader:

1. Are you satisfied with the quality of leadership that I provide?
2. Am I the kind of leader that others should aspire to become?
3. Am I an example of an ideal leader?
4. Does my leadership help this organization thrive?
5. Overall, do I provide very effective leadership?

I have a good idea what you might be thinking, “There is no way I’m asking these questions!”

I get it. It’s tough, even embarrassing to ask these questions face to face, especially when there is a high probability you won’t like some of the answers. Yet those five questions have been shown to strongly correlate to organizational results.

They’re tough questions, but the right ones. Leader development will help you discover the real answers, and help you develop and execute a plan to improve the answers.

Kelly Dobson is president of LeaderShift Inc., a leader support and development firm serving small- and medium-sized enterprises. Kelly is also an active fourth-generation farmer at Fairfax, Man.

The post Leader effectiveness deconstructed appeared first on Country Guide.