Reading Time: 2 minutes A long-time Prairie agriculture policy player who last year became Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall’s seniormost bureaucrat has joined the race to replace him. Alanna Koch, who farms with her husband at Edenwold, Sask., about 40 km northeast of Regina, announced her candidacy Monday for the leadership of the province’s governing Saskatchewan Party. Koch was the […] Read more
Koch to seek Saskatchewan Party leadership
From planning to implementation
AME Management: Get into these management habits. They will help you develop the strategic objectives that will drive your farm where you want it to go, and then help you achieve real progress toward them
Reading Time: 4 minutes In our past column, we reviewed the habits of successful agricultural managers. One habit is that successful managers don’t just do strategic and operational planning, they translate their plans into action — i.e. they have a process to implement the plan. Like most farmers, many CTEAM participants have had little experience or training in planning […] Read more
The leader’s job
Summer Business: Boehringer Ingelheim’s Susan Blair shares how lessons from the farm help in the corporate world, and how lessons from the boardroom can make a big difference back on the farm
Reading Time: 7 minutes [Updated April 27, 2017] Susan Blair makes her point. An organization has a much better chance of success, she says, when leadership gives clear direction to their teams about what they’re working toward and how they’re expected to achieve it. But then she follows through, because in Blair’s view, that kind of success demands leaders […] Read more
Guide HR: Nine tips for innovation
Innovation can be successfully harnessed on today’s farms. Here’s how
Reading Time: 3 minutes Some farmers seem to have a talent for developing new markets, new products, or new and better ways of getting things done. They innovate. Is that talent something they were born with? More to the point, can your enterprise promote innovation and creativity? Does environment contribute to innovation, and can you, as a leader, support […] Read more
The effective leader
Being effective as a leader doesn’t come from throwing your weight around. Instead, with John Knapp as proof, it starts by discovering what your team members bring to the table
Reading Time: 7 minutes It’s not every government department that has a deputy minister who makes a point of having coffee with staff in the morning. But then, not every deputy minister is John Knapp. Knapp retired from Alberta Agriculture in 2013, but he’s still active in the leadership field. He wrote a book, titled The Leader’s Practice Guide, […] Read more
Guide HR: A question of charisma
Good leaders seem special. It’s a talent you can grow
Reading Time: 3 minutes People with charisma stand out. It’s a trait that we associate with leadership — that something special that makes an individual seem exceptional. But it turns out that charisma has little to do with good looks, wealth, titles or authority, and although it can seem that individuals with charisma must have inherited it at their […] Read more
Lead change, don’t just manage it
Book review: Leading Change by John P. Kotter
Reading Time: 4 minutes Leading Change John P. Kotter Harvard Business Review Press, 2012 Two decades ago, Harvard professor John Kotter revolutionized how we should think about change, and in the first edition of Leading Change, he laid out an eight-step process for how to transform a business. Although he mainly targets large organizations, Kotter’s thinking seems equally pertinent […] Read more
Guide HR: How to become a credible leader
Reading Time: 3 minutes Credibility is priceless when you need to influence your partners, advisers, employees, or anyone else around you. But what makes you credible? And why are some people perceived as credible while others aren’t? More importantly, can you grow your credibility? If so, how? It’s a critical issue, because even if you have all the skills, […] Read more
Guide HR: Why are true leaders rare?
Reading Time: 3 minutes If given a choice, would you prefer to be seen as a results-focused leader, or as a leader with exceptional social skills? In short, do you prefer to cultivate strong analytical skills, are you highly motivated to reach goals, do you have initiative, and are you focused on exceptional delivery of results and effective problem […] Read more
Farmers finding a competitive edge with leadership training
Across the country, more farmers are signing up for in-depth leadership training, and they’re using it to transform the way they farm and do business
Reading Time: 7 minutes There’s a saying that if you aren’t moving forward, then you’re falling behind. Never has this been more true than in agriculture today. But something else is equally true. It’s that more farmers are keeping up with this need for change by dedicating time and effort to cutting-edge studies on leadership. For 46-year-old Kelly Dobson, […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
