Addressing the Leadership Gap in Agriculture

by Curt Friedel --

You may have heard something that we have a leadership gap, with several books and articles more recently being written about this phenomenon. What is the leadership gap? In the simplest way, it can be described as the perception of current leaders being inadequate for the challenges of the future.

The leadership gap is supported by research. Consider the following:

§  Rosenthal, in the National Study in Confidence in Leadership (2012) – Discovered that 69% agree America is in a leadership crisis.

§  Bailey 2017 – Fount that 13% of employees said their boss was dangerously incompetent.

§  RandstatUSA (2018) – Indicates that 60% of employees left their jobs or are considering leaving because they don’t like their supervisor.

A few key points are indicated in these citations. The leadership gap is global, it is across industries and beyond politics and started before the Covid-19 international pandemic. This is a small selection of research one can find with a simple search online.

The cause of the leadership gap may be harder to explain, but may be associated with some of the following:

·       Work is now more team-based than in the past, with conflict becoming more associated with team dynamics instead of conflict existing between supervisor and employee

·       The speed of business is moving at a faster pace, and therefore leaders are challenged with helping employees accept and adapt to the latest change

·       The focus on employee effort tends to be focused on technical skills associated with job performance and not workforce development skills (often called soft skills)

This third point is starting to change. According to Harvard Business Review (Sadun, et al., 2022), sometime close to 2007, position announcements for corporate executives started to have more emphasis on soft skill requirements and less emphasis on technical skills. The trend as of the writing of their report indicates since 2007, a nearly 30% increase in soft skill requirements, and nearly 40% decrease in technical skill requirements. A great step in the right direction.

How does this relate to the workforce and training of leadership skills in the agriculture industry?

If we consider that we all can choose to lead in different positions and capacities, perhaps we can all benefit from cultivating leadership skills. The agriculture industry is not immune to the changes affecting other industries. As technology advances, more ethical and moral leadership is needed. Agriculture is increasingly oriented to globalization, and workers are increasingly seeking to find meaning in their work. Ask anyone who owns a small business in rural America, and good competent help is difficult to find, and challenging to retain.

Perhaps a starting place is to help employers in the agriculture industry list leadership skill requirements in all position announcements. This would help set up the expectations of leadership skills needed to perform well in a particular job position and start a conversation about what leadership skills the prospective employee may still need to satisfy minimum requirements. A conversation of this nature could prevent the stress and costs of continually hiring individuals and improve the workplace environment, in general. If the development of leadership skills is needed for a particular individual, a leadership development plan could be crafted based on the needs of each individual. Maybe employees could be part of the conversation of crafting a leadership development plan for yourself.


References:

Bailey, G. (2017). Nearly half of British workers believe they could do a better job than their boss. Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/british-workers-outperform-boss-staff-line-manager-office-politics-onepoll-survey-a8069461.html

RandstatUSA (2018, August 28). Your best employees are leaving. but is it personal or practical? Randstad. https://www.randstadusa.com/business/business-insights/employee-retention/your-best-employees-are-leaving-it-personal-practical/

Rosenthal, S. A. (2012). National leadership index 2012: A national study of confidence in leadership. Center for Public Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. http://andresraya.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/cpl_nli_2012.pdf

Sadun, R., Fuller, J., Hansen, S., & Neal, PJ. (2022, July-August). The c-suite skills that matter most. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2022/07/the-c-suite-skills-that-matter-most


Acknowledgment 
Image from flickr

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