How to lead stronger teams
Leading the farm team
Your number one people challenge on the farm: managing different personalities and attitudes. How do you manage people and lead your employees to stay efficient all year round? To innovate? To do things the way you want? And where do we even find great help to manage in the first place?
Here are some resources to make your team run like a well-oiled machine
Manage them the way they want
We no longer manage people the way we would want to be managed; new school leadership suggests we manage people the way THEY want. Keep your people running at their best by understanding what motivates and drives them to give 110%.
Here's an example: think of someone who is very cautious on the farm, takes their time with projects to ensure every thing is done right, is organized; these 'stabilizing' personalities love structure and need to know exactly what's expected of them to do the job right; how can you provide that structure? A daily, weekly, quarterly to-do list and timelines? An app on your phone, or if phones don't do it for you a simple whiteboard.
The opposite personality will want flexibility and variety which you can give to an extent but it's your job that they complete the most important job and don't get side-tracked. Your solution may be as simple as a 5 minute stand-up meeting each morning before you start the day: i.e. 'what's everyone doing today' and 'what did everyone do yesterday' there's no better way to keep everyone, even yourself accountable.
Some people are naturals and reading others and some may take 6 months to figure out what motivates them, and if you're really uncertain, ask them. Employees love nothing more than to be asked about their ideas and their work.
Make a commitment to leading
A commitment to leadership will hardest job you do on your farm.
'69% of managers feel uncomfortable communicating with their employees'
that would correlate to 69% of the time your employees don't know what you're thinking. Not only is communication tough but showing up and leading by example during the most stressful times in the year is extremely challenging. Talk it out, or write it down. And work to understand how you communicate and what you can do to make it easier: read the article here
Invest in your people and yourself: Here are two fantastic programs that you can access:
Canada SK Job Grant; will provide up to 67% of funding for specific training.
If you have questions please give me a call anytime.
Danielle