EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP IN TODAY’S WORLD

• Leadership is the single biggest factor influencing personal decisions. A good leader is the most powerful asset any business can dream of. A true leader is able to inspire people to do their work. The workers will look up to the leader and admire the leader making the most of their guidance.

• Leadership is not an attribute anyone is born with. It is developed throughout life. If you want to become a leader, but think that no-one will ever be interested in following you, you need to change your mindset! You CAN develop yourself into a leader. Do NOT say "One day when I am a leader"! Whether or not you lead one person, or ten thousand people you need to say "Today, I am a leader", and act on it. Leadership is a constant active effort in order to improve skills and ability to help others. One of the greatest quotes I love about leadership is simply 'Serve to Lead'. Leaders are not there for self glorification. They are visionaries always looking ahead at how they can help others and move them ahead. In regards to business they are constantly moving their business forward creating new opportunities for employees.

• One of the greatest quotes I love about leadership is simply 'Serve to Lead'. Leaders are not there for self glorification. They are visionaries always looking ahead at how they can help others and move them ahead. In regards to business they are constantly moving their business forward creating new opportunities for employees.

• Leaders are decision makers. They do not procrastinate. They know what needs to be done and they make sure that it gets done. Leaders know how to delegate effectively.

• Do not be fearful of messing up. When leaders mess up they take responsibility, learn from the mistake, and next time take their game up a notch. Followers tend to blame others. Take a step in confidence, hold yourself up high. Pin your shoulders back, walk with a confident posture! Posture is important. Talk with confidence and learn how to speak in others. If that is not for you, then take a public speaking course, just get out there and do it. Step outside your comfort zone and take your leadership to the next level.

• up. Leaders decide direction and management Do not get management and leadership mixed heads towards that direction. Lead people, manage things.

• A practical way to develop leadership in your world today is getting involved/more involved in home business opportunities. Positioning yourself to inspire people will really catapult you ahead.Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall." - Stephen R. Covey

• It will also take you out of your comfort zones, which is a fantastic place to be in order to develop your weaknesses into strengths.

• "Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall." - Stephen R. Covey

Management in Today’s WorldBy John P. Hewlett, Farm/Ranch Management Specialist

Integrated

• The risks to agricultural operations— from changing prices, weather, technologies, legal issues,financial markets, and human resources— seem to increase with each passing day. To top it off, many agricultural managers have not had formal management training, while many have received a degree from

• the “school of hard then another. In addition, development of world markets is changing the structure of local markets, while new production technologies and improved communication and information retrieval methods combine knocks.”

• Managing a farm or ranch in today’s world is not easy. Changing federal, state, and other regulations pull the manager first one way, to make most agriculturists unsure of how to get a handle on it all.

• There is hope. A new way of approaching the forces and factors of managing a farm or ranch is

• starting to spread across this country and elsewhere. This method can be referred to as integrated

• management. This so-called new method is probably not so new to operators who have been around

• awhile. In fact, this way of approaching management problems is probably the same system used by

• operators years ago. In the past an operator could afford to be intimately familiar with all the resources of

• his/her operation, but today operations are larger and regulations more numerous, making the job appear

• overwhelming, without a method of untangling the pieces of the puzzle.• Integrated management is a method to manage the farm or ranch operation

as a whole, rather than• as separate, unrelated enterprises. Some refer to this type of system as a

method of “holistic” thinking.• No matter what the name, it provides a step-by-step method of working

through the information-• overload managers experience daily. It puts “handles” on the unruly beast

and provides a place to grab-• on, giving control back to the manager.

Integrated management begins with the goals of the operation. These goals include both business and personal goals, perhaps even the goals of management

and personnel. Every manager and his/heremployees have goals. Without goals, the farm or ranch is managed randomly.

Yet, few age operators (let alone their should be in 10 to 20 years, where management wants to be personally in five years, or the kind of education they’d like to provide for their children. These sorts of goal statements are required if the

people involved, or the business as a whole is ever to reach the desired destination. The next step of integrated management is to inventory available

resources. Resource categories vary from one integrated management system to the next. One system uses the following five resource

categories: basic resources, human resources, financial resources, livestock resources, and wildlife

resources.

DECISION MAKING IN TODAY’S WORLD

• Decision making can be regarded as an outcome of mental processes (cognitive process) leading to the selection of a course of action among several alternatives. Every decision making process produces a final choice. The output can be an action or an opinion of choice.

DECISION MAKING AS EVERYDAY TECHNIQUE

• Some of the decision making techniques people use in everyday life include:

• Listing the advantages and disadvantages of each option, popularized by Plato and Benjamin Franklin

• Choosing the alternative with the highest probability-weighted utility for each alternative

• Accepting the first option that seems like it might achieve the desired result

• Acquiesce to a person in authority or an "expert" • Flipping a coin, cutting a deck of playing cards, and other random or

coincidence methods • Prayer, tarot cards, astrology, augurs, revelation, or other forms of

divination

Women most effective leaders for today's world• EVANSTON, Ill. -- Much has been written about the glass ceiling, the double

standard and other barriers to women in management. A related question that has consumed both academic and popular writers is whether men and women have the same leadership abilities. The answer suggested by a comprehensive meta-analysis published in the current Psychological Bulletin (Vol. 129, No. 3) might surprise you. On average, women in management positions are somewhat better leaders than men in equivalent positions, according to the study.

• This project, "Transformational, Transactional and Laissez Faire Leadership Styles: a Meta-Analysis Comparing Women and Men," statistically combines the results of 45 published and unpublished studies on leaders in business, academics and other areas to examine whether the typical leadership styles of men and women differ. "The meta-analysis revealed relatively small sex differences, which is to be expected since the men and women compared are in equivalent roles with relatively similar responsibilities," said Alice Early, lead author of the study and professor of psychology at Northwestern University.

• "Thus, the differences in male and female managerial behavior are in the discretionary aspects of behavior, because all managers have to carry out basic tasks required by their roles," she said. "Still, the implications of our findings are encouraging for female leadership when you consider that all aspects of leadership style on which women exceed men relate positively to effectiveness."

• In addition to Eagly, the co-investigators of the study include Northwestern's Mary C. Johannesen-Schmidt and Marloes L. van Engen, Tilburg University, the Netherlands.

• The meta-analysis showed that women are more likely than men to use leadership styles that other studies have shown produce better worker performance and effectiveness in today's world.

• Specifically, women were more likely to be transformational leaders, defined as those who serve as role models, mentor and empower workers and encourage innovation even when the organization they lead is generally successful. "Thus, the differences in male and female managerial behavior are in the discretionary aspects of behavior, because all managers have to carry out basic tasks required by their roles," she said. "Still, the implications of our findings are encouraging for female leadership when you consider that all aspects of leadership style on which women exceed men relate positively to effectiveness."

• In addition to Eagly, the co-investigators of the study include Northwestern's Mary C. Johannesen-Schmidt and Marloes L. van Engen, Tilburg University, the Netherlands.

• The meta-analysis showed that women are more likely than men to use leadership styles that other studies have shown produce better worker performance and effectiveness in today's world.

• Specifically, women were more likely to be transformational leaders, defined as those who serve as role models, mentor and empower workers and encourage innovation even when the organization they lead is generally successful.

• Early's meta-analysis grows out of a substantial body of research that attempts to identify leadership styles that are especially attuned to contemporary conditions. Gaining momentum in the 1990s, that research showed that transformational leadership strengthens organizations by inspiring followers' commitment and creativity.

• Leadership researchers found that, in contrast, "transactional" leaders appeal to subordinates' self-interest by forming exchange relationships, based on using reward and punishment as incentives. The researchers also distinguished a laissez faire style that is marked by an overall failure to take responsibility for managing.

• In Early's study, women also scored higher than men on one measure of transactional leadership -- rewarding employees for good performance.

• "That is the only aspect of transactional leadership that is associated with positive outcomes," Early noted.

• Men scored higher than women on the other transactional aspects, such as using punishment, and on laissez faire leadership -- behaviors that do not appear to produce more effective organizations.

• "Giving women equal access to leadership roles obviously would increase the size of an organization's pool of potential managers," Early said. "What people may not realize is that adding women to that pool likely increases the proportion of candidates with superior leadership skills."

• In synthesizing the 45 leadership studies, the researchers conclude that the causes of the sex differences in leadership may lie in several factors.

• A transformational leadership style may be especially congenial to women because this way of leading is relatively androgynous and has some nurturing, feminine aspects. A considerable body of research has shown that women can be disliked and distrusted in leadership roles, especially when they exert authority over men, appear to be extremely competent or use a dominant style of communication. Transformational behavior may lessen suspicion of female leaders and alleviate problems of lesser authority and legitimacy that they sometimes face.

• Another reason women may favor a transformational style is that such a leader operates more like an excellent teacher than a traditional boss. Women's past socialization may give them more ability to lead by teaching -- that is, by developing and nurturing workers' abilities and inspiring them to be outstanding contributors.

• And the glass ceiling itself may produce more highly skilled female leaders. Research shows that higher standards are often imposed on women to attain leadership roles and to retain them. Because transformational leadership constitutes skillful leadership, women may be more skillful leaders than men because they have to meet a higher standard.