Have a Goal to Be a Better Leader in 2023? Here are Steps to Take

Fri, 21 Jul 2023 18:13:30 GMT

What makes an effective leader? How do great leaders narrow their focus and make the most of each day?

When you think about some of the most effective leaders you’ve met, have you noticed how they can seem to make the complex simple? Or how these great leaders can often distill their areas of focus down to a handful of priorities?

“Having interviewed dozens of turnaround CEOs I have seen this narrowing of focus with most of them,” says Mark Faust, president of Echelon Management . “They have a handful of priorities for the business’ growth, as well as a handful of priorities for their own leadership behaviors and role focus.”

Mark Faust will be speaking at the 2023 Top Producer Summit , which takes place Jan. 23-25. Register now!

Listen to him discuss the event with AgriTalk’s Chip Flory:

The first step in transforming your farm, Faust says, begins with you:

Are you willing to spend even a fraction of one hour a day to think about your strategy, like a good leader?
Are you willing to recruit the retired and outcasts, to build a great team?
Are you willing to build up a culture of hope, focused on an empowering vision and intensify their focus on winning not just for themselves, but the team, their community and their world?

“Your focus within your role as the leader has an amazing power to accelerate your organization’s growth,” he says. “A leader, just like a company, has a singular point of strength, that if intensified, gives the highest return on effort of anything else you could focus upon.”
Faust says the steps for a “Leadership Transformation” are:

Create a Vision of Your Role. You need to become the best version of yourself as leader.
Prioritize the top one to three organizational objectives with which you should be most involved.
Identify one to three of your organization’s greatest constraints, empower people, and kick off innovation efforts to ameliorate or eliminate those constraints.
Ask for feedback. Share with one to three of your team members your ideas, objectives and strategy. Ask: How am I doing as a leader? What is one thing I could do better to focus? Do not respond, just take notes and say “Thank you!”
Engage an outside third party from either your board or a strategic growth advisor to hold you accountable

“You can begin at any point in the year, but the power of this is that by improving yourself first, others follow,” Faust says.

Register for the Top Producer Summit!

Farmers and Ranchers to Gather in Nashville for 2023 Top Producer Summit

Fri, 21 Jul 2023 15:26:09 GMT

Farm Journal’s 26th annual Top Producer Summit , agriculture’s premier educational and networking event, is set for Jan. 23-25, 2023, at the Grand Hyatt in Nashville. The event will bring forward-thinking farmers and ranchers together to share business opportunities and ideas to take their operations to the next level.

Mixing business with fun, the 2023 Top Producer Summit will feature industry-leading speakers on finance, innovative management practices, human resources, technology and succession planning. All attendees will enjoy a night out at Johnny Cash’s Bar & BBQ in downtown Nashville.

Register for the 2023 Top Producer Summit!!

Listen to Top Producer Editor Sara Schafer discuss Top Producer Summit with AgriTalk’s Chip Flory:

As it does each year, the event will recognize several of the nation’s most outstanding farm operations. Finalists for the 2023 Top Producer of the Year Award include:

Engle Family Farms, Kevin Engle, Hanover, Va.
MoDak Dairy, Greg, James and Jacob Moes, Goodwin, S.D.
Silent Shade Planting Company, Jeremy and Elizabeth Jack, Stacie Koger, Willard and Laura Lee Jack, Belzoni, Miss.

Also during Top Producer’s annual award ceremony, which will be streamed live on Jan. 24 at 7 p.m. CST on AgWeb.com, these two farmers will be honored:

Executive Women in Agriculture Trailblazer Award winner: Marcia Ruff, Ruff Farms, Circleville, Ohio
Tomorrow’s Top Producer Horizon Award winner: Trey Wasserburger, TD Angus at Rishel Ranch, North Platte, Neb.

Agenda highlights for the 2023 event include:

C.R.A.S.H Course for Success with Speaker: Rich Redmond, drummer for Jason Aldean and business author
Peak Performance Culture: The 5 Metrics of Operational Excellence with Dave Mitchell, “The Leadership Difference”
Fireside Chat with Kristjan Hebert, 2019 Top Producer of the Year
Panel: The Future of Global Grain Flows with Kip Tom, Tom Farms and U.S. Ambassador; Matt Roberts, Terrain; Steve Freed, ADM Investor Services; Moderator: Chip Flory, “AgriTalk”
The Big Elections Are Over: Now What? with Jim Wiesemeyer, Pro Farmer and Farm Journal

See the full agenda.

Farm Journal’s Trust In Food initiative will host its annual Trust In Food Symposium on Jan. 23-24 in conjunction with Top Producer Summit. Attendees will learn what barriers farmers face in integrating conservation practices into their operations, as well as how the sustainability community is coming together to accelerate the adoption of climate-positive agriculture.

Top Producer Summit is supported by platinum sponsors Ag Resource Management, BASF, Case IH, LandTrust and Rabo Agrifinance.

Bronze sponsors for the event include AGCO/FENDT, Channel, Corteva Agriscience, Farmers Mutual Hail, IOM Grain, National Corn Growers Association, Nutrien and Pivot Bio.

To learn more or register for Top Producer Summit, go to TPSummit.com

Sustainable Produce Summit

Have a Goal to Be a Better Leader in 2023? Here are Steps to Take

Farmers and Ranchers to Gather in Nashville for 2023 Top Producer Summit