My year as president of the Poultry Science Association board of directors has come to a close as of yesterday. I cannot believe this year has come to an end so quickly. It has been fun and exciting serving our association, but mostly I’ve learned and been reminded of some important lessons. It seems no matter what leadership position we hold (church, university, government, industry, company), these same lessons apply. Maybe there is a poultry industry leader who could use some reminding of these lessons I have learned, and maybe it can serve as a reminder of our impact and why we lead.

Leadership is hard. There are some hard choices to make but they must be made to keep things moving forward. Change is hard on everyone, but being too comfortable with the status quo is usually the death of innovation, knowledge and progress. Make the hard choices and move the needle.
Surround yourself with a great team. We all have strengths and weaknesses. Most of us know how to use our strengths when we are in a leadership role. That’s the easy part. Hiring or choosing people to be on our team that bring that knowledge to support our weaknesses is critical to success. Rarely do things happen with one person “in charge.” It takes a team to drive success. Remember to recognize that great team often because we don’t work in a bubble.
Be flexible. Life is in constant motion. I always thought it was my kids in constant motion but then I realized it’s mostly everything around my kids — the world is in constant change mode. And if leadership plus COVID has taught me anything, it is be flexible. Life happens and it’s OK to evaluate choices and direction often. Flexibility is needed for success.
Learn to filter the constructive criticism from the ugly comments. We all can do better. We all can learn from our mistakes. That kind of learning is important for our personal growth as well as the growth of whatever company or organization or agency we are leading. Everyone always has an opinion, and it’s important to decipher opinion from constructive criticism. Can I take this email or voicemail or whatever form of communication and glean some learning? Can I do better next time? This takes some mental strength. It’s never fun to make mistakes but it happens. Own it. Learn from it. Ignore the ugly.
Always be kind. We are leaders of organization, companies, agencies or (insert whatever you lead here) but most importantly, we lead people. Our goal is to lead with kindness and compassion while we strive to make forward progress. We can always analyze finances and all the numbers that define success for a company/organization. But in order achieve true success, we must ask our team. That’s the key to leaving things better than where we started. Ask people and always be kind. We never know what our team is dealing with personally.

There are so many more lessons and reminders but I have limited time and space. Feel free to add comments below on any lessons you have learned. Sometimes they’re great reminders to others that we are leading with a purpose and the reminding ourselves that the journey is worth the struggle.

Leadership lessons and reminders

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