Leadership is essential for the success of value-added agriculture businesses whether it is leading a group of producers who are looking to add value to their crops and livestock or leading the employees of a value-added processing business. Without leadership, very little is accomplished.

For more information on this topic, see the links listed below of articles posted on related Web sites.

Understanding Leadership

• Leading vs. Managing– They’re two Different Animals – Small Business Administration -- Although you may hear these two terms thrown out interchangeably, they are in fact two very different animals complete with different personalities and world views.
• How Tough Times Shape Good Leaders – HBS Working Knowledge – Adversity brings out the best in real leaders?
• What Makes a Good Leader? - HBS Working Knowledge -- Leadership comes in many shapes and sizes, and often from entirely unexpected quarters.
• Right From the Start: Common Traps for the New Leader - HBS Working Knowledge -- This article outlines dangerous pitfalls in the first few months of a new position and offers strategies to balance the tensions and challenges inherent in any leadership transition.
• What Great American Leaders Teach Us - HBS Working Knowledge --  A new database on great American leaders offers surprising insights on the nature of leadership.

Assessing Qualities of Leadership

• Leadership Traits – Small Business Administration -- One of the most important contributions psychology has made to the field of business has been in determining the key traits of acknowledged leaders.
• Why Should Anyone be Led by You? – HBS Working Knowledge -- In these times of "empowered" followers, executives who look beyond the most obvious qualities of leadership will find surprising characteristics that truly inspirational leaders share.
• Beware the Bad Leader - HBS Working Knowledge -- Leaders and followers are often locked in a complicated dance.
• Leadership Qualities – Education Leadership Toolkit -- Traits to help identify whether someone is capable of learning to lead.
• Leadership Self Assessment – Education Leadership Toolkit -- Do you have the qualities to make a valuable leader to your group?

Developing Leadership Skills

• Choosing Leadership Styles – Montana State University Extension – The leadership style you adopt in different situations can influence both how well your group accomplishes its goals and how well it maintains itself.
• Leadership for Effective Groups – North Dakota State University Extension -- A group takes a life of its own as individuals gather to talk, learn, work and make decisions together.
• Transformational Leadership: The Transformation of Managers and Associates – University of Florida Extension -- The role every manager must fill in the workplace is leadership. Managers often make the mistake of assuming that because they are the managers, they are also the leaders and that their associates will automatically follow.
• Every Day – Your Style is Showing – West Virginia University Extension -- Your leadership approach is made up of many behaviors, attitudes and values.  At any time you can choose to act in any number of ways.
• How to Put Meaning Back into Leading - HBS Working Knowledge -- When research on leadership pays more attention to financial results than a person's ability to give the company a sense of purpose, something crucial is lost.
• Leadership: Fostering Systemic Creativity - HBS Working Knowledge -- Building a creative organization involves a combination of top-down, bottom-up and brushfire approaches.
• Doing the Right Thing, The Hard Way - HBS Working Knowledge -- What does it take to be a leader in the E-Age? Guts, perserverance and an understanding of public ethics in a world of instant communication.
• How Tough Times Shape Good Leaders - HBS Working Knowledge -- Advertising brings out the best in real leaders.
• Four Keys of Enduring Success: How High Achievers Win – HBS Working Knowledge – What is success to you?
• How "Career Imprinting" Shapes Leaders - HBS Working Knowledge -- Where you work early in your career shapes the kind of leader you become later on.
• How Leaders Build Winning Streaks - HBS Working Knowledge -- Confidence is infectious. How leaders must bring out the best in others.
• Leading with Your Funny Bone  - HBS Working Knowledge -- A well-honed wit can sometimes be the best asset as a business leader. How jokes can help make your mark - or not.
• Right from the Start: Common Traps for the New Leader – HBS Working Knowledge – Some of the common traps into which new leaders can fall.
• Taking Feedback to Heart (and Action) – HBS Working Knowledge -- Encouraging feedback is one thing; putting it to good use is quite another. Step number one is to free yourself from knee-jerk reaction to criticism.
• Tapping into your Team’s Emotional Intelligence – HBS Working Knowledge -- You're a smart leader. Your team is pretty smart, too. But how is your "emotional intelligence" as a group? Learn how to lead with your emotions, not just your head.
• The Benefits of Soft Power - HBS Working Knowledge -- Leaders have to make crucial choices about the types of power they use.
• The Quiet Leader and How to Be One – HBS Working Knowledge -- Think of a business leader and who comes to mind? A brash type like Jack Welch? But real leaders solve tough problems in all kinds of ways and often quietly.
• How Team Leaders Show Support - or Not  - HBS Working Knowledge -- What does a team leader do to let employees know they are being supported?
• What Lovers Tell Us about Persuasion – HBS Working Knowledge – Expect resistance to your new proposal? One powerful way to persuade others is plucking from the language of romance.
• When Leadership Means Saying "I am Part of the Problem Here" - HBS Working Knowledge -- Before they fix it, leaders need to ask themselves how they broke it in the first place.
• Developing Your Leadership Skills – Entrepreneur.com – Articles on leadership.

Leading Companies

• Executives on the Couch – HBS Working Knowledge – What makes leaders tick or tock?
• What it Takes to Lead Through Turmoil – HBS Working Knowledge -- What are the characteristics of companies that successfully transition in times of dramatic change?
• What You Need to Know as the New Economy Tanks - HBS Working Knowledge -- Here's how to lead your organization through rough waters.
• Leadership – Inc.com -- To help you learn more about what you can do to improve leadership in your company (both your own and the leadership skills of those around you), we've compiled Inc.com's best resources on the topic.