Former CEO's Favorite Resources For Becoming A Better Leader

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 22:00:50 GMT

Doug Stark worked for Farm Credit Services of America for 37 years, eventually becoming the organization’s CEO until his recent retirement.

He joins the Ag Inspo podcast with hosts Ron Rabo and Rena Striegel to share the best ways to enhance your leadership skills.

“Leadership is learned, so you can teach leadership to other people,” Stark says. “I was in leadership roles before I knew what leadership was. I was a terrible leader, and I recognized that. I changed the way I was approaching things.”

He says attending conferences can be helpful, but are admittedly not his first pick.

“You can go to some good conferences and pick up some things on leadership. I pick more up from individual presenters or speakers here and there,” he says.

Stark’s favorite leadership development resource is more easily accessible: books.

“There’s tons of leadership books on the market - I was reading probably two or three a month,” he says. “Some of them would say the same things, just in a different way. But sometimes that would trigger a thought.”

He compares reading to taking a shower.

“It cleans my mind of all the challenges, created a positive mindset and started inspiring me with thoughts and ideas in which I could deploy to make myself and our team more effective,” Stark says.

Stark is even basing a university course on one of those books: The Leadership Challenge by James Kouzes and Barry Posner.

“It’s based on research, not just a general philosophy,” he says. “They have five attributes of exemplary leaders, and that’s kind of been my Bible over the years.”

Starke has also found a lot of value in hiring leadership coaches, even if you’re already in a company’s C-Suite.

"[Employing a leadership coach] was one of the most powerful things I ever did,” Starke says. “Not only did he humble me, but he really taught me a lot of the things that I abide by today and on a daily basis.”

He believes good leaders create good culture, and that leads to satisfied employees who will go the extra mile.

“When you start respecting people, trusting them, treating them like adults and inspiring them with where you’re trying to go, things happen that you can’t even imagine,” Starke concludes. “They do things that make you go, ‘Wow, where did that come from?’”

How To Outline Clear Direction For Each Role On Your Team

Mon, 18 Mar 2024 14:00:00 GMT

It’s a commonly held goal to hire good employees and keep those great team members on board. If recruitment feels like a revolving door and retention efforts operate like a sieve, then re-evaluate your process and your foundation.

What if you could focus on one tool to achieve the best recruitment and retention?

Dave Mitchell thinks there is one—the job description.

“The single most important tool to predict peak performance is a very well-developed job description,” he says.

Mitchell founded The Leadership Difference after spending two decades in corporate HR management. While working with companies of all industries across the country, he developed metrics to measure peak performance.

“Go blow the dust off your job description book, or maybe first make sure you have job descriptions,” he says. “The next step is to update those job descriptions with necessary legal considerations. And third, make sure those job descriptions are good for the roles.”

Mitchell says he defines “good” job descriptions as those that don’t just outline what the job does, but they explain the degree to which the employee is expected to do certain tasks.

“If you provide that level of detail, you’ve got a recruiting tool, a training tool, a performance appraisal tool and an alignment tool. It makes one document serve multiple purposes and makes sure you have everything covered,” he says.

For almost two decades, this magazine and its predecessors put out an annual salary survey to illuminate trends in compensation. In the past six years, base salaries for the two key roles tracked in the study—applicators/machine operators and sales agronomists—increased more than 30%.

Having clear direction for every role in your organization can shore up the investment you make in your team.

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Former CEO's Favorite Resources For Becoming A Better Leader

How To Outline Clear Direction For Each Role On Your Team