Who Wants to Be a Leader?

Do you have a specific career vision of being the leader of a company in the horticulture industry someday? Are you working on adding professional skill sets that will enable you to take on a C-level or leadership level roles? As a company, have you invested in a definitive training and development program aimed at developing your next leaders?

The horticultural industry critically needs more leaders now and progressively into the future. The number of retirements occurring in the green industry is staggering. Did you know there are over 100 owners of green industry companies retiring soon who have no clear leader to succeed them?

Per the USDA, in 2024 the average age of all agricultural producers is 58.1 years and those over age 65 constitute 40% of the total. As an industry, we endured a period with historically low numbers of students and professionals interested in pursuing a green industry career. This period has created a talent gap in the upcoming generations, especially Gen X. The small number of professionals who are in this group are talented and knowledgeable, but it is merely a matter of supply and demand. There are not enough leaders to take over, and not enough professionals have been provided with leadership training.

Throughout every sector, demographic, and role in the green industry, there are less individuals who have a specific desire and career focus to lead a company. Compare this to the financial sector or software sectors where a high volume of professionals have an early passion and focus on driving their careers to the top leadership roles in their industry. It is surprising how small the number of professionals in our industry is who are properly prepared or willing to be a leader in their company. 

A dynamic affecting this is the sheer number of family-held companies where leadership has traditionally been passed to second or third generations. While this is admirable, it has also tempered the career aspirations of those who are not part of the family. We are now at a tipping point where there are fewer generations to pass leadership roles to, causing new and challenging exit planning options for the current leaders.

A Mutual Effort

Question: How do we address this predicament?

Answer: From the mutual effort of individuals and companies.

Encourage students and early career professionals to dream big and envision being a company leader. Leadership is not for everyone, provided all of the responsibilities and challenges that come with it. However, we need more professionals who genuinely want to take on significant leadership roles with a company. Ask yourself: have you allowed yourself to dream about this type of role? To have more leaders, we need more professionals to have the desire to take on a role of this level.

With that desire comes the awareness that one must embrace continual learning with curiosity and accept certain sacrifices required to drive their career into a top leadership level. This could include putting in longer hours, the ability to relocate, and volunteering to take on new tasks or help in other departments when they are shorthanded. Professionals open to relocating for roles will indeed advance their careers faster!

Academically, technical knowledge of plant science is important. Yet, infusing business knowledge is equally, if not more, important in the development of future leaders. We have many excellent educational institutions producing knowledgeable students. Increasing the focus of these educational programs on developing leadership with curriculums geared to business and management will provide a business base and inspire more students to do so. For example, we rightly celebrate our grower interns, but we should also celebrate those doing horticulture industry internships in sales, marketing, accounting, or human resources.

Have a Plan

If you do want to take the helm of a company, division, or department someday, identify within yourself the knowledge and skill sets needed to get there. Proactively take charge of gaining the knowledge and experience you lack rather than relying on others.

There is just as much onus on companies to be a part of increased leadership development. This does require an investment in both money and time to be successful. Begin to balance your team’s professional development budget with your automation budget. No matter how automized, it still takes strong professionals leading from the front for a company to realize success.

Many assessment tools are available that help a company identify individuals with future leadership behaviors such as CliftonStrengths, DISC and Myers-Briggs. These tools will help craft a career plan to infuse them with the skill sets needed to be strong leaders in the future.

Does your company have career development planning that includes rotation of top talent through different departments or functions? Companies rotating talent through various departments produce the strongest leadership pipeline. At the very least, does the company invest in continual education or training programs focused on improving communication, soft skills, sales, marketing, financial, operations, or supply chain knowledge?

Encourage and support these professionals to become active within the industry via associations, seminars, or other educational and networking events. Don’t be afraid of losing this talent to industry exposure. There are several leadership programs that have been developed specifically for our industry such as the Dr. Charlie Hall Texas A&M EAGL program and the HRI Leadership Academy. 

Professionals who know their company is investing fully in their employees' growth are much less likely to leave. Employees who feel stifled in their development will leap at the chance for growth elsewhere.

Investing in the Future

No company has an endless budget, but a company can apply strategies that do not require a monetary investment such as transparency in your business and delegation of responsibilities. Openness with your employees about all facets of the business directly correlates to increasing their professional growth. For example, companies applying the “Great Game of Business” approach to transparency have more engaged, business savvy and motivated employees concerning their career progression.

Pairing high-potential employees with positive mentors will also benefit the mentors themselves by increasing organizational talent strength. Encourage delegating responsibilities and not micro-managing those who are assigned tasks. This must start from the highest leadership levels. Current leaders: ask yourself if too many business decisions are run through you, or have you honestly delegated to your team these decisions without hovering over them? FYI — your business’s valuation increases when delegating decision-making and being less owner-centric.

Growing the number of professionals who want to be leaders and have been provided with the training to do so is critical to the future success of the entire industry. The gap can be closed by motivating professionals who desire to run a company and identifying the career path. Couple this with companies providing increased focus on training and development, and we have set the stage for increased industry success that becomes sustainable for many years to come.

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