MyLead: Supporting stronger Leadership in Food and Fibre.
A closer look at MyLead’s leadership stage outcomes and the industry stories that bring these to life.
MyLead.co.nz helps individuals at all stages of their leadership journey identify tailored development pathways to support their personal and professional growth.
MyLead marks a step toward a more coordinated and impactful approach to developing our sector’s most important asset – our people.
Research commissioned by Food and Fibre Centre of Vocational Excellence and led by Rural Leaders provides a leadership framework. The site brings this framework to life with an ecosystem of leadership programmes along with leadership outcomes by stage, supported by real industry stories.
The outcomes and stories vary depending on both the stage and industry selections users make on the site, making it a personalised experience.
What follows is an opportunity to review all of the leadership outcomes from the framework and their supporting stories.
These have been categorised, as they would be on MyLead, under the three leadership stages: leading self, leading others, leading strategy.
Leading self (team member/team leader)
Those at the Leading Self stage are focused on planning and executing tasks to achieve organisational or team objectives.
Leaders build trust
Relationships are founded on trust. It is also the oxygen that leadership breathes. How leaders behave builds or destroys trust. Without trust, suspicion, misunderstandings, failing relationships, and toxic workplaces quickly follow.
Story from the Sector
Leaders have empathy
To learn and understand others, we must demonstrate empathy. This is the ability to see and understand someone else’s perspective without judging it, or them… Demonstrating a genuine care and empathy for the team was frequently cited as a core attribute of what kaimahi (workers) in the sector wanted from their leaders.
Story from the Sector
Leaders are resilient
As a concept, resilience refers to the ability to endure and absorb the shocks of the world and recover from adversity… The good news is it is a learnable skill. For example, leaders can practice focusing on what they can control, taking charge of their thoughts, and adopting helpful habits.
Story from the Sector
Leaders are curious
Curiosity is a hunger to learn and grow further… The best leaders are not just curious about those things that directly relate to them, but they are also curious about what is happening beyond their immediate environment and how they might be able to adapt ideas from elsewhere.
Story from the Sector
Leaders understand their reputation
As leaders, we need to understand our reputation. Asking for 360-degree feedback can be very useful here (and potentially very confronting). How do other people see us? And does this reflect who we believe we are?
Story from the Sector
Leaders are in tune with their feelings
We lead people when we move them emotionally. So as leaders, we need to understand how emotions work, how they impact our thinking, affect our physical bodies, and how they spread between people.
Story from the Sector
Leaders understand their own drivers and values
As the leader, we are our first team member. So, leading ourselves is our first leadership responsibility. Knowing ourselves is a big ask, because it means exploring what it is that makes us tick—to differentiate between things that give us strength and those that cause grief.
Story from the Sector
Leading others (manager/general manager)
Those at the Leading Others stage bridge strategy and action by organising and systemising for success.
Leaders hold people to account
Leadership involves taking accountability for the behaviours and performance of the team while having the courage to share responsibility and authority with them.
Story from the Sector
Leaders delegate authority
As the leader, we are accountable for the results and wellness of our team. A leader’s accountability cannot be divided or delegated, but our authority and responsibilities can and should be… It takes courage to let go and let others act for us, knowing they may do it differently to us.
Story from the Sector
Leaders make effective decisions
Effective leadership is not a popularity contest. Leadership comes with scars. This is because a leader’s calling is to change-up (or adapt) the game rather than optimise the current game. To change with the times, the sector needs leaders with the courage of their convictions.
Story from the Sector
Leaders invest in people’s growth
As leaders we grow people, and our people grow the Food and Fibre our nation relies on. When we invest in our people, we invest in our business, not least because our people make decisions every day that have a material impact on the purpose or profit of our organisation.
Story from the Sector
Deal with status and power
Leadership roles typically come with status and power which, to the unprepared, can be intoxicating. Leaders who put their own interests first, or who start thinking their elevated position equates to importance, set a rot in action that will ultimately undermine themselves and the results they seek to create.
Story from the Sector
Leaders serve something greater than themselves
Truly leading well is an act of service. Our role as the leader, is to serve the collective, not ourselves… An ethos of service works by unlocking one of leadership’s paradoxes (to lead we must serve). Leaders who serve, harness the reciprocal energy of the collective group or team.
Story from the Sector
Leaders make one-to-one connections
Leaders build a bridge between themselves and other people. To do this, leaders build trust, get alongside their people, and do more than just communicate— they connect. At its best, connecting is akin to creating a sense of family, this is the Māori value of whakawhanaungatanga.
Story from the Sector
Leaders know and understand others
As leaders, in addition to knowing ourselves we need to know others. To know others, we must seek to understand them. The things we seek to learn about ourselves (personality, thinking style, emotions, and resilience) are the same things we need to be curious about in seeking to know others.
Story from the Sector
Leading strategy (executive/director)
Those at the Leading Strategy stage focus on articulating the vision, generating value and creating competitive advantage.
Leaders energise the team
Energy is the wellspring of true leadership. When we are truly leading, the alignment of our whole self with meaningful purpose energises us and others are drawn to it. Finding what energises us and what feels true, is leadership’s X-factor. This is when the magic happens.
Story from the Sector
Leaders connect the team to an organisational purpose
People need to know that what they do matters. Leaders ensure their people understand how their task is important to the bigger picture. People simply want to know why they’re doing a task; this is what makes it meaningful.
Story from the Sector
Leaders create an environment where team members have autonomy over their timing and place of work
Flexible working practices should, as the name says, be flexible. It is unrealistic to think we can apply flexible working practices universally across an organisation. The goal is to apply them where possible. Organisations that embrace flexibility will maximise the pool of talent they can recruit from.
Story from the Sector
Leaders create an environment where team members have the autonomy to determine how best to conduct their tasks
People don’t want to be micromanaged. To give our people more autonomy, we need to focus more on the outputs we want them to achieve, and less on their inputs (methods, hours, and location required to deliver those outputs). In the end, it is as simple as giving people choice.
Story from the Sector
Leaders role model belonging
As leaders, we must create an environment where all our people feel they truly belong. This includes us. If we are brave enough to be authentic, we show our team members that it is safe for them to be authentic too.
Story from the Sector
Leaders create an environment where all team members feel safe to be their full and authentic selves
Leaders create an environment where everyone in their team can bring their whole, authentic, unique self to work and feel truly valued and included.
Story from the Sector
Generate your own leadership development pathway