The Laws of the Harvest: Developing Leaders
Leaders don’t grow because someone “manages them well,” but because they have potential and find themselves in a place that allows them to grow.
ABT recently had an HR/L&D Day, inviting HR professionals from several multinational companies to talk about the future of Leadership Development. One aspect of this topic is “The Laws of the Harvest”. Just as farming is a process, so is developing leaders.
The Laws of the Harvest are ancient and known by every farmer on the planet—farmers live these laws every day, every season, and every year. And these Laws have a very practical application to our businesses and our personal lives.
So here are the Laws of the Harvest with some thoughts on what they mean for developing leaders.
You reap what you sow.
Everybody knows that when a seed is planted it will grow unless unforeseen events occur, and that you cannot plant apple seeds and expect to get an orange tree. If we’re talking about Leaders, continuous development and learning will are the foundation of their work. You cannot ignore changes in the world and business environment and expect to remain relevant to the markets you serve.
You reap more than you sow.
If you plant 1 kernel of corn, you will get a plant that will have several ears of corn, and each year may have 400-600 kernels. In business, every marketing person knows that a single ad campaign can have a reach of hundreds or thousands. At the same time, you may run dozens of campaigns and get no results…not every “seed” planted yields a return…but those that do give a big return.
You reap in a different season than you sow.
Everybody knows that you plant in the spring and you reap in the fall. It takes time for plants to grow. It takes time for people to grow. It takes time for leaders to grow. You send people to training courses, they need to learn to apply that training…and only after some time will see the effect in them and in the organization.
You reap after you sow.
No farmer on the planet goes out to his/her fields where they have not sown anything and expects to find something to harvest. First plant, then harvest. HR cannot expect leaders to “appear” and then develop them. First you need to invest in developing your people, and only then will you see the effect and have some leaders to “harvest”.
You reap in proportion to what you sow.
Not every seed produces a plant. So, if you plant a lot of seeds, then you’ll get a bigger return. If you plant a few seeds, then you get a smaller return. If we talk about developing leaders, remember that leaders come from the ranks of line personnel. So, if you develop only a few of your employees in leadership skills (communication, feedback, critical thinking, etc.), then you will have a small pool to draw from when you look to move people into leadership positions. If you want to have more leaders, you need to widen your development pipeline.
You reap the full harvest only if you don’t give up.
This applies to sowing (planting) as well as reaping (harvesting). Developing leaders is like turning a flywheel—it’s very hard to get going, but once it’s going, it drives further movement. When we were children playing on a merry-go-round, we would push and push, and it got turning. Then we would stop and it would slowly stop, which meant that we had to get it going again. If we start developing people then slow down (or stop) once we have a few, then we will have a moment when we have to start all over again. Or worse, we stop developing our people once they have a few skills…but not enough skills. And starting the process again can be slow and painful.
You cannot reap what you didn’t sow.
To reap, you have to actually sow. Unless you develop your people, you can’t have leaders. We promote people and expect them to be able to delegate, communicate, and proactively manage their people. How? If there is no investment, why do we expect them to manage people?
You cannot do anything about this year’s harvest—but you can do something about next year’s.
It’s the late fall. You realize you didn’t do all you could to get the harvest in There’s now nothing more you can do about that. But, you can do something about next year. So, if you’re reading this and realize that behind on your leadership development, there’s nothing you can really do about that. What you need to focus on is moving forward—deciding what you can do for the coming year.
Weeds come on their own.
No matter how much work a farmer puts into sowing seeds and planting crops, there will be weeds. Developing leaders has it’s own “weeds”. The process of moving from “teammate” to “team leader” and the conflicts this produces. Conflicts from injured egos, poor communication, mistakes we make and bad choices we make. If you’re going to develop leaders, then you need to accept this—it’s part of the process of growing leaders. So, rather than trying to avoid weeds, think about how you can manage them and use them to help your leaders develop further.
And those are 9 of the Laws of the Harvest. We will look at each Law in more detail in subsequent articles. To make these very practical, we need some actual examples. So stay tuned for future posts to learn how you can build leaders in your organization.
Written by John Held
