Are you a farmer or servant leader? Farmer leadership is a concept that looks at leaders (or farmers) who have good farms. They are always monitoring their farms so as to identify what is causing crops not to grow properly. Most of the time they will find weeds. They will remove it or prune it out. This is the kind of leadership you want to bring to your business or any kind of entity you are leading. You are always on the move to identify the best talent and mediocre staff. A mediocre is like a weed.

Mediocre staff gossip too much, bring negative energy and are always looking at how to cause disruptions. Negative energy caused by mediocre staff is so bad that it kills morale. Even any number multiplied by a negative gives you a negative. That is the kind of negative energy weeds bring to good crops.

However, you need to contrast farmer leadership with servant leadership. Servant leaders are those ones in the setup of politics or membership associations where the majority elect the leaders to serve them. This is why in the business you must focus on farmer leadership.

Are you a farmer or servant leader?

In politics and other associations, focus on the servant model because people are giving you the mandate to lead them in their best interest. Here, your focus as a leader is to ensure that everyone is on your side, they are happy. You lead and take decisions in their own interests. But also, you must make the tough calls in which case much as you are servant, you have to look at what is the best for the majority. Not just for everybody. You can’t be a good leader by making everybody happy. That’s not possible. Focus on the greater good for the larger majority.

In the real business world, focus on farmer leadership style. The biggest cost in the corporate Uganda is getting mediocre staff and spending so much money to make them good. Imagine if you get the best people and spend some money on them, they become exceptional. All of us will become successful.