Choosing a new CEO or other leadership role for your agriculture company is not just selecting someone to manage the day to day operations of the organization—you’re also appointing a steward of your company culture. Emulating and supporting an organization’s culture is no easy task, but one of the most important tasks for a CEO or other C-suite leader to take on.

“Most leaders are great at explaining performance expectations to employees,” said Mark Waschek, President, Ag1Source. “Aligning employees with company culture isn’t easy, because most leaders don’t know what the company culture is, and they don’t understand the culture well enough to be able to hold people accountable to it.”

By focusing on culture fit in addition to other characteristics when hiring a CEO or other leadership role, your agriculture company will have fewer job openings to fill in the future, according to Waschek, because employees will be happier in their positions and less likely to leave.

“If you hire someone who is a poor culture fit, no matter how outstanding that person is, it will be impossible for them to perform at a high level, because they don’t fit in and the way they want to do the job isn’t working,” Waschek said. “Leaders need to be incredibly clear on the company’s culture as often as possible.”

There’s a popular phrase that states that your company culture is defined by the worst behavior that is tolerated. If there are several team members who are excellent examples of company culture and one person is not, then by allowing that one person not to follow the company’s core values that make up the company culture, the other team members are getting the message that it’s OK for that one person to act that way.

“Leaders base performance evaluations not only on metrics, but also on cultural fit within the team,” Waschek said. “By allowing one person to break a core value of the company, as a leader, you’re saying that those core values are worthless.”

When the leadership of a family-owned or legacy agriculture business mirrors the organization’s cultural identity, it results in more engaged employees who trust their leaders and each other.

Leaders who are a poor culture fit for an agriculture company can also cost the organization when it comes to the bottom line—and that impact affects everyone that touches them, including customers. When a leader or team member is not a good culture fit, the whole efficiency of the team drops, because the other employees’ jobs are impacted.

“When a leader is a poor communicator, bad team player, underperforms, when other people have to compensate for them, or when other team members become frustrated because their lack of leadership is affecting their individual performance, it will bring the entire team or company down, no matter how talented they are,” Waschek said. “Getting rid of that leader or manager may result in short-term pain, but the long-term impact of leaving them in a bad culture fit can cause even more damage.”

Change is a common denominator in the agriculture industry, and company leaders have to navigate changes with aplomb and by living their company’s core values and culture, each and every day. Doing so will make changes much more smoothly, whether it’s a transition in ownership, technology or market strategy.

Determining whether a candidate is a culture fit requires more than just an interview process. At Ag1Source, we recommend also taking advantage of a behavioral assessment to dig deeper into a candidate’s style and personal values and whether those are aligned with your agriculture company—or not.

If you’d like to reach out to Mark Waschek, President of Ag1Source, you can find his contact information HERE.