What kind of farm manager are you? A free test

The Steward

You perfect and protect what you've built, with the pride of someone who knows every corner of their own land.

How you decide

By the work itself and the experience of someone who tends what is theirs. You know the crop, the herd, and your people better than anyone, and you change slowly and carefully, because what stands here was hard-won.

Your blind spot

What you know how to do lives in your head and your hands, not on paper. The day the bank, the buyer, or your successor asks for proof, your knowledge doesn't turn itself into a document.

I'll bet you decide a lot of important things without writing them down, because it's always worked out that way.

The Trailblazer

You innovate in production and adopt before your neighbors what you see coming in the land and the market.

How you decide

By reading the field and spotting the opportunity before others do. You move fast, adopt the new before the proof is in, and take on the risk others put off.

Your blind spot

Innovation runs ahead of the record. What worked is hard to repeat, and what breaks catches you off guard, because it never became a written standard.

I'll bet you've already brought something to the farm, a practice or a technology, that your neighbor only took up two years later.

The Operator

You run the money and the business with tight control and little slack wasted.

How you decide

By the numbers and by control. You know your cost, you follow the result, you check before you spend, and you'd rather firm up what already works than bet on the uncertain.

Your blind spot

Numbers serve you well with things and less well with people. Someone who runs everything by the books tends to invest little in communicating and developing the team, and sometimes misses the opportunity out of too much caution.

I'll bet you know your cost better than you know what your team would do if you disappeared for a week.

The Entrepreneur

You grow the business: you watch the market, the expansion, and the next cycle.

How you decide

By business vision and the chance to grow. You plan, you compare scenarios, you bet on a new market and on expanding.

Your blind spot

You look outward and ahead, and the day-to-day execution and record fall behind. What you agreed isn't always what got done in the field.

I'll bet you know the market out there better than you know what happened yesterday in each corner of your own farm.