When I was in high school, I worked for a dairy farmer who needed to transition one of his fields from row crops to grass. All winter, we plowed to clear the remnants of the previous crop, what had been good for a season but was no longer what the land needed for the future. We tilled the soil, planted alfalfa seed, fertilized (and if you have ever been on a dairy farm, you know there is plenty of fertilizer), sprayed herbicide to protect against weeds, and prayed for rain, because there is only so much a person can do.
Our efforts paid off. The field came to life, lush and green, ready to be cut and baled. Back then, we worked with fifty-pound square bales. One day, just before harvest, we stood admiring the crop, proud of what we had done. My boss turned to me and said, “Now the hard work begins.”
That surprised me. The months of plowing, planting, and praying had felt like hard work to me. But he explained that harvest requires perfect timing, the right moment in the growing cycle, and weather dry enough to allow the hay to cure properly. If it was baled too wet, it could mold or even combust in the barn. He reminded me that while two people could plant a field, it took a team to harvest it, to cut, bale, haul, and stack. The harvest, he said, was where the real work began. And if everything went right, we could hope for a second or even third harvest from that first investment of labor.
That story has stayed with me all these years because it mirrors what leadership really is. Leaders spend seasons plowing and planting, casting vision, cultivating people, removing what no longer serves, and preparing the ground for what comes next. Those are important, exhausting, and even noble tasks. But the true test of leadership comes in the harvest.
Harvest is when timing, courage, and teamwork are everything. It is when leaders must bring others into the field, trust them to work the plan, and guide them through unpredictable weather, both literal and figurative. It is when decisions must be made with precision and humility.
Leadership, like farming, is never once and done. You cannot assume that what produced results before will continue to do so without care and attention. Great leaders are stewards of growth, they adapt, tend, and innovate. They find ways to do more with the same ground, to waste less, and to invest more wisely.
So wherever you lead, whether an organization, a team, or a family, remember that the harvest is the hard part. But it is also where the joy lives.
Always Forward.
Ron Kitchens
