Horticulture New Zealand's Leadership Programme is aiming to take great horticulture employees and make them great horticulture leaders.

The programme develops tangible leadership skills in areas like communication, presentations, working with teams and understanding how other people work.

HortNZ's Sue Pickering built and implemented the Horticulture New Zealand's Leadership Programme.

A group of 2013 Horticulture New Zealand's Leadership Programme participants – from left Shane Flynn (Hawke's Bay), Neale Cameron (Bay of Plenty), Trudi Webb (Otago) and Scott Rimes (Canterbury).

Throughout the course participants gather a much greater understanding of strategy, operations, governance and management. The beauty of the programme is it's for horticulture and about horticulture, so takes in opportunities and threats such as biosecurity, traceability, food safety and sustainability issues.

The programme, in its 12th year, is jointly-run by HortNZ and Lincoln University. The course is always oversubscribed, so anyone interested needs to register early.

Past participants rate the programme highly – scoring it more than eight out of10. Two of the most highly valued outcomes for students are building confidence and having opportunity to build a network of like-minded people from a range of horticulture sectors and regions.

'Hardly a month goes by when I don't see or hear one of the graduates of the HortNZ leadership programme putting themselves forward to ‘lead' in some way,” says HortNZ's Sue Pickering, who built and implemented the initiative from scratch.

'Sometimes, it's within their own organisation, sometimes it with the local grower community – and sometimes it's at industry level.

For example, Jim Smith is a 2013 Bay of Plenty graduate and he's using what he learned to keep his team at Seeka positively on track towards their goals.

'Or Camilla Harvey of Katikati, a 2011 graduate, who put her hand up to work with growers through Psa-V at the height of the crisis.

'And Ashby Whitehead of Te Puke, who is chair of the Avocado Industry Council and a graduate of 2005, is now working with his chief executive, Jen Scoular, spearheading the Go Global avocado industry strategy.”

The first phase of the leadership course is an intense three days at Lincoln University, where expert presenters take a variety of interactive sessions.

The second phase is an individual project, and during the third phase participants are required to present their project and utilise skills they've learned.

This course's last part is held in Wellington, where participants hear from specific horticulture leaders and explore government, its processes and usually meet with the Minister for Primary Industries.

'We have an amazing talent pool in horticulture that businesses can utilise. The programme is just a start for people, but it is a good start,” says Sue.

As part of HortNZ's commitment to development of industry leaders, growers, employees of growers, or those closely associated with growing, have their course fees and accommodation paid for by HortNZ.

For more information, call Sue 04 472 3795, go to www.hortnz.co.nz or email [email protected] for the application form. The application deadline is May 31.