Great leaders have ability to inspire action in others

DE PERE, Wis. — Working in the agricultural industry can get muddy at times.

“Sometimes that mud is from the weather, but other things can get muddy, too, like our family, our employees, the markets and margins,” said Peggy Coffeen, podcast host of Uplevel Dairy.

“Sometimes the muddiness comes from people that live around us and don’t always understand what we do,” said Coffeen during “The Road Ahead,” the American Dairy Coalition’s annual business meeting webinar.

“But days when we are stuck in a rut or are in over our heads, we need to remember why we do what we do and why we keep showing up to do the hard things every day,” she said. “And we need to communicate that ‘why’ to the people around us so we can motivate them to get through the tough times, too.”

Coffeen grew up on a small farm in southern Wisconsin that included a 50-cow dairy herd.

“Every stall had a cow and every cow had a name,” she said. “We named everything — we named the cows, I named all my cats and we even named the fields.”

For the past 20 years, Coffeen has interviewed numerous dairy leaders through her career in journalism that has included writing, speaking and podcasts.

“Some folks don’t even realize they are leaders, but they are quietly leading behind the scenes every day,” she said.

One thing that the podcast host has learned through her journalism work is if you want to know what makes leaders great, it is best to ask their team.

“Great leaders find a belief, they share it and they connect with others on it,” she said.

The “what” that people do is the products or services they sell or provide, such as raising and selling dairy heifers, and the “how” is the way people accomplish that goal.

“People don’t buy into what you do or how you do it,” Coffeen said. “They buy into why you do it.”

“The ‘why’ is your passion and what inspires you,” she said. “This is what gets you out of bed in the morning and what gets you through those tough times and hard days.”

A “why” is not simply profitability, Coffeen said.

“I challenge you to think deeper than that,” she said. “Sometimes money can be part of the ‘why,’ but the ‘why’ is bigger than you.”

The “what” and “how” for people are rational and concrete.

“They are easy to think through, to see and act out,” Coffeen said. “But the ‘why’ is rooted in our feelings and those feelings are really hard to put into words.”

This can actually be explained by neuroscience.

“The neocortex is the part of our brain that is in charge of rational thoughts and language,” Coffeen said.

“The inner part of our brain is the limbic and that’s our behavior in decision-making,” she said. “That’s where those feelings lie and this part of our brain has no capacity for language.”

“If it is hard for you to get your head around the ‘why’ and the feelings that are behind what you do every day, devoted your life and career to something that is so challenging yet as beautiful as dairy farming, it is because our brains are not meant to put words around it,” Coffeen said.

“Oftentimes you might express it as a gut feeling or an instinct,” she said.

“Even though it is hard, we can learn to put words to those feelings,” she noted. “Those that get good at this are able to inspire action in themselves, with their teams and their customers.”

For the next generation of dairy leaders, Coffeen said, company culture is important to them.

“They want to be able to feel like they are contributing to something bigger than themselves,” she said. “Connecting over a common cause means something to them and this is where we can find some wins because the greatest leaders are able to connect on those shared beliefs.”

“When you put your ‘why’ into words, it can overcome obstacles and inspire action so that you can move your farm, business and family forward,” Coffeen said.

“When something is deeply rooted in our emotions, logic doesn’t always get us too far,” she said. “I believe there are few things in our industry as emotionally driven as our family farms.”

This has been a struggle for Coffeen’s family.

“Even though none of us kids chose to come back to the farm, it has really challenged my mom to decide how to best set up the estate and do the planning,” Coffeen said.

“We really got stuck in this process,” she said. “This is where I learned something so powerful — sometimes before we move forward we have to understand the past and the emotions that were part of that past.”

When Coffeen’s mom was 7 years old, her father died from cancer.

“My grandmother was determined to carry the farm forward,” Coffeen said.

“As we got into conversations about the past, my mom said her most vivid memory at her dad’s funeral were the neighbors that approached her mom and told her that they were going to buy her farm and that she would never be able to keep it, so she might as well just sell it to them now,” she recalled.

“My mom never lost that thought and she went on to prove them all wrong,” she said. “She went on to farm, put cows back in that the barn and start milking in 1964, when most women did not do that.”

When Coffeen realized she had her mom’s “why” wrong, the whole conversation changed.

“I thought her ‘why’ was passing on the farm, but it was to protect the legacy so that future generations could have the opportunity to farm,” she said.

“I can’t help but wonder how many other farm family and succession conversations have come to a halt because they haven’t taken the step back to really understand the ‘why’ behind the ways they are having those conversations,” Coffeen said.

“Share your ‘why’ with your team and use it as a filter for your own decision making,” she said. “Put your ‘why’ to work as you navigate the challenges ahead in 2026.”