Success stories often begin with collaboration, and this one is no different. Faye Kuosman, Woodford County Horticulture Agent, reached out to me a couple of years ago asking for advice on developing leadership within the Master Gardner program. The resulting program (which was also her thesis project) was the Kentucky Extension Master Gardener Leadership Development training that was held in both Western and Central Kentucky. Approximately 50 agents from both areas participated in day-long leadership trainings to assist in improving their leadership knowledge and skills.  Serving as a leadership expert and facilitating two components of each day-long training (Understanding Personality Types and Defining Leadership Characteristics & What Makes a Good Leader) the program proved to be a rousing success! Participants were particularly engaged and excited to learn how to apply leadership concepts into their daily lives as Master Gardeners. Evaluations came back very positive - participants expressed the program was "very effective" in aspects such as training content, creating a learning environment and participant responsiveness. In addition, particular to my sections of the Year 1 training, participants said their knowledge of their personality traits and leadership capacity was excellent after participating in the training. These evaluations, as well as participant comments on how they would utilize this new knowledge in their daily interactions clearly articulates the value felt from participating in this leadership development training.

These day-long trainings comprised the first year of this leadership development program. Regarding sustainability, year two of this Kentucky Extension Master Gardener Leadership Development Training has been discussed. While the first year focused more on intrapersonal leadership knowledge, year two is meant to focus on more interpersonal leadership development topics - such as managing conflict, leading boards and committee and understanding teamwork basics. Ideally, this second year of training will be embraced as strongly as the first.

As a process, leadership development is something that transcends context. People within any context needs to understand how to effectively engage with others, communicate with diverse audiences, and deal with aspects such as conflict, ethics and trust. It is this vein that good leadership development, regardless the context, is invaluable to today's organizations, communities and especially Extension.