Sandra E. Peterson

The people inside the company, generally two to three levels down, they know best what's wrong and how to fix it. It's just that their voices aren't being heard. I listen for words, tonality, and language.

It's not about me. It's about the organization being successful.

The signal of the importance of something is whether you're actually measuring it and you're holding people accountable to improving those numbers.

Honestly, my secret is I pick really, really good people around me.

Most women I know who have been successful in business, it's because they've been willing to take on the risky challenge that other people would say, 'Oh, I'm not sure I want to do that.'

Men don't quite know how to read women if they're not used to seeing them in a business environment.

When I walk into a new organization and I don't know the industry or the people, which has always been the case, I do a few things. One is I think about the business from the outside in.

The thing that has not had enough attention is really thinking about how to use modern breeding techniques to really look at the germplasm pools and find ways to actually improve yields and to improve the heat and drought tolerance of these crops.

There is value in finding a combination of internal people, stretching them and seeing their potential, then marrying that with someone from the outside.

Anyone who ends up being a leader of a large complicated organization, whether you're a male or a female, you're working an immense amount of hours, and you can't do everything. You can't have complete work/life balance.

Agility is fundamental to leading a team through times of change.

Managing through ambiguity can be difficult for even the most experienced leaders. Defining a clear set of goals for your team demonstrates that there is an end in sight. However, it's crucial during this time to move through the transition in phases.