A basic function of extension is to assist the transfer of agricultural technology by ensuring that an adequate amount of high quality knowledge about it is present in the farming community for sustained agricultural development. Studies of the personal characteristics of power holders indicate that they possess high social status and are well known and respected in their communities. While leaders may share some relevant characteristics in similar situations, they also very likely differ in others so that their total personalities are not alike. Informal leadership is earned and maintained by the individuals’ technical competence, social accessibility and conformity to the systems norms. Through their conformity to the systems norms, opinion leaders serve as a model for the innovation behaviour of their followers. A leader's action and a leader's professed beliefs must be congruent or at least compatible. Effective leadership - and again this is very old wisdom - is not based on being clever; it is based primarily on being consistent. Anybody who comes forward with a good solution may be immediately selected as a leader to guide the future action of the group. People with passive and submissive tendency usually follow the leader. Leaders know well that innovation and change all involve experimentation, risk and failure. They proceed anyway. One way of dealing with the potential risk and failures of experimentation is to approach change through incremental steps and small wins.

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