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Louisiana has made history, becoming one of few Southern states to pass legislation to decriminalize cannabis.

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Which leaders in the cannabis industry deserve to be recognized?

That’s a question we struggled to answer as a team at Cannabis Business Times, not because we had different opinions (which we did), but because leaders represent the diverse cannabis space so well—perhaps a little too well.

When we first announced the launch of our inaugural Cannabis Leadership Awards in April, to coincide with our upcoming 2021 Cannabis Conference in Las Vegas, our goal was to recognize five individuals who exemplify the leadership qualities needed to inspire and empower those around them and who work toward the betterment of the entire industry.

“In any industry, there are people who just stand out as exceptional in all they do,” Cannabis Group Publisher Jim Gilbride said four months ago. “People who make the workday better for their colleagues and make their communities and the industry better by their actions. They deserve to be recognized.”

With that, we initiated the nomination process. The submission floodgates opened, and deserving candidates continued to pour in during the next six weeks. Whittling down the nominees to five winners was no easy task. In fact, that task went incomplete—we ended up picking six.

But our final conclusion was that there was no wrong answer. Leadership means different things to different people, and different people exemplify different leadership qualities. What we do know is that the six winners, announced earlier this week, are “individuals who are driven to be positive forces in their worlds,” as Editorial Director Noelle Skodzinski said.

The 2021 Cannabis Leadership Awards winners are:

For Kuethe, who’s been in the cannabis industry since 2010, part of the reason he’s achieved success is because he doesn’t just read and believe, he said. “I test it myself and collect real data and then make decisions,” he said. “I try not to just listen to what people tell me and follow the pack, because then you get bunched up with everybody else. There’s no leader in the pack then.”

That’s one thing about leadership—a self-push to try something different often allows those, who dare, the opportunity to then shape the world around them.

The other winners stand out by being relentless with an all-or-nothing approach, stopping at nothing through self-guided success, getting down in the trenches to be should-to-shoulder with team members to teach them the hows and whys of doing the job, influencing people to be their best selves and empowering them in spaces and places they would not otherwise have access to and doing the right thing all the time by putting people and planet first.

The inaugural Cannabis Leadership Awards class possesses the leadership qualities to inspire those around them and be positive forces in the industry. They are deserving of recognition. But they are not the only ones. Early participation in this industry has come with its risks. Anyone trying to do right by the cannabis space is a leader in our books.

-Tony Lange, Associate Editor