Are You a Leader?

I haven't met too many people who answer no to that question, however there are a lot of them that employees would not follow if their position didn’t require it, which equates to not truly being a leader. People willingly follow when they trust you and believe you have their best interests at heart. Being a leader is not determined by how many people serve you, but by how many people you serve.

I’ve had the opportunity to lead both military and civilian organizations. The biggest difference between the two is the amount of training the military utilizes to grow leaders - they make every effort to mentor and develop young leaders. In the corporate world, we often hire people out of college or promote from within and don’t train or mentor, leading to a lack of leadership skills, problem solving expertise, and experience, just to name a few. The cycle should be to train, coach, and mentor. The result of failing to train people to be better supervisors and managers causes a multitude of issues that lead to poor relationships and attitudes between the people doing the work and the supervisors. This further leads to poor production as well as high turnover.

Organizations put too much stock in short term gains and link change initiatives with economic results rather than long term, sustainable results. Some studies assert 50-70% of all change initiatives fail because change agents overlook the role front-line managers play in the success of the initiative. I still see managers and corporate leaders who blame the workforce for poor performance when ultimately there is a leadership problem.

You’ll find many companies offering Lean Six Sigma training and consulting. At Lean Training and Consulting we rely on proven methods and focus on the leadership aspect of your program so that you’ll attain sustainable results.

Dr. Tom Lawless can be reached at tom@leantac.com or +1 (847) 502-6380

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