Lean Leadership Principles Simplified

Working with Lean and LSS for many years I did encounter endless discussions and even more questions on lean leadership. What is lean leadership in LPS (Lean Production System)? In this brief article, I will try to simplify the understanding of lean leadership outlined in 5 principles following the LPS terminology.

1. Improvement Culture. The improvement culture comprises all attitudes and leadership behavior that result in a continuous striving for perfection. Let's be honest, perfection describes a state with zero defects, zero backlogs and inventories and as such is not achievable. Lean leaders should promote the culture where a failure is an opportunity for learning and improvement rather than blame game. Another dimension is the leadership support in improving processes. Shop floor employees as rule have the best understanding of weaknesses and failures in their processes, but can't fix them alone. Lean leaders have to pick up the employees ideas and and help them to apply them in practice. The system in capturing ideas can be formalized, but the human aspect of engaging and supporting employees doing so is a lean leadership principle nr. 1.
2. Development and self-development. The continuous development of process and improvements can't be achieved without continuous development of people. The qualification of employees is a fundamental task in lean leadership as it enables the workers to participate in the continuous improvement. The self-development is an important principle of lean leadership since some attributes depends on leaders's personality but others have to be learned and developed. The Sensei (teacher and mentor) plays a significant role in lean leadership self-development. The Sensei is crucial to guide you as a lean leader and enable your motivation and practical application of LPS. Besides the self-development, lean leaders have to develop others and create even stronger Continuous Improvement Culture and momentum.
3. The qualification of employees is a fundamental task in lean leadership. It enables workers to participate in the continuous improvement. Qualification is not limited to conventional education in classes or training. Most of the qualification in lean leadership happens on a daily basis and takes place at the shop floor. The employee is constantly challenged and learns by solving actual problems. In this context, many enterprises use coaching approaches because they meet the new requirements best. In the past few years, the so called Toyota kata method has been established in industry. It presents a formal structure for coaching and improvement, which helps to establish daily routines that lead to a sustainable Continuous Improvement practices.
4. Gemba or Go-To-Gemba (Genchi Genbutsu) which means 'real place' or shop floor where the real value is created. According to gemba principle, lean leaders should spend time on the shop floor in order to truly understand the processes, make the right decisions and support employees in real problem solving. Let's be clear. Gemba is not showing up on a shop floor and drop a motivational management political speech for the employees, regardless the appreciation of such event. Gemba is an event where lean leaders should go to the shop floor and get their hands dirty by working on process improvements without being misled by inaccurate data collection or interpretations. This leadership behavior also illustrates the leaders's appreciation of the operative work in a company and creates a connection between employees and leadership.
5. Hoshin Kanri is not a person, so don't try to search for him on LinkedIn. It is a strategy alignment methodology ensuring that improvement activities in each team would not contradict. Every Team has to be aware of its contribution to the big-picture goal as depicted in the header figure. Lean leadership should embrace the Hoshin Kanri methodology to prevent silos and potential contradictions in organisational efficiency and LPS continuous improvements practices.

On paper, these principles are easy and simplified ,but we have to accept the reality that current enterprises are multi complex and based on technocratic managerial principles of hierarchy and matrix organizational constellations which complicate the simplicity of the lean leadership. However, the human nature is altruistic by origin and employees have a right to be successful in delivering value in their job. By learning and accepting the altruistic lean leadership principles, we can become true enablers for our employee and our companies success.