Knowledge Base · Leadership
What is the leader's role in continuous improvement?
The leader is the multiplier. Culture flows downhill, so the leader sets the tone and champions the work rather than commanding it from above. In practice that means setting clear expectations, modelling the behaviours wanted, providing the resources people need, and empowering employees to own their work. Without that leadership, even good tools and strategy eventually fall flat.
Chapter 6 opens with a claim the rest of the book rests on: leadership is the great multiplier. Processes can be excellent, tools innovative and strategy brilliant, yet the work will eventually fall flat when no leader is there championing it. The role is to shift a team away from command and control and towards empowering and supporting people, on the basis that frontline staff are the real experts on their own work.
The chapter breaks that role into four parts:
- Set clear expectations: not only outcomes, but behaviour. What it looks like to be on this team, how people treat each other, and how problems are approached. A team charter, co-created with the team, is one way to do it.
- Model the behaviour: the team watches whether the leader's actions match the leader's words, including under pressure.
- Provide the resources: tools, technology and budget, and just as much the time, training and support improvement work needs.
- Empower employees: give the team the autonomy, authority and accountability to own its work from start to finish.
The chapter's picture of this is a manufacturing manager who walked the floor every morning and always asked two questions: what is working well, and what is getting in your way? Those questions told the team their experience mattered and their leaders were there to support them, not micromanage them. He did not manage the work only. He multiplied the impact of his team.
Related questions
- How do I empower employees to improve their own work?
- How do I model the behaviour I want my team to copy?
- How do I get leadership buy-in for continuous improvement?
Source: Continuous Improvement in the Workplace, Ch. 6 (Cultivating Leadership for CI).