The Road to Lean - Leading the Way

The Making of Lean Leader
The lean transformation has been tried by many, and many have failed to archive the miraculous results which were initially expected.
why you would ask?
The reasons are many, but one prime reason is the culture of the people in that organization. If your culture is not ready for change, it will not!
If you refer to the Shingo Model , it too describes something called the " Cultural enablers" as the foundation of any lean transformation.

Cultural transformation needs visionary leader who is very well acquainted with the dynamics of the organization and good at the art of persuasion. As described by Richard Shell, persuasion is "Part emotional intelligence, part politics, part rhetoric and part psychology" .What he refers to as "The Art of WOO". WOO - winning others over

The most important quality of the lean leader is perseverance, there will be lot of failures in the beginning but the positive approach by a good leader will keep things moving. People should be allowed to take risk and be comfortable with failing. This is very essential if you want that everyone take responsibility for their processes and results. Not only does this free the leader to do more strategic thinking but the synergistic effect of everyone trying to solve problems at all the levels in the organization tremendously boost the transformation process.
Leaders don't cultivate bee workers they promote people who are entrepreneur in their respective function. This makes innovation as part of the culture.

Jack Welch describes this as two traits of the leader - "positive Energy and ability to energize others" which according to him are inbuilt in a person. He also describes other two traits "edge and ability to execute" which are developed by experience.

Leader should respect others and be open to ideas from people at different levels and functions. A good leader shares his knowledge with others and expect the same from others. They believe best way to learn is to teach someone , and then let that person apply the same technique in his unique way. Thus by teaching several people and sharing their experiences the whole team learns at much faster pace and more innovative applications are discovered.

Lean Leader also has the traits of the "Effective Executive" as explained by great late Peter F. Drucker

Having a good leader is not only a requirement of lean transformation , but is a necessary for growth and sustainment of any organization.