Lean Leadership – Fundamental Principles and their Application

Lean production systems (LPS) have become state of the art in today's production facilities. But still, few enterprises succeed in maintaining a sustainable continuous improvement process (CIP). In many LPS, solely methods and tools are in focus of the implementation. But they merely represent the superficial elements of LPS. The actual key success factor is the involvement of employees in daily improvement. This can be achieved through a different way of leadership, the lean leadership. Although the importance of lean leadership has already been emphasized by many authors, so far no consistent structure or definition of this approach exist. Therefore, a literature study has been carried out, aimed at identifying the relevant principles of lean leadership. A subsequent survey reveals the application of lean leadership and points out future possibilities for improvement. The majority of participants confirms the particular importance of lean leadership and claim to apply almost all its elements in their enterprises. But the results also indicate that some elements have been misinterpreted and others are not used as thoroughly as they should.