“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take,” said famous hockey player Wayne Gretzky.
Life at the workplace is more than mediocrity; maintaining the status quo and earning a paycheck. Employees want a purpose to be fulfilled, whether that is doing something for the greater good or enjoying their life through work input. Exemplary leaders are those that set high-bars of goals that organizations need to complete. They challenge the norm, finding an opportunity of greatness. To create an ambitious workforce, leaders promote external communication; they listen, take advice, and learn. Simply because many innovations don’t come from leaders, but from their team members who are closest to the work. It is a leader’s job to search for opportunities of success by seizing the initiative and looking outward for innovative ways to improve.
Leadership is inevitably connected with the process of innovation, of bringing new ideas, methods, or solutions to use. Innovation means change, and change requires leadership to push for implementation of strategic decisions. Leadership is the ability of those who triumph against overwhelming odds, who take initiative to surpass expectations, and who mobilize individuals in the face of resistance.
That’s exactly what Ron displayed when he was promoted as a new manufacturing engineer at an electric automaker after the company made a few rounds of layoffs. Instead of being overwhelmed and anxious, he was determined to take initiative. He understood that the company wanted to minimize the costs for each EV, and he had some ideas about how they could reduce the lead time from customer order to delivery. When he approached his manager, he found that she was more focused on dealing with current and dire problems, not long-term issues. Refused to be discouraged, Ron explained and asked her if he could work with the production team to create more efficiency. She agreed.
When he approached the team and introduced his ideas, the assembly line manager replied that manufacturing is not the issue, rather it was the sales team. Ron wanted to turn the manager’s cynical view into an optimistic one, so he asked if they could view the production efficiency. Intrigued by the proposal, the manager gave the green light. Ron simulated and experimented with different production scenarios, and found that they could increase throughput by 50%.
Ron knew that this was time to bring Sales into the mix, so he asked about the possibility of reducing window time between customer order and delivery. They replied that when they pushed the accounts to order more frequently, they ended up going to other vendors. Ron, still not dissuaded, suggested that they visit one of Toyota’s factories and learn about their minimize lead time by sharing cost-savings with their customers. Sales got excited and over the course of six months, they were able to convince all of their accounts to increase order frequency.
This is an excellent example of leadership, where Ron -- even though he’s merely an engineer -- decided to improve the companies’ efficiency by communicating with those closest to innovation. He searched for an opportunity where his team could excel in their mission. Ron displayed the characteristic of ‘Inspiring’, where he motivated and enriched the workplace with excitement and productivity. Exemplary leadership involves the act of challenging the process, and the status quo.
Note: All knowledge and ideas are attained from the book"The Leadership Challenge: How to Make Extraordinary Things Happen in Organizations 5th Edition". This blog summarizes the content from the book, but may unintentionally contain the same wording.
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