We are in the age of flatter organization structure coupled with cross-discipline teams making it more complex to get things done. This difficulty has led to a newer style leadership that we may call influential leadership. Which could be simply stated, as the ability to influence others in the absence of positional power. I did an entire podcast on this subject with Jeffery Sloper, which you can read, Getting to the Leadership Table. Sloper states in the podcast,
I don’t know many IT, HR, quality people that have the ability positionally to direct line staff or line managers, I should say, to do anything, but they do have a lot of technical expertise and they do add a lot of value to the organization. Unfortunately, it gets hidden or ignored because of a lack of ability to effectively communicate and influence.
This podcast was a few years ago and I believe times have changed. The ability to manage and direct teams have now become an important part of success. A recent HBR article, Why More Executives Should Consider Becoming a CHRO, pointed out:
If you’re a business leader looking for an opportunity to have real impact on your company — and position yourself for the top job — which career path is best? CFO? COO? CMO? What if we told you that the CHRO role might be the best job you could ever have, with real opportunity for reshaping an organization? That the CHRO role, although at first it may look career limiting, can have more impact than any other position reporting to the CEO?
With that said, the HR position has become a way to the leadership table. However, you can just sit by the phone and wait for it to ring. You still have to earn it and primarily through that idea of influential leadership. You simply do not have enough direct contact or situational power. Or do you? In a Lean Enterprise, we always seem to be trying to move Lean throughout the organizations from the basis of operations. Which of course is where often times it is rooted but at Toyota the actual the influence of Lean is spread down through coaching.
In Lawrence Miller’s book, The Lean Coach, he asked Dr. Jake Abraham what was the Toyota Way of coaching:
Dr. Jake Abraham was with Toyota for many years and was responsible for the implementing the coaching process. I asked him how this worked at Toyota through a series of questions. Here is his reply to my questions:
Yes, every manager at Toyota had a coach. I had the opportunity to set this up while at Toyota. Yes, it was economically not feasible to have coaches full time. There were no coaches full time, except there might be a master coach – like myself – helping with the development process of coaching – as part of my other duties as the continuous improvement & human resource development (Toyota Way) senior manager.
These coaches were other next level managers – assistant general managers, general manager, vice presidents and even the president. In some situations, we had very seasoned and senior managers coaching junior managers. So part of their daily work of operational management was also to coach others.
I make the assumption, I do not have direct knowledge of Toyota, that if you try to follow the Toyota model human resource is the one that holds the key for driving Lean throughout the organization. Building a sustainable Lean organization may directly under their influence and the driving factor of a company’s overall success. If Lean can be delivered to the various silos in an organization, the influencer is in my humble opinion the most promotable person within the organization.
Would you like to jump-start that effort? Lean Frontiers is putting on an event September 11-15, 2017 in the charming Southern city of Savannah, GA. It starts with the 2-day Lean People Development Summit and ends with the 2-day Lean Accounting & Management Summit. Between the 2 events is a unique offering of workshops applicable to both sets of attendees. Join executives and their teams from around the globe and explore best practices as it relates to developing people and managing the business of the lean enterprise. More information can be found at http://www.leanfrontiers.com/lean-leadership-week/.