Order 939051: leadership

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Chapter 7 Leadership

People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. . . The leader works in the open, and the

boss in covert. The leader leads, and the boss drives. ~Theodore Roosevelt

Leaders vs. Managers

Obviously, reading the quote above by Theodore Roosevelt makes sense to many of us.

Throughout my career, I can think of several people who I thought were leaders and not just

managers. If you think about the differences in leading versus managing, one can be viewed as

the bare minimum effort needed to get through the day-managing. While leading may require

extra effort, understanding and time, the difference in the two can mean success or failure of a

team or objective.

I am often amazed at the U.S. military and how on occasion, ordinary soldiers, marines, seamen

and airmen do extraordinary things. The mind set of someone in the armed services is that of

someone being exposed to leadership on a constant basis. I have always admired and been in

awe of people selected for the Medal of Honor. I take the time to read the official narrative on

what the recipient did to achieve the highest award possible in military service. Always given

for valor above and beyond the call of duty, sadly almost all medals are awarded posthumously.

In reviewing the narratives, at some point, the recipient took leadership matters into their own

hands and made decisions for a favorable outcome of the group or team. It is for these reasons

that many companies and industries prefer employees with military experience. Military training

and leadership always teach to not give up, readjust, adapt and move on.

Harold Gregory "Hal" Moore, Jr. is a retired lieutenant general in the United States Army.

General Moore in 1992 wrote a book called, We Were Soldiers Once… And Young which was

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Moore’s account of commanding the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry at the Battle of Ia Drang,

Vietnam. The Battle of Ia Drang was the first major engagement of the Vietnam War in which

U.S. forces and the People’s Army of Vietnam, PAV fought against each other. The book was

later immortalized in the movie, We Were Soldiers in 2002. During the battle under General

Moore’s leadership, the engagement included,

 450 U.S. soldiers versus 2,000 PAV regulars

 an entire platoon cut off from the rest of the battalion

 one helicopter crash landing

 a friendly fire incident which took American lives; and

 numerous ambushes

The leadership principles of General Moore during the battle were the same principles that he

instilled in himself and his troops before deployment. In an interview with General Moore by

Arm Chair General, the question was asked how to generalize his leadership style. General

Moore stated, “My leadership philosophy, which I employed in the military and also for years in

the civilian sector, can be summarized as-power down. I pushed the authority to make decisions

down to company commanders and told them to push the power down to their squad leaders and

the individual Soldiers in the ranks. I told my people, if you feel you are qualified to make a

decision or to take action, do it. Otherwise, move it up a notch for a decision.” (Moore 2007)

Moore is also credited with creating the what is called, the 4 Principles of Leadership in Battle.

These principles include one of the most famous quotes from General Moore, “Three strikes and

you're NOT out.” Moore relates that 3 strikes and you’re out only works in baseball. There is

always something the leader can do to change the outcome of a situation or problem. In times

when everything is going according to plan is the time when complacence sets in, and

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threatening the plan. Moore also agrees that leaders should act on instinct and believe that it is

easier to ask forgiveness then to get permission.

I am lucky enough to have a family member in the military. I asked him a few questions when I

was writing this book, and he shared some insight into what leadership values were instilled in

him. When I asked him the difference between military leadership and corporate leadership he

told me, “Corporate leadership usually ends when the employee leaves for the day. Military

leadership revolves around the principle that we must be accountable for our actions, and that of

our subordinates, 24 hours a day. If a subordinate gets in trouble on the weekend, the

subordinates’ chain of command is expected to get involved, and must take time out of their

weekend to resolve the problem. The leaders are questioned on what they did to prevent the

issue before it became a problem (i.e., safety brief, counseling) and what their course of action to

correct the problem is. This invests the leaders in their subordinates professional and personal

lives, while placing a greater emphasis on ensuring subordinates are capable of

preventing/resolving issues before they become larger problems. Constant accountability and

responsibility of all subordinates' actions is probably the most defining characteristics of

leadership within the military.” His statement validates the fact that subordinates are investments

to the leadership in the military. Does your company look at employees as an investment?

Thank you Lieutenant. I appreciate your service to our great country and the freedom you

provide as well as all others who have served at one time or another.

Leadership Traits and Trust

What makes a good leader? There can be and are many different answers to this question. The

difference between leading and managing can be strikingly different. There have been many

different studies on leadership, with five different traits identified as leadership qualities.

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People want to work and be led by an honest leader. Honesty, as well as ethics, played a big role

in the latest economic downturn. The auto industry appeared on Capitol Hill asking congress for

a loan to float General Motors, Chrysler and Ford Motor Company. In statements to congress,

all three companies identified increased cost of raw materials and a slow economy to blame.

Upon further review, Ford elected not to take federal money to stabilize their business. Both GM

and Chrysler received a combined total of $17.4 billion dollars in loans. (Wallstreet Journal

2008) Many customers also felt that Ford was extremely honest, and demonstrated that when

sales of Ford vehicles started to rise in late 2009. By 2010, sales of Ford vehicles were up by

33% and even posted a 1% gain in market share, as sales for both GM and Chrysler fell. (Kell

2010)

Honesty in leadership plays an especially big role when mistakes have been made. During the

BP Deepwater Horizon incident in 2010, then CEO Tony Hayward created a dishonest

atmosphere, using poor word choices during different interviews. Before the Deepwater

Horizon incident, BP had integrity issues due to past catastrophic incidents such as the Texas

City Explosion in 2005 that killed 15 workers. At the end of the day, people want to work for an

honest company and instill honesty as a value and model for all employees to follow.

Another trait that is important to being a good leader is to be a visionary. Forward thinkers are

always looking at how to get to the next level, how to get to the ideal business state. Forward

thinking is the entire basis of lean manufacturing and enterprise. Lean enterprise reduces

variation, eliminates waste and improves the process. By completing all of these tasks,

companies now have time to focus on the future instead of dealing with the present.

When Henry Ford decided to go into the automobile business, there were no paved roads, no fuel

stations or repair shops. Ford wrote, “The Edison Company offered me the general

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superintendence of the company but only on condition that I would give up my gas engine and

devote myself to something really useful. I had to choose between my job and my automobile. I

chose the automobile, or rather I gave up the job—there was really nothing in the way of a

choice. For already I knew that the car was bound to be a success. I quit my job on August 15,

1899, and went into the automobile business”. (Ford and Crowther 1923) To have his vision of

building a car and building it successfully with no infrastructure in place, clearly required

forward thinking.

When leaders are identified as not being very visionary or forward thinking, there is a distinct

possibility that the leader may be afraid or unwilling to share their vision with others. If

someone came to you 15 years ago and told you, “I am going to start a company that will

produce a new type of phone. I want it to be able to take pictures, double as a video camera,

send text messages, intercept email, and watch movies on it.” What would you have thought?

There is also a tendency for leaders not to share visions in the event that a goal or vision has not

or will not be reached. In some cases, leaders have been seen as somewhat “flaky” when a

vision is broadcasted and then not achieved. Leonardo Da Vinci is considered one of the greatest

visionaries of all time. However, if you looked at his work during the time he was alive, it would

have been quite different.

Employees also want a leader to be competent. By nature, employees assume you are competent

if you are placed into a leadership position. However, the jury is still out until a few successful

demonstrations of competency are under your belt. Leaders must demonstrate competence every

chance they get. There is a fine line to this trait; too much competence demonstration can led to

thoughts of arrogance by others. Demonstrating competence also doesn’t mean that leaders have

to inject perspective into every meeting or conversation. Abraham Lincoln once said, "It is

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better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt."

Intelligence is different from competence, and is another important trait that employees identify

with leaders. The development of intelligence is always ongoing, in both formal and informal

settings. Formal setting such as college, give people the intelligence and understanding of

different subjects. Informal setting such as the workplace, also offer the opportunity to teach and

learn new knowledge. As a Safety Engineer at Ford Motor Company, my divisional boss and I

were walking through one of the assembly plants. He turned to me and said, “I can’t teach you

anything about safety and health that you don’t already know. What I can teach you is how to

get things done at Ford”. Obviously, this conversation caught my attention as I believed I was

going to get a magic answer to solve my issues. What he taught me was how to navigate in the

plant for safety and health issues, how to approach different departments and sell safety to other

managers. Intelligence will also be demonstrated in how you handle yourself regarding personal

behavior and attitude. I have met a lot of really intelligent people who have had horrible

attitudes. Everyone knows someone like this. If you think about those people, were they good

leaders? Do you feel that if they just had a better attitude, they would be great to work for?

Inspiration can tie all of these traits together. People in general, want to be inspired. The writing

of this book was in inspiration to my own passion for safety and telling my stories. Story telling

is inspirations’ biggest tool. It allows you to use visions and paint a picture of what you are

trying to say or accomplish. Stories that can connect to employees and people on an emotional

level will leave lasting impressions. If you have ever gone to hear a keynote speaker, usually

there will be some storytelling to draw the audience in. The more emotional the story, the farther

people will go to make the connection on a personal level.

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Inspiration and passion from a leader can motivate a workforce if the workforce believes the

leader is honest, visionary, competent and intelligent. (Leadership 501 2010)

Leadership Standardized Work

When we create standardized work for employees, we create standard work for all employees

including leaders. Lean is all about change and leaders must be open to change and create it.

How will management support the lean culture? Leaders are people too, and we already

established that the human condition is to resist change. This is why it is important to understand

what role leadership will have to support lean change. What should be in the leadership

standardized work? Answer is once again, it depends. Mostly, it depends on where the

organization is in its’ lean journey. If a culture has already been built and sustainment is an

issue, leadership standardized work will look different from an organization just to build a lean

culture.

At one facility, the leadership standardized work included the following identified in Figure 7.1

Insert Figure 7.1

Although Figure 7.1 doesn’t seem like there is much substance the leadership standardized work

for EHS, each piece or element of work was substantial.

Safety Operating System, SOS-Daily

 Review of Medical compliance issues, audiometric testing, PFTs, respirator fit testing

needed

 Review of Manager overdue incident investigation reports

 Review of Supervisor overdue incident investigation reports

 Review First Aid/Near Miss Rate (Rolling 12-Month)

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 Review DART Rate (Rolling 12-Month)

 Review ergonomic fixes and reviews for facility Top 25 Jobs

GEMBA Walk for Safety-Every Monday

The leadership GEMBA walk occurred every day, Monday through Friday from 11:00-12:00.

Each day represented a different function of the manufacturing process. Monday was deemed as

the day the leadership team would review safety. There were nine critical questions that were

asked regarding safety in the area the GEMBA walk occurred. Each question had significance to

the overall safety program and culture that was being reinforced. Figure 7.2 demonstrates the

specific targeted areas that were covered during the GEMBA walk for safety.

Insert Figure 7.2

Other areas that were included in the EHS Leadership Standard Work were participating in the

annual EHS audit process. Each leader was assigned as a champion of a different element

covered in the audit. The champion for a specific audit formed a cross functional team to ensure

that all departments were working towards sustaining EHS programs, practices and policies

within the facility. Safety Process Review Boards, SPRB meetings were also held once a month.

These meetings were overall processes check of the safety program to make sure everyone was

on the same page and all countermeasures were being addressed.

Leadership standardized work needs to be driven from the top down. Leaders need to be held

accountable just like all other employees. Leaders lead by example. In one facility I worked at,

we had a plant manager who came in and jump started the stalled lean program. When

leadership participation was lacking on the GEMBA walk one day, he called all managers into

the conference room. He talked about how important lean was and how the GEMBA walk was a

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significant part of leadership’s commitment to the lean process. He then said, “Starting today,

there will be no more meeting scheduled in this facility from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. This time is set

aside by me for the leadership of this facility to get on the floor. I expect you to be on the floor

one hour a day helping sustain our lean processes.” Everyone left the meeting and went about

their business. About 2 days later at 11 a.m., the plant manager was walking past an office and

saw two managers sitting. He went in and asked what was going on. Both managers stated that

they were working on a project together. Soon after a “significant emotional event” occurred,

reinforcing the need and message that leadership was expected to be visible on the shop floor,

driving lean.

Leadership in EHS

What makes a good EHS manager, director or leader? There are all kinds of benchmarking tools

on different safety metrics and models for programs and policies. There is a good chance that

you already know how to write a safety program or at the very least, how to get one. Here are

some basic concepts and tools that all EHS professionals should remember. These concepts, we

used properly will form and shape a good EHS leader.

Sell, Sell, and Sell!!!

Selling safety is a huge part of any program. The EHS professional must be able to sway and

sell the customer in why they should implement new processes or comply with policy. EHS

professionals should not beat other managers over the head with standards. At the same time,

when something does go wrong (and it will) resist the temptation of saying, “I told you so.”

Working with management when things do go wrong will build team trust and leadership. EHS

professionals need to be visionary and create programs that everyone can understand and comply

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with.

Know your Process & Flow

Safety is the same whether you’re building cars or cookies. With the exception of some different

standards in state run OSH programs, all OSHA standards are the same. It’s applying the

standard to a specific process that challenges EHS professionals. You need to spend time on the

floor asking questions and learning the processes of your location or facility. This knowledge

gives you the creditability to talk to operators, managers and engineers regarding safety issues

and improvements. If possible, try to do the job task in question yourself. Someone can tell you

that it hurts to pick up raw material all day, but until you do it yourself, you will never really

know. At the same time, you will also build relationships and trust with employees working on

the floor.

I can remember at one facility in my career; we had a new plant manager start one week. On

Friday, he wanted to have a meeting with all employees to introduce himself and his vision of

where we needed to go. The past plant manager usually held two meetings; one for first shift

and one for second shift. At the time, I was over security as well as safety and environmental for

the facility. About an hour before the meeting was to take place, I learned that the new plant

manager had decided to hold one meeting for everyone at the end of the first shift. In his mind,

holding two different meetings was a waste of time and people would not come to the second

meeting once information got out regarding the first meeting.

I went to his office after he was on the job for one week. I had explained to him that I had

wished he had consulted me before scheduling the meeting. The response I got was, “Why in the

world would I consult with safety to hold a meeting with all of my employees?” I asked him to

come with me to the front door of the facility in the lobby. As we opened the front door, I turned

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to him and said, “Because I am one of the few people here that can tell you our parking lot can

only handle one shift at a time.” Looking out the front door, we could see a line of cars trying to

get into our parking lot. The plant was built on an elevation, so we could also see cars stretched

through the industrial park, across the bridge over I-64 and finally backed up on I-64. The state

police showed up and asked why they weren’t notified of the meeting. The plant manager

looked at me, and I didn’t say a word to him. I went over the talk to the troopers and explained it

was a communication issue and we would appreciate help with traffic once the meeting was

over.

The parking lot looked like a scene from Woodstock. We had cars blocking other cars because

employees were late and couldn’t find a parking space. Fearing they would get in trouble for

clocking in late, vehicles were left in the middle of some lots. Several vehicles ended up in

culverts and drainage ditches attempting to park on wet grass.

I never told the plant manager, “Listen to me or I told you so.” We moved past that day and

were able to laugh about it years later. The rest of my tenure at the facility, I was always

included in the decision-making process. The moral of this story is if you know your processes

and how they work, you bring value to the organization and leadership to EHS.

Consistency, Do what you say you are doing

To build a strong foundation for the EHS program, consistency is the key and must be practiced

every day. Whenever I go to different companies for consulting or benchmarking, I always ask

to see written programs. Understanding that not every organization is perfect, 90% of the time I

find discrepancies in the written program as to what is occurring on the shop floor. The whole

reason to write safety programs is to make a program understandable to non-safety people and

create a program better than the standard.

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The fastest way to get in trouble during a compliance visit is to say you’re doing something on

paper, and not doing it in reality. If there is part of the program that no one is following and can

be omitted from the safety program, omit it. Lean is all about documenting real life. Safety

programs should also document real life.

Remember your Audience

Always remember who you’re talking to in both content and meaning. EHS is usually the one

department that will deal with issues from the president to the janitor. How you communicate

with people will leave a lasting impression. Presidents and CEOs are usually looking at the

company or organization at a high level. Shop floor employees and supervisors are dealing with

the here and now. EHS professionals need to calibrate communication skills to different levels

of meaning and understanding to be successful. If possible, communicate face-to-face rather

than through email.

Never Stop Learning

Become the perpetual student. If you are a part of a company that is embarking in lean

enterprise or is already engaged in lean, get involved. Read books on lean manufacturing,

research and improve your own process. Get on a cross-functional kaizen team and learn another

part of the business. Participate in DILO studies and get to know what supervisors go through on

the front lines in production. Formal learning gives you the foundation; informal learning gives

you the tools.

Works Cited

Ford, Henry, and Samuel Crowther. My Life and Work. Garden City, New York: Country Life

Press, 1923.

Kell, John. Wallstreet Journal. January 5, 2010. http://www.aipnews.com/talk/forums/thread-

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view.asp?tid=11456&posts=1 (accessed February 3, 2011).

Leadership 501. Leadership Traits- The Five Most Important Leadership Qualities. 2010.

http://www.leadership501.com/five-most-important-leadership-traits/27/ (accessed March 20,

2011).

Lt Gen Harold G. Moore, US Army (Retired). Battlefield Leadership.

http://www.lzxray.com/battle.htm (accessed February 21, 2011).

Moore, General Hal, interview by Armchair General. 10 Questions for General Hal Moore

(September 21, 2007).

Wallstreet Journal. Ford Absent From Auto Bailout but May Be Big Winner. December 19, 2008.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,470525,00.html (accessed January 3, 2011).