Lean Six Sigma – Learning Leadership Processes

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

If you’re in a position of leadership, then you have probably heard a lot of theories and management style recommendations from your superiors or even from the books you read and conferences you’ve attended. While some leadership processes are fads that quickly die out, others are long standing programs that might be worth looking into if a person is interested in expanding their leadership knowledge.

 Leadership Build Lean Six Sigma (Source: tleecorp.com)

The first and most commonly known is called Six Sigma. Six Sigma looks to further improve all processes of a product’s creation. This is a very methodical program where data is analyzed carefully to determine where the process is getting errors and looks for a way to continuously remove those errors. Companies might use Six Sigma as a way to get everyone working together to create the best possible product. While Six Sigma has great results in manufacturing, many people don’t believe that the same standards can be applied in the services sector.

Lean goes hand-in-hand with Six Sigma. In fact, they are so closely linked that Lean Six Sigma is a common term to hear.

Lean is a way of finding and removing waste and has several different categories that cause waste including Transportation, Inventory, Motion, Waiting, Overproduction, Over-Processing, and Defects.

Both Lean and Six Sigma are parts of something called process leadership. This term means just what it sounds like. Instead of focusing on people management, process leaders focus on managing the process. In these cases, the manager will get very involved in every detail of the process and will make sure that all members of the team are completing jobs in the exact same way. By keeping the focus on the process, and keeping focus on the process being the same every time, these leaders strive to eliminate these waste and errors.

Process management doesn’t eliminate the need for feedback from employees. Instead, it increases the need for feedback. One of the ways managers can speed up production and eliminate unnecessary steps is to find out from employees which steps are unnecessary, time wasting, or duplication of other steps. Process management puts the emphasis on streamlining a business. By removing unnecessary processes, managers can reduce the risk of errors and save time.

 Lean Six Sigma – Leadership Processes (Source: www.wku.edu)

However, Lean Six Sigma does have its downsides. People who argue against it states that it dehumanizes workers and leads to micromanagement. It is also difficult to adjust the Lean Six Sigma process for those who do not work in the manufacturing sector. For those in the service industry, embracing these philosophies can be difficult due to the unexpected complications that dealing directly with customers can cause.

If you are planning on becoming a leader in the manufacturing or product industry, it might be a good idea to look into Lean Six Sigma practices to boost your own knowledge.

While these practices aren’t for everyone, there are many companies using them so knowing about them, or even being certified, can make you more appealing to work with.

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To Success,
Andrew Shin

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