Leadership isn’t about titles, charisma, or quick decisions—it’s about creating systems where people can do their best work and continuously improve. This archive brings together blog posts, podcasts, and reflections on leadership through a Lean lens, drawing on ideas from Deming, Toyota, healthcare, and real-world management practice. The common theme: leaders shape culture, influence behavior, and own the systems that produce results—for better or worse.
by Jamie Flinchbaugh, co-author, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Lean [This is a continuation of a thread on Leading Lean topics from A-Z] When visiting companies that feel better about their lean journey than they probably should, perhaps the most common…
I recently invited questions for Michael Balle, the author of the Shingo Prize winning book The Gold Mine: A Novel of Lean Turnaround. He has a new book (published by LEI, my employer), recently published, called “The Lean Manager.” Here…
Mark’s note: Jim’s post originally started as a comment in response to my post “Where Did I Start with Lean?” but it exceeded the size limit for a comment, I believe. So I’m posting it here: By Jim Baran This…
A question came in from a blog reader — simple question with no simple or easy answers: Who are the Lean Thinking CEOs? My first thought is Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, for his famous customer obsession and belief in long-term thinking…
Note: Welcome LEI visitors… you can check out my main blog page at www.leanblog.org, as I hope you’ll come back. Here are some other recent posts: Where Did I Start With Lean? One Purple Audacious Goal Caution! Warning Signs in…
This might seem like a post about football… but stick with me even if you’re not a sports fan. Many of you regular readers know I’m a Northwestern Wildcats football fanatic, from my days as an undergraduate. I was there…
I have always learned a lot from John Shook. As I’ve blogged about before, I’ve seen John present about TPS and management (leadership, really) a few times and probably learn more “insights per hour” than anyone else in the Lean…
Tomorrow’s blog post today… not that anyone will be reading anything non-Michael Jackson related. RIP. A modern tidbit… I learned about the news via a friend’s Facebook status update. The new, new media, I suppose. Communications Woes Show at Boeing…
This is an interview with Dr. Sami Bahri, D.D.S., a dentist from Jacksonville, Florida. He is a pioneer in using Lean methods in the management of his dental practice. The book documents his learning journey for himself and his office…
How the Mighty Fall: A Primer on the Warning Signs – BusinessWeek Jim Collins, of Good to Great fame, has a new book out called How The Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In. Excerpts were printed in…
Lean Leap to Health Care #7 (click for Part #6) by Scott McDuffee “Where is the main entrance? Why do I follow the signs to HERE? Now you are telling me to go all the way down THERE! How far…
Toyota Posts Big Loss, Signals More to Come – WSJ.com I saw this article on Saturday and it reminded me to go ahead and blog about a few other articles I’ve seen about Japanese CEOs lately. The big news about…
