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Seven Success Factors Impact Leader Effectiveness in Manufacturing

Guest post by: Richard Lepsinger

Article Overview: Manufacturing companies have fewer resources to execute business objectives. OnPoint's study reveals the success factors that impact leader effectiveness to help prioritize leadership development initiatives and ensure ROI.

Seven Success Factors Impact Leader Effectiveness in Manufacturing

The role of the leader has never been as important or demanding as it is today in the manufacturing industry. Customers want quicker response, more flexibility, better communication, and customization. This is no small feat with slowed economies and strained credit markets, making it difficult to achieve target growth rates and maintain the necessary operating budgets. At the same time, leaders at all levels are faced with the challenge of delivering consistent, sustainable results in leaner organizations. To succeed, leaders must ensure that the right people with the right skills are in the right roles.

In this environment, an understanding of which competencies make the difference in a leader's effectiveness can help manufacturing companies prioritize their talent management efforts to ensure the greatest return on investment. To shed light on this, in partnership with the American Management Association, I collected data on the effectiveness of 65 leaders in the manufacturing industry.

Which Competencies Set Apart the Most Effective Manufacturing Leaders?

Of 46 competencies, seven emerged as the factors that differentiate the most effective leaders in manufacturing. The results suggest that these leaders are able to balance execution-oriented behaviors with the interpersonal skills required to build trust and cooperation. The seven competencies include:

• Action orientation (e.g., maintaining a sense of urgency, acting decisively to implement solutions and resolve crises, persevering in the face of adversity or opposition, and translating ideas into action)
• Building trust and demonstrating personal accountability (e.g., keeping promises and honoring commitments, accepting responsibility for one's actions, communicating honestly)
• Building teams (e.g., increasing mutual trust; encouraging cooperation, coordination, and identification with the work unit; encouraging information sharing among individuals; including others in processes and decisions)
• Flexibility and Agility (e.g., adjusting one's behavior to new information or changing circumstances, remaining open to new ways of doing things, experimenting with new methods, and working effectively in a dynamic environment)
• Influencing (e.g., using techniques that appeal to reason, values, or emotion to generate enthusiasm for the work, commitment to a task objective, or compliance with a request)
• Oral Communication (e.g., conveying ideas and opinions clearly, considering the needs of the audience and how it is likely to react, and listening attentively)
• Self-Confidence (e.g., acting on the basis of one's convictions rather than trying to please others, being confident in oneself, and having a sense of one's capabilities without being arrogant)

What Contributes to a Leader's Potential?

We also wanted to understand what sets apart manufacturing leaders who are exceptional in their current roles and are seen as having potential for more challenging roles from exceptional leaders who are not perceived as having potential. We found that three competencies differentiated managers with potential:

• Influencing was identified as one of the differentiators of top performing leaders, and it had a strong impact on the perception of potential. This finding emphasizes the need for manufacturing leaders to master influencing skills to create alignment and build commitment across a diverse constituency.
• The other two competencies were managing and leading change (e.g., clearly communicating the need for change and gaining people's commitment; putting a realistic plan in place; keeping people informed about the progress of change) and critical and analytical thinking (e.g., questioning basic assumptions, applying sound reasoning, understanding the complexity of an issue and breaking it down into manageable pieces)

Influence is not only a differentiator of top performing leaders but it also has a strong impact on the perception of potential. This emphasizes the need for manufacturing leaders to master influencing skills to create alignment and build commitment. OnPoint's research found that the most effective leaders leverage four core tactics to gain commitment and buy-in to their plans: rational persuasion (using facts and logic), inspiration (appealing to values and beliefs), consultation (involving people in "shaping" the idea), and collaboration (decreasing the difficulty of carrying out a request).

The Bottom Line

While there is clearly no silver bullet to effective leadership, our study offers some insight into the competencies that set apart the best from the rest. The competencies that set apart exceptional manufacturing leaders reinforce the idea that leaders must be able to balance execution with the interpersonal side of leadership. It also appears that failure to master these skills early in one's career may be a top derailer for a leader in today's challenging business environment.

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Article Tags: leader effectiveness, leadership development, manufacturing companies, success factors



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