It’s tempting to look at CEO competencies the way we would look at the skills of a quarterback, and many articles and books try to codify the basket of capabilities that great leaders bring to the table. I initially tried to do that when I wrote The Lean CEO, but when it came to nailing down competencies that the CEOs shared, I drew a blank. Instead, I found they had different personalities, different backgrounds, and faced different situations that called for different approaches.
The CEOs, however, were surprisingly similar when I looked at beliefs and purpose. All had learned to reject standard business practices such as batch thinking, treating employees as commodities, and using GAAP accounting reports to make operational decisions. Furthermore, they all believed deeply in the importance of gemba, and in developing people to create an enduring culture of continuous improvement.
Many leading thinkers have extolled the powers of belief. It should be no surprise that leadership depends on that, particularly for leaders committed to something as challenging as a Lean transformation.