MRO Today - Building leadership abilities

Building leadership abilities

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Strategic leadership is about creating vision and inspiring people to change. Leadership gets others actively involved in building and supporting the process.

All of us in MRO supply management have to be "change leaders" in our current business activities. Leadership sets the whole change process in motion. Leaders create action by setting dynamic cost objectives, establishing new supply relationships that foster efficiencies and effectiveness, and empowering people. Shake your organization to its roots with dynamic objectives that motivate people to behave differently.

Here are five quick lessons to be a strategic leader.

Lesson 1: "Be up front and objective oriented!" Upfront leaders ensure everyone understands and owns the vision and mission.

Corporate objectives are our objectives; we must see our part in the big picture. Our people know how to use new supply management processes. Empower them to make changes in the supply process.

Leaders work with their strategic teams to establish and prioritize objectives. Objectives must be clearly defined, published and understood, measurable with the metrics, achievable with stretch, and continuous in the sense that theres always something in front of us.

Lesson 2: "Be up-to-date and farsighted!" One thing stands out from every book Ive read about great leaders. These people knew what was happening and could picture the future. So, be proactive.

Involve your people in plans and solutions. Develop situations that avert problems and achieve objectives. To be up-to-date and farsighted, take responsibility for professional self-development. This puts you ahead of the pack.

Lesson 3: "Be service focused!" In the old days, great leaders were servants to their people. They took great pains to ensure satisfaction. Today, we call it "customer focus."

In MRO supply management, everyone is our customer. The operations process must work smoothly and correctly, facilities must be clean with the utilities functioning, and our suppliers must be satisfied.

Similarly, our people must know that increasing customer service ensures our personal objectives. Training, delegation, empowerment, and support for people and teams build customer service.

Lesson 4: "Build your people and teams!" People are our most valuable asset. Teams accomplish much of what we do in the supply management process. The difference between leaders and "change leaders" is how they build and inspire the people in their teams.

While many leaders see development as an individual responsibility, effective leaders know building people is an organizational responsibility. They inspire teams to read and study, attend professional programs, contribute to professional activities, and reach out to others in networking and strategic teams.

Effective leaders provide the tools, time and other resources that allow their people and teams to do great work. Leaders must be involved with and support programs that build people and teams.

Lesson 5: "Be an effective communicator!" One of these lessons isnt more important than the others because they all go together. However, being a good communicator makes the other four easier to achieve and more effective.

Leaders should know their communication channels, the media available, and how to use them effectively. The message must go through all channels and to all people (internally and externally). Communication keeps our people with us in operations, and helps them understand our objectives.

It provides the will for service and motivation for people to grow. Your message should be a positive force that informs and inspires people to better performance.

Effective leadership makes any place a great place to work. We all have leadership roles to play. Some are bigger than others, but all are important. The National Association of Purchasing Management and its MRO Group offer many opportunities to develop leadership talents applicable to supply processes. These can help you be up front; up-to-date and farsighted; service focused; a builder of people and teams; and a better communicator.

Develop and apply the skills needed to shake your organization to its roots. Be a change leader.

Robert Kemp is a consultant, speaker and the former president of the National Association of Purchasing Management. He can be reached at .

This article appeared in the February/March 2001 issue of MRO Today magazine. Copyright, 2001.