I have always held and I do hold that the leader is made, but first is born. Leadership is trained, educated, formed, and studied, in several ways. But above all it is born. It can be sown, but on compost, not on wasteland. We have all seen children from very young with leadership attitudes, although at those ages, they are often confused with bossy attitudes, which is not the same. In fact, I would say it is antithetical.
Just before the Government decreed the state of alarm, I had the opportunity to start a course entitled “Efficient Management with Lean and Kanban” at the Bilbao College of Industrial Engineers. Unfortunately, we were only able to hold two sessions out of the four of which it is made up, before we had to stop. The group of the course is made up of 20 people from various companies, positions and professions, which gives it heterogeneity and wealth.
In the second session, the speaker proposed an exercise on the subject and for this, he distributed a series of roles, which are those that appear in the image that heads this entry, and which were:
• 5 operators.
• 1 material carrier.
• 1 G.P.S.
• 1 Managing Director.
• 1 Customers
• 1 Controller.
• 2-3 persons to disassemble.
All of us were organized in groups and the game was very entertaining and illustrative, with different simulations of situations, and whose main objective was to demonstrate the benefits of a lean organization, with intermediate controlled stocks, distributing the different stages of production in different ways, with preparation times and without them, etc.
What caught my attention the most was the speed with which people applied to the different roles, except which one? Exactly: the Managing Director one. I deliberately pulled myself away because I was curious about people’s reaction. In the end I took it, but that is anecdotal.
It made me reflect: if this is so when it is only about a game, what will it not be when it is about reality? But above all during this confinement to which we are subjected I thought several times about that anecdote and I thought: and if we do the same exercise after the pandemic has passed, when we return to “normality” and see what remains of our companies and of the industrial sector in particular, I wonder how many and what kind of leaders will run to manage post-Covid.19 time.
It is said nowadays that a new leadership will be necessary, with new attitudes and skills, with people trained in other types of skills such as digital ones, etc. I am already satisfied that we have leaders with pre-Covid19 features. I don’t think new attributions need to be invented for our leaders. I am happy enough with them taking a step forward and saying “here I am.” Not like in the game.