Leadership as a bottleneck

Production areas can only remain efficient if leadership works. For it to be effective, it must be clearly aligned within the company and consistently implemented on a day-to-day basis. Leadership is not a soft additional skill, but a management task. It determines how data, deviations and conflicting objectives are turned into concrete priorities and effective measures. Quality and performance in production are the result of decisions in day-to-day business, not concepts. Management determines whether information is used or remains inconsequential.

Production managers today are under great pressure. Quality, reliability, speed, flexibility and cost efficiency must be achieved simultaneously - in shift operation, with a high number of variants and increasing uncertainty. With increasing complexity, management decides whether the operation remains stable in time or whether it goes into reaction mode. Disruptions cannot be avoided. However, management determines whether they are controlled or become a permanent problem.

In many production areas, management itself becomes a bottleneck. Key figures and information are often available in real time, but do not automatically lead to decisions. It is often unclear who decides in the event of conflicting objectives, what has priority at the moment and who is responsible for implementation. Deviations are reported but not decided; measures are initiated but not consistently pursued. Leadership then depends on individuals instead of being reliably anchored in the company. If leadership becomes a bottleneck, this is rarely due to the commitment of individuals. The decisive factor is whether leadership is clearly defined, coordinated and effectively anchored in the system.

What effective leadership must achieve

Leadership is effective when it sets priorities and enables decisions to be made on a day-to-day basis. It translates deviations into concrete decisions and actionable measures. Above all, this includes regularly checking whether employees and managers have everything they need to perform at their best. At the same time, management shapes the framework conditions within which production takes place. As the area of responsibility grows, the focus shifts from individual decisions to the design of structures.

Individual training courses, new terms or short-term initiatives hardly change management in the company. Reliability is only created through a common understanding of leadership in the form of company leadership principles that provide orientation in everyday life and facilitate decision-making. Leadership is understood as the targeted exertion of influence on structures and people - with the aim of enabling reliable performance. This understanding describes what leadership should achieve in the company - independent of individuals. This makes leadership comprehensible and verifiable. Without such guidelines, different experiences lead to different decisions. Conflicts of objectives escalate and leadership always starts all over again.

Complementary leadership: tasks, roles, routines

The complementary leadership model provides a proven and easy-to-implement basis for this. It structures leadership along three elements.

Management tasks:

They describe what leadership has to achieve in day-to-day production. Firstly, employees must be able to do their work well. Goals and priorities are clear, qualifications and feedback are right, cooperation works. Secondly, performance requires stable framework conditions - such as a clear business strategy, sustainable processes and an organization that enables decisions to be made. Leadership does not ensure execution, but rather the conditions under which execution succeeds.

Management roles:

You clarify who is responsible for these tasks. In everyday life, employees manage their own work as far as possible. The manager supplements where there is a lack of self-control. They are also responsible for the overarching rules and structures. Roles change depending on the perspective. Managers who lead a team are themselves part of the system that they lead in relation to the next level up.

Management routines:

They make leadership concrete. This refers to fixed, scheduled formats in which priorities are clarified, decisions are made and measures are pursued - from short shift talks to strategy meetings. They ensure that deviations do not remain unresolved and that solutions take effect in the company. The decisive factor is not the number of meetings, but whether they lead to clear decisions and binding implementation.