Competence and Character: The Core of Trust and Leadership

In the last chapter we introduced the people part of this book on a Lean perspective. In this chapter, we will discuss the topic of character and competence. Managers must understand that in order to move a business forward, skillful, competent, and trustworthy people are needed. These people can and will drive for positive results. Companies must strive to hire people with the appropriate blend of competence and character. Once obtained, these stellar people must be placed in challenging roles to succeed. Character and competence form the core of leadership. Thus, during the hiring process, Human Resources and hiring managers are hiring leaders to run their organization. As we will learn later, stellar people are natural leaders and it does not matter where they sit in the organizational chart. The optimum employee will automatically self-lead to do the right thing at the right time. This same employee must also know when it is best to involve others to make himself or herself, cross-functional counterparts, and the organization successful. Thus, anyone having the ability to influence the people within the organization, no matter his or her level, has leadership potential. An effective influencer has the ability not only to influence those on the same level or below, but also, more importantly, to influence those in higher positions. These can be new employees or even current employeeswho have never been considered. These employees should then be given the chance to add value to the organization. It really is all about the people. Great people strive for positive results to fulfill themselves. Of course, the company benefits from this as well.