Lean Leadership for Ops Managers · Jamie V. Parker

Navigating the Intangibles of Leadership with Elisabeth Swan | 108

·33 min·2 clips

A box of unsharpened pencils turns into a leadership lesson about blaming the process, not the person.

Jamie starts with the messy part. Leadership intangibles are where change work can bog down, even when the lean tools make sense on paper. Elizabeth Swan comes in as a Lean Six Sigma trainer, program designer, change leader, and coach with more than 25 years behind her. The conversation stays useful and human. Swan's point is that how to advice often skips the potholes, so leaders need detours for the people problems that block improvement. One pothole is waiting to talk. She separates real listening from sitting there until it is your turn to speak. Most people know that feeling. The person talking can tell when someone is already building a reply, chasing the next question, or checked out somewhere else. That small shift matters. After a while, people stop saying what they really think because they do not feel heard or connected. The episode does not turn this into a scolding. Swan points to the gap between speaking speed and processing speed: people speak at about 150 words a minute, while listeners can process around 650. The mind fills the extra room. The detour is noticing the drift, coming back, and listening for real. Sounds basic, sure. That is also why it is easy to miss until trust starts leaking away. Jamie closes by pushing listeners to pick one takeaway, write it down, share or teach it, and tie it back to their own leadership work.

As heard by us

A practical, conversation-style look at the human side of leadership for ops managers.

This episode looks at the human side of leadership in ops work, with Jamie V. Parker and Elisabeth Swan talking through what happens when the intangibles go sideways and which practical potholes get in the way of leading change.

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Why you'd press play

You keep running into people-leadership tangles that the usual how-to advice skips over.

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