Leadership contest? Manufacturing has one of its own

Jo Faragher

There’s little we can do about the leadership issues going on in key areas of the political world at the moment, but one sector that is in dire need of some support in this area is manufacturing.

This sector lags behind all other industries when it comes to leadership quality, according to research from DDI and The Conference Board.

Only just over a third of leaders in manufacturing are rated as ‘high quality’, it said. Worse still, only 16% rated the future supply of leaders as high.

So what is behind this worrying trend? DDI argues that there are multiple issues, such as skills shortages and an ageing workforce, but there is also probably a far more prosaic explanation.

Manufacturing, like IT or the creative industries, is full of people who are good at their job – whether that’s specialist engineering, knowledge of an obscure production process or the best way to network a computer. These people are skilled technicians, but that doesn’t necessarily equip them to be great managers, and even less so great leaders.

This suggests that investment would be well placed supporting those who are technically competent (and crucially, who want to move into management) to hone their emotional intelligence, their ability to listen to employees’ concerns and to manage by example, rather than simply ordering people to complete a list of tasks.

DDI suggests that financially at least, the rewards could be worth it. Companies with high leadership quality and engagement are nine times more likely to outperform their peers, it claims. And where leaders displayed those valuable interpersonal and interaction skills, these performed twice as well as those organisations where this was not the case.

It will pay to start early, too, rather than trying to ‘retro-fit’ existing managers into a better leadership model. Incorporating leadership and management modules in key qualifications, for example, will help build a healthier pipeline of leaders for the future.