What is Reliability Leadership?
Abstract
Carl and Fred discuss the broad subject of leadership, and how it applies to reliability engineering and management.
Key Points
Join Carl and Fred as they discuss reliability leadership.
Topics include:
- What is reliability leadership?
- Importance of influencing behavior in DFR
- The soft skills of reliability
- Difference between a manager and a leader
- Role of influencer parallel’s role of leader
- You don’t have to be a manager to be a reliability leader
- Getting comfortable working with management
- Leadership as a learned set of skills
- Practice leading and be open to feedback
- Followers have their own role
Enjoy an episode of Speaking of Reliability. Where you can join friends as they discuss reliability topics. Join us as we discuss topics ranging from design for reliability techniques, to field data analysis approaches.
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Principle-Centered Leadership
, by Stephen R. Covey
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Personal Workbook
, by Stephen R. Covey
Developing the Leader Within You
, by John C. Maxwell
The Courageous Follower: Standing Up to and for Our Leaders
, by Ira Chaleff
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Another great discussion and its got me thinking about some things I’d like to pursue further. Thanks for posting. Looking forward to reading your book.
I wonder if our industry’s leaders look for the same traits and skills in our country’s leaders? Some times I wonder, are true leaders looking on thinking “I would never do or say that!” 🙂
Hi Fred and Carl,
Thank you for another great episode. I’m glad you are addressing Reliability Leadership in your book. I agree with your point that Reliability Engineers should have influence in the organization and it is particularly difficult for early-career Rel Engs to do that. Even if they have technical expertise, they fail to influence decisions cause they lack this soft skill. Enter psychology for help! I stumbled upon this book called Influence: the psychology of persuasion by Robert Cialdini and we can borrow some concepts (with a grain of salt) to learn this soft skill.
One another thing, a podcast series by Freakonomics Radio investigates CEOs; how they do; who makes a good CEO, etc. It concludes that there is no one definite leadership trait that we can use to evaluate people but rather any combination of traits will work successfully depending on the environment. I feel it’s the same for Reliability Leadership and this falls in line with Carl’s point that anyone can make a good leader if they push out their comfort zone and learn as they yield leadership.
Just thought I’ll share these with you. Thank you,
-Arun Gowtham
Thanks for your comments, Arun. You provide two very good references and I look forward to exploring them. There are many great references we can use to learn about the soft skills that are so important to reliability leadership. When I travel, I often pick up a copy of the Harvard Business Review. The March-April 2018 edition had a great article on Brainstorming. As I’ve often said, personal development is a life-long process, and we should embrace the wealth of resources.