Lean Leadership Practices-A Literature Review

Ashtiani NN, Bhuiyan N and

Abstract

This paper presents a review of the literature on lean leadership practices. We begin with a brief review of the literature on lean origins and history, followed by a quick introduction to lean principles, building blocks, and prominent implementation frameworks in the literature, and conclude by reviewing the scarce literature on the focused subject of lean leadership in terms of tools, practices, attributes, and frameworks. A critical gap has been identified in the literature with regards to a holistic and practical leadership model for companies that are willing to make a changeover to a lean business system. This review reveals the need for a meticulously developed leadership model based on empirical evidence. It also discusses the necessity of developing new lean tools for leadership or adapting the existing lean tools to leadership tasks.