After decades of working inside businesses—both as a leader and a consultant—I’ve come to a fundamental conclusion: continuous improvement is not only a top-down initiative. Sure, executives need to set the direction, but real, lasting change happens at the middle and frontline levels. It’s the supervisors, managers, and operators who make improvement a reality every day. Yet, too often, leaders focus on strategy and neglect the execution side of the equation.
The Mistake of Leading from the Top
Years ago, I visited a company that prided itself on its continuous improvement efforts. They had a beautifully designed presentation detailing their Lean transformation, complete with graphs, KPIs, and executive endorsements. But as I walked the floor, I asked a simple question: “What are you working on improving right now?”
The responses? Shrugs. Confused looks. Some polite answers that boiled down to “I don’t know.”
The disconnect was obvious: leadership had bought in, but the people responsible for executing change had not. That’s the Achilles’ heel of many improvement initiatives. If leaders talk about transformation but employees don’t feel like active participants, nothing sticks.
The Role of Leadership in Continuous Improvement
So how do leaders—especially middle managers—turn improvement from a corporate initiative into a cultural norm? Here’s what I’ve learned:
1. Make Continuous Improvement a Daily Habit, Not a Project
Too many companies treat improvement as a series of projects. But real progress happens in the small, daily wins. A culture of continuous improvement means employees are constantly finding ways to refine processes, cut inefficiencies, and solve problems—not just during structured improvement events.
At CBS, we focus on driving daily improvement. We once worked with a particular team that, at the end of each day, had no clear sense of whether they had succeeded or fallen short. To change that, we introduced a simple method to help them identify obstacles preventing success. In a short time, the team began actively problem-solving, implementing solutions, and improving workflows—ultimately increasing output by 20%.
2. Change the Experience to Change the Culture
Culture isn’t defined by mission statements or training sessions—it’s shaped by experiences. If an employee’s experience with improvement efforts is negative (think: endless meetings with no action), they will disengage. But if their experience is positive—where their ideas are heard and acted on—they’ll buy in.
I’ll never forget a client who had spent years running Kaizen events that led to great ideas but no follow-through. Employees were frustrated, cynical, and tired of wasting their time. One employee joked, “Our Kaizens don’t implement improvements, they implement Post-it notes”. When we partnered with them, we changed the model: no more Post-it notes stuck on a wall, waiting for someone else to act. Instead, every improvement event included real-time implementation. The shift was immediate—employees started to believe in the process again. In fact, we do surveys after our events and 96% of participants on over 10 different Kaizens responded that they agreed or strongly agreed that “they felt empowered to make changes”
3. Measure What Matters—And Make It Visible
There’s a saying: “You get what you measure.” But I’d add a caveat: you only get what you measure if people understand it, can see it, and have the ability to influence it. I’ve worked with companies that have dashboards filled with complex KPIs, yet the frontline employees are confused by what they mean. If people don’t understand how they contribute to improvement, they won’t engage.
A simple example: At one factory, we implemented a daily visual board that showed real-time progress on production goals. The measurements didn’t require a calculator or computer to measure. The metrics were visible in the work area and Instead of leadership reviewing metrics in a closed-door meeting, employees saw the impact of their work every day. The result? Ownership. When an issue arose, teams took the initiative to fix it before leadership even stepped in.
4. Empower, Don’t Micromanage
I once worked with a CEO who claimed he wanted a culture of empowerment—but he personally reviewed every single decision before it was made. That’s not empowerment; that’s bottlenecking. There is always a challenge between trusting and verifying. The great leaders work through this quickly and know where to draw the line.
True empowerment means trusting your people to make decisions, fail quickly, learn, and improve. Leaders should provide direction, not dictate every move. Leaders are managing people, not tasks. But this doesn’t happen by itself. Trusting your team starts with equipping them with the right training and development, ensuring they make informed decisions and giving you confidence in their abilities.
One of the most successful companies I’ve worked with had a simple rule: if an improvement idea cost less than $1000 to implement, employees didn’t need approval. That one policy unleashed a wave of innovation, because employees no longer had to wade through bureaucracy to make meaningful changes.
The Leadership Mindset Shift
Here’s the hard truth: leaders often think they’re enabling improvement when they’re actually stifling it. If you want to lead continuous improvement, you have to shift your mindset from “What can I fix?” to “How can I enable my team to fix things themselves?”
Ask yourself:
- Do I encourage my team to find and implement their own solutions?
- Am I removing obstacles or creating them?
- Are we celebrating improvement efforts, even the small ones?
- Do I model the behaviors I expect from my team?
What’s Next?
In the next part of this series, we’ll explore one of the most overlooked aspects of continuous improvement: the power of storytelling. Because at the end of the day, facts and figures may explain what’s happening, but stories are what inspire people to act.
Continuous improvement isn’t just about processes—it’s about people. And when leaders embrace that, the impact is transformative.
Stay tuned.
