August 8, 2019 Pat McGettigan

Values-Based Leadership

At Excellerate, leadership comes from all people at all levels of the organization – from general assemblers to our president. We develop our leaders based on our values and expect them to live those values daily. We also work around the core principles of trust, integrity, accountability and passion.

Leadership starts with our focus on safety. Leadership in this area requires discipline, as well as the ability to recognize when there is an unsafe practice happening. As leaders, we are coaching our teams on what it means to embrace safety at all times, reinforcing that everyone is responsible for all of us going home safe at the end of each day.

Trust is also instrumental to leadership. We need our leaders to build trust with their co-workers and teams. We want everyone to know they can count on the person next to them to always watch out for them and be confident that in all times and situations, they will do the right thing.

A strong team focus is also imperative for our leaders; there is no place at Excellerate for leaders who don’t put their team members first. The best way to create great results is to make sure your team and its members are seeing as much or more success than any one individual. This also means that we win as a team and we lose as a team, and any improvements that need to be made are owned by all involved.

Our organization is driven by innovation, which must be modeled and driven by our leaders. Our leaders are constantly looking for innovative ways to make our work safer and more productive. We challenge every member of our team to show leadership in this area and have even developed a monthly innovation award program.

Leadership isn’t something we’re born with, but a quality we need to work on every day. The beautiful part of leadership is that it becomes contagious. Once you set a culture in which people know they have the ability to be a leader at all levels, your overall performance and quality improve automatically. It creates an atmosphere of accountability and pride of ownership, which leads to success for the organization and the individuals who comprise it.

How does your organization develop leaders?