The principles of "Lean Management" (read more in The Machine that changed the World : The Story of Lean Production) in 1990 led to the wide distribution of an approach that basically goes back to the methods of the Toyota Production System, which today still is considered as being leading in this field. As part of the introduction of lean processes for quality improvement and the avoidance of wastefulness there also is a trend towards lean leadership in the field of leadership development. The concept of Lean Leadership developed within the Lean Management philosophy of Toyota and already exists for some time now.
Fig. 1: Leadership Development - Lean Leadership
How can this be understood?
Lean Leadership consists of four stages (see Kuntz, B. Trainingaktuell 01/13):
Stage 1: Developing oneself as an executive.
Stage 2: Coaching and developing other people.
Stage 3: Supporting the daily self-improvement (Kaizen).
Stage 4: Creating a vision and coordinating targets.
The fact that executives should manage and develop themselves first and foremost really is old hat. That they support employees in their development and that they should see to it that they take on responsibility for their own development also is old hat. This idea was already explicitly picked up in the concept of the Learning Organization. We need only think of the first discipline "Personal Mastery" by Senge back in 1990. For the sake of completeness let us here name the pioneers of Organization Development (OD) Argyris and Schein as Senge's intellectual fathers. That leaves stages 3 and 4. But here as well one can find profound concepts, explicitly with Senge ("Team Learning" und "Shared Visioning").
Conclusion:
For you as an experienced executive or resource developer Lean Leadership has nothing new to offer. Old wine in new bottles in order to stimulate sales with fashionable terms. Significantly, the author Kuntz is qualified as a marketing expert.