Why You Need Processes for Strong Leadership

White knuckle leadership fails every time. (Oh, and don't worry, I'm guilty of this myself 🙋♀️)  There's no denying control feels good. But logistics (and the world at large) is defined by disruptions. No one saw the CrowdStrike/Microsoft outage coming. It disrupted air freight everywhere, and locked many of us out of our systems completely. And that was only one of the most recent events.  If you're white knuckling it, at some point, the burden is going to become too much to bear. You will fail. And if you're honest with yourself, it will be your fault.  When we hit our white knuckle "Peter Principle" ceiling, if we want to succeed, we need to try new tactics. What got us where we are today won’t get us where we want to go.  Luckily, I'm offering up something that will: Process.   Don’t trust yourself. Don’t even trust the individuals on your team. Trust that the process you built together is Resilient. And that it's strong enough to withstand the disruption. (And when it's not, have a process to improve the process.)  We’ve said process so many times it may not sound like a word anymore. (Shout out to Ted Lasso for teaching me about Semantic Satiation.) And honestly, that's exactly how often we should be using it.  Let me know if you want my favorite SOP best practices, I have lots of resources! 🤩 #SOP #processimprovement #leadership #logistics #management 

Brilliant people can't fix broken systems. But brilliant systems can turn anyone into a high performer. Companies hire brilliant engineers. Pay top salaries. Recruit from the best schools. Then wonder why results are still average. Meanwhile, Toyota was getting extraordinary results from ordinary people. How? They obsessed over their processes, not their resumes. Here's what Toyota understood that most leaders miss: → Brilliant people get trapped in terrible workflows → Smart teams fail when systems are chaos → Top talent burns out fighting broken processes But I've also seen something beautiful: Average teams achieving incredible results when given brilliant processes. - Clear workflows that eliminate confusion - Systems that catch errors before they spread - Processes that make the right choice the easy choice Toyota didn't hire the smartest people in Japan. They created processes so good that anyone could execute them flawlessly. That's the difference between: Building a company dependent on heroes... vs building a company that creates heroes. Your processes either multiply your people's potential or limit it. Most organizations do the opposite: They hire great people and trap them in terrible systems. Then blame the people when things go wrong. Toyota flipped this completely. They assumed their people were capable. Then they built processes that proved it. The lesson for every leader: → Stop trying to hire your way out of process problems → Start building processes that turn good people into great performers Your team isn't the problem. Your systems are. --- What's one broken process in your organization that's holding back good people? Share your experience below.