Empowering
Manufacturing
Leaders to Ignite
Great Potential

Manufacturing

With our extensive manufacturing experience, we’ve had the opportunity to work on a variety of solutions for our partners. We supported a new plant manager transitioning the work environment for hundreds of unionized employees (across four separate unions). We’ve worked to develop executive teams and production leaders, then built holistic succession plans to sustain that expertise over the near-term. Our experience spans the spectrum from small operations to multi-facility corporations with a variety of union structures.

A common theme across these experiences is the need for better shift-to-shift communication, emotional intelligence, positive interpersonal accountability, and practical team building. Why? Because promotion to leadership in manufacturing often resembles handing someone a radio and a clipboard, giving them a pat on the back, and saying, “Get out there and coach ‘em up.” Without proper leadership development, the results are consistently suboptimal.

According to the National Association of Manufacturers, your front-line leaders—those newly promoted without much fanfare—supervise roughly 80% of all employees in your organization and make up about 50-60% of the total “leadership” population. Yet, only 10% feel well-prepared for their leadership roles, and 60% fail within the first 24 months.

We urge organizations in the manufacturing space to develop and implement foundational leadership programs for their front-line leaders and supervisors.

Recommended programs

Catalyzer’s experience has shaped a six-module approach designed to address this critical need. Our program begins with Leadership Foundations (defining what we mean by ‘leadership’), followed by modules on Emotional Intelligence, Communication, and Accountability. It concludes with strategies for effective Coaching and Performance Feedback and Team Building.

By investing in these foundational leadership development programs, organizations can better prepare their front-line leaders for success, reducing turnover, and enhancing overall performance.