CHICAGO – Drawing from his extensive experience of leadership roles in the collision repair industry and chapters in his new book, The Secrets of America’s Greatest Body Shops, Dave Luehr, owner of Elite Body Shop Solutions, gave pointers on how to implement the modern style of leadership to a full room during his class, “Greatest Servant Leadership – The Secrets of America’s Greatest Body Shops Series”, at NACE Automechanika Chicago on July 27. Namely, Luehr discussed how incorporating effective communication and team meetings, creating a winning culture through sharing the business’s vision and implementing accountability techniques and role awareness all contribute to successful leadership—and ultimately, a happy and high-producing shop.
Luehr addressed his audience by stating, “The old industrial leadership method of pushing people to get things done does not work anymore. You want to have the new, modern style of leadership, which is more of a pull, or servant style, leadership.” Luehr explained that the three fundamental steps to great servant style leadership include learning how to communicate with people, tying intrinsic values to key behaviors and sharing the vision.
Learning, or perhaps re-learning, how to communicate is crucial to successfully leading employees. Modern leadership involves creating a safe and open environment where people can speak freely with one another—that includes leaving your ego at the door and being open to actively listening to employees. Tying intrinsic values to key behaviors means that leaders must understand what their employees are passionate about in order to get them on board with the business’s vision. The combination of these first two steps creates a foundation of trust and respect. You can then share your “why” with the team—your vision of success. When your vision is connected with your employees’ intrinsic values, a powerful, winning culture is created. As Luehr emphasized, “Values and vision are the foundation of every great organization.”
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Enforcing accountability in a positive way is also important to effective leadership. Luehr explained that both shop owners and employees must hold themselves accountable. He discussed how everyone must view the discovery of problems as opportunities to increase both performance and knowledge; feedback and criticism should be embraced, not avoided. This concept ties in with the need for good communication and transparency—employees should not be afraid to speak openly about issues in shop processes and admit to mistakes.
The core concepts behind servant style leadership—creating a focused and engaging shop environment—apply to how to hold effective team meetings. As Luehr explained, the five steps to great team meetings include 1) Be prepared and make it quick; 2) keep the meeting on track; 3) encourage everyone to contribute; 4) share the shop numbers; and 5) agree to actionable items. When the whole team, not just management, is involved in daily improvement meetings, employees better understand the business’s vision and their role in striving towards those goals.
In closing his presentation, Luehr left his audience with motivating and a positive outlook. Luehr declared, “To steal a line from Henry Ford, ‘Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right,’” further emphasizing that having the right attitude is key to successfully implementing any sort of change in your shop, especially modern leadership.
