Around your manufacturing plant, improved results don’t just come from better machines or improved systems. If you want to really find better results and engage with your team, you need to change your daily leadership behavior — and it all starts with shifting how you show up.

Three Ways to Transform How Drive Results

#1. Engagement Is Driven by How Leaders Show Up

As the workforce shifts to include younger generations, you may find yourself interacting with team members who want more than just a paycheck or a title. For these team members, it’s not “just a job.” To feel fulfilled, they need to feel a sense of purpose in their work. Without it, they might feel disengaged and unmotivated, which can lead to issues like high turnover, slowed productivity, and missed opportunities to drive better results.

To help your team members find a sense of purpose in their work, shift your leadership mindset to focus more on growth. Instead of asking metric-focused questions like “did we hit our numbers this week?” try questions like “did we help our people grow today?” By reframing your approach, you’ll not only drive connection and results, but create a stronger culture of accountability.

#2. Manufacturing Excellence Comes from Better Conversations

When you’re not getting the results you want, it might also be due to a disconnect between leadership expectations and shop-floor reality. To close these gaps, you have to meet people where they are. This means listening up instead of talking down and adding more curious conversations into your daily culture.

One way to manufacture greatness through conversations is to ask your team members about what they want to represent and what they’re proud of. By centering conversations around topics like these, you’ll build trust, improve accountability and performance, and learn more about what each team needs to feel empowered at work.

#3. Curiosity Fuels Continuous Improvement

If you want contentious improvements, you also need to create a culture where curiosity replaces blames. When problems occur, don’t jump to judgmental questions or punishments. Instead, take time to ask curious questions, have conversations, and look for the root cause behind the issue. Through this approach, you’ll empower your team members to hold themselves accountable and look for creative solutions.

When problems occur, it might be your instinct as a leader to want to have all the answers. But when you take the time to learn more, it actually opens you up to productive new opportunities that will strengthen your organization and help you drive stronger results.

Learn More on Manufacturing Greatness

Manufacturing greatness isn’t accidental. It’s the result of inspired leadership, curiosity-driven improvement, and daily actions that show people they matter. For frontline leaders, the path forward is clear: lead with purpose, ask better questions, and build trust one conversation at a time.

To learn more, listen to this new episode of Manufacturing Greatness with Bruce Mayhew. Bruce Mayhew is a corporate trainer, keynote speaker, executive coach, and author who has spent more than two decades helping leaders and teams turn good intentions into everyday behaviors that build trust, engagement, and results.

In this episode, Bruce shares why traditional command-and-control leadership no longer works — and how inspired, curiosity-driven leadership builds trust, accountability, and engagement on the shop floor. It’s full of powerful takeaways for transforming how you lead, using your everyday behavior to improve culture, safety, and results throughout your entire plant.

Listen to Bruce Mayhew on Manufacturing Greatness here.