In many organizations, senior leaders are encouraged to “visit the huddle” as part of their role in the daily management system. Leaders showing up, listening to teams, and demonstrating interest in daily improvement sends an important message: the work of problem-solving matters.
But observing only the huddle—without ever observing how the work is performed—is one of the most common breakdowns leaders experience when trying to build a Lean operating system. It sends an incomplete message about what leadership presence is meant to accomplish, gives a partial view of performance, and creates a false sense of understanding. If a leader only hears the update without seeing the work, they are left with assumptions about how processes operate, how standards are applied, and what barriers people face every day.
To understand why this distinction matters, imagine trying to understand an NFL football game by watching only the team huddles.
The huddle is not the game
If the cameras cut away every time the ball was snapped, and the only thing you saw was the players gathering, discussing the next play, and breaking the huddle, you would never truly understand:
- How well the offensive line protects the quarterback
- How routes unfold under pressure
- Whether players adjust when the defense changes
- Whether the execution reflects the plan
- Where breakdowns occur and why
- What skills or coaching are needed for improvement
No coach, player, commentator, or fan would accept this as a complete view of performance. The huddle sets direction, but the game is won or lost in the play itself—in the execution, the teamwork, the variation, the adjustments, and the responses to real conditions.
Organizations are no different. Daily huddles matter; they ensure alignment, surface abnormalities, and create shared awareness. But they are not the work. They are preparation for the work. The real insight comes when leaders stay long enough to see what happens next—when the “play is snapped” and the work unfolds in real time.
What leaders miss when they only attend the huddle
When leaders engage only at the huddle level, they see what people say is happening. They hear the metrics, the concerns, and the priorities. They get a sense of how teams communicate and collaborate. But they miss everything that actually determines performance.
Some of the most essential aspects of a Lean operating system are only visible in the work:
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Flow and friction
Leaders cannot understand the actual flow of patients, materials, information, or work unless they follow it. The huddle will not show the delays between steps, the handoff challenges, or the places where rework quietly accumulates. These frictions only become visible at the gemba. -
Variation and waste
Variation is one of the most reliable predictors of poor outcomes in any system. Teams rarely articulate the variation they encounter unless leaders deliberately go and see. Waste is also much easier to normalize when no one is observing the process. -
How people respond to abnormalities
Every system encounters problems. What matters is how people respond. Do they stop and fix? Do they improvise a workaround? Do they escalate early? Or do they absorb the problem themselves, hoping to keep things moving? You cannot coach this from a conference room, and you cannot see it from a huddle. -
Capability and confidence in problem-solving
Skill building happens in the work, not in meetings. A leader cannot understand their team’s problem-solving capability without witnessing how people handle real situations in real time. -
Whether standards are clear, visible, and followed
A process can sound standardized at the huddle but look very different in practice. Standards need to be observable, understood, and used. The degree to which teams rely on standards—and the degree to which those standards actually work—only becomes visible in the work itself. -
The true barriers teams face
When leaders ask, “What gets in your way?”, they often hear polite or surface-level answers. When leaders go and see, they observe the real barriers: missing supplies, unreliable equipment, unclear instructions, competing priorities, imbalanced workloads, and more. These are not abstractions; they are daily realities that shape culture, morale, and performance. -
How people support each other under stress
Teamwork is a process. It happens in the way a nurse helps another during a surge, the way operators help one another during a changeover, or the way a maintenance tech partners with production during downtime. The huddle cannot show the depth of this collaboration. Only the work can.
When leaders see only the huddle, they get a sanitized version of the truth. When they observe the work, they get a respectful, unfiltered view of reality—essential for improvement.
The purpose of leadership presence in a Lean system
At LeanManagementSystems.net, we emphasize a simple principle: leadership presence is not about oversight—it is about support. The goal of going to the gemba is not to evaluate, inspect, or judge. The goal is to learn how the system performs today, understand what people need, and help them solve problems in ways that develop capability.
The best leaders model curiosity, humility, and commitment to improvement. They make problems visible without blame. They use standards to teach, not to punish. And they help teams connect daily work to organizational purpose.
Daily huddles are one moment in this leadership routine. Gemba observation is another. Coaching in the work is another. Together, they create a management system designed to build capability, reduce friction, and improve performance over time.
From huddle to play: how leaders shift their practice
A meaningful shift occurs when leaders extend their presence beyond the huddle. In practice, that often looks like:
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Stay after the huddle
Rather than heading back to the office, leaders ask, “Can you show me where that issue appears in the work?” Teams notice when leaders express genuine interest in their reality. -
Follow the flow
Leaders walk the value stream from start to finish. They observe how work moves, where it stops, and why. -
Watch a complete task or process
Leaders stay long enough to see the work from beginning to end—setup, adjustment, interruptions, communication, verification, and completion. -
Observe how variation appears
A leader’s job is to notice the small disruptions that accumulate into large performance gaps. -
Ask open, nonjudgmental questions
Effective questions include:
- “What makes this step difficult?”
- “What slows the process down?”
- “What happens when things don’t go as planned?”
- “What would help this go more smoothly?”
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Use standards to teach and coach
When leaders model the value of standard work, teams develop confidence in both the method and the culture. -
Capture insights and follow up
The key is not only observation. The key is returning to support the team, help solve problems, and remove persistent barriers. This is the difference between a leadership presence that is symbolic and a leadership presence that is effective.
Why this matters for organizational performance
A Lean operating system is not a collection of tools. It is a set of interconnected behaviors, routines, and systems that enable people to solve problems and improve results daily. The learning cycle begins in the work, not in the meeting.
Organizations that treat the huddle as the center of the system eventually find their improvement stalling. Organizations that treat the huddle as one component—connected to standards, problem-solving, coaching, and flow observation—develop stronger capabilities and higher performance over time.
The message for senior leaders is simple:
- Do not confuse visibility with understanding.
- Do not confuse attendance with engagement.
- Do not confuse alignment with execution.
Teams do not win football games because they have strong huddles. They win because they execute well, adapt, and work together—and they improve because leaders understand the game deeply enough to coach effectively.
For leaders committed to building high-performance systems, the work is the game. The gemba is the field. And leadership presence—rooted in respect, curiosity, and coaching—is the means through which teams learn to win.
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