Studying the effects of technically educating leaders to transform product delivery : innovation report

This research study explores challenges faced in the automotive industry over the last decade, with specific focus on customer expectations, emerging trends, legislation, and the rise in new competitors such as Tesla, who have been inspired by technology giant Apple, and Chinese vehicle manufacturers. It discusses how traditional brown-field automotive organisations can respond by efficiently engineering and delivering resilient vehicles with leading technology and innovation, mastering the increasing number of technical requirements in vehicles today. Using Jaguar Land Rover’s (JLR) Engineering team as a traditional automotive organisation case study, a change program named “Licence to Lead Engineering” (LTLE) is created and implemented to technically upskill leaders – from the top of the organisation through to junior managers – with the aim of improving technical capability and enabling leaders to technically support, inspire and motivate their teams. Through the study, the change methodology is detailed and its impact on JLR’s product delivery vision is evaluated. The study shows that LTLE technically educated leaders, helped them instil technical rigour in their roles and stimulated them to use efficient engineering methods such as the full capability of integrated digital engineering toolsets for higher quality solutions and productivity. Subsequently, they technically supported, inspired, motivated, and developed their teams’ skills, as well as restructured where required, to master the growth in technical requirements and efficiently deliver resilient and innovative products. Combined, this makes LTLE a novel change program which specifically aims to transform leadership culture in technical teams.