Leadership and Work Motivation in Swedish Lean-Oriented Manufacturing: An Employee-Centred Study through a Transformational Leadership Lens

Sammanfattning

Lean-oriented manufacturing depends not only on routines, standards and improvement systems, but also on employees who are willing to engage with these practices in daily work. This thesis explores how employees in Swedish Lean-oriented manufacturing companies experience leadership in relation to their work motivation, using transformational leadership as an interpretive lens. The study takes a qualitative and employee-centred approach, based on twelve semi-structured interviews across two Lean-oriented manufacturing companies in Sweden. The findings show that employees experience leadership mainly through everyday interaction rather than formal position alone. Leadership becomes motivational when it is clear, responsive, trusting and connected to the practical reality of the work. Employees described communication, recognition, follow-up, autonomy and support as important motivational conditions. These findings connect to transformational leadership through trust, purpose, intellectual stimulation and individualised consideration. However, the study also shows that transformational leadership only partly explains motivation in this setting. Employees’ motivation was also shaped by colleagues, workload, staffing, pay, routines, shift schedules, production pressure and whether the work system allowed them to perform well. The thesis further finds that Lean-oriented improvement work can be experienced both as involvement and as control. Improvement routines supported motivation when employees saw that their input mattered and led to visible change. However, when suggestions lacked follow-up or routines felt detached from daily work, improvement work became demotivating. The study contributes by showing that leadership in Lean-oriented manufacturing should be understood as part of a wider socio-technical work system, where motivation emerges through the relationship between leadership, team dynamics, Lean routines and practical working conditions.