About Lean Leaders Plus
Lean Leaders Plus is Shannon Carver's organizational leadership development consultancy. He works alongside leadership teams to clarify expectations, strengthen accountability, and connect leadership behavior with day-to-day execution.
What Lean Leaders Plus Means
LEAN
The clarity, alignment, and removal of friction that allows organizations to execute with focus and consistency.
LEADERS
Because lasting improvement only happens when leaders consistently model the behaviors, expectations, and accountability that drive execution.
PLUS
Everything beyond process improvement — communication, culture, trust, accountability, and the leadership systems that ultimately determine whether organizations succeed.
Lean Leaders Plus helps organizations close the gap between strategy and execution — by developing leaders, strengthening teams, and creating cultures where accountability and performance thrive together.
Because sustainable results rarely come from process improvement alone. They come from leaders who align people, reinforce standards, and drive consistent execution over time.
Shannon Carver
Shannon Carver has spent his career in the trenches of operational leadership — working alongside decision-makers who are accountable for real results. His career began on the manufacturing floor at Sauer-Danfoss, where over a decade of operational and Six Sigma roles taught him that culture and execution rise and fall on the behaviors of leaders.
He has been coaching executives since 2008, first at Lean Partners and, since 2016, as founder of Lean Leaders Plus. In that time he has helped leadership teams across manufacturing, healthcare, and professional services close the gap between strategy and consistent follow-through — including a Mexican operations rebuild that doubled output inside eighteen months.
His approach isn’t about theory or motivation. It’s about developing the leadership behaviors that improve how organizations execute, how teams align, and how culture strengthens over time. Caring, candid, and deeply practical, his work sits at the intersection of leadership, culture, and continuous improvement.
Effective organizations are built through consistent leadership behaviors — not one-time initiatives.
Education & Credentials
- MBA, Marketing — Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota
- BS, Mechanical Engineering — Iowa State University
- Certified Six Sigma Black Belt (ASQ); former Master Black Belt
- Organizational Coach — Institute of Executive Coaching and Leadership
Elsewhere: YouTube · Instagram · Amazon author page
My Amazon Best Seller
Your Leadership Currency of TCR
The framework behind the work — Trust, Credibility, and Respect as the currency leaders build through consistent behavior.
View on Amazon →Press & Recognition
Selected appearances, honors, and features.
Honor · 2025
Marquis Who’s Who in America
Selected for inclusion based on position, noteworthy accomplishments, and prominence in business consulting.
Read the announcementPodcast Feature
Close Up Radio Spotlight
Featured episode on building Trust, Credibility, and Respect as the foundation of effective leadership.
Author · 2025
Your Leadership Currency of TCR
Gain Ultimate Influence by Building Trust, Credibility, and Respect — the framework behind every Lean Leaders Plus engagement.
View on Amazon
What Makes Lean Leaders Plus Different
We are practitioners, not theorists.
Our work is grounded in real operational environments. We have led teams, managed P&Ls, and dealt with the same pressures our clients face.
We partner, we do not prescribe.
Every organization is different. We do not arrive with a pre-built program. We build the engagement around what your organization actually needs.
We measure what matters.
We agree on the problem, a starting baseline, and measures relevant to your operation. Reviews examine leadership behavior and execution alongside those measures, so the team can decide what to adjust. Individual client outcomes are examples, not a promise of the same result.
Explore Shannon's Leadership Approach
Considering outside support? Read what a leadership consultant does and how to choose one to compare scope, responsibilities and review points.
For the people side of continuous improvement, explore lean leadership principles, distinct from the five principles used to examine process flow.
When the need is supervisor capability, start with frontline leadership training for people management and connect development to the decisions supervisors make in daily work.
For the framework behind Shannon's book, see Trust, Credibility, and Respect in leadership and examine the behaviors behind earned influence.
Prefer to begin in writing?
Editorial inquiry option (AI-assisted): To discuss whether Shannon’s leadership and execution work fits your organization, send a short, non-confidential description of the issue and the decision you want to make. Leave out employee names and private customer details. This starts a conversation; it does not book a meeting or commit you to an engagement.
Team TCR changed the culture and the results in my department.
Daniel Pastran
Manufacturing operations leader
Read Daniel's story →Ready to Put This Work Into Practice
The Execution Gap Diagnostic is a free, 5-minute self-assessment of how you experience execution on your team. Your personalized results highlight patterns in your answers and a starting point for reflection—not a verified diagnosis of your whole organization. No meeting required. The first conversation is always free and focused on whether there is a fit, no program, no pitch.