The book is written in the first-person narrative and maintains a mentoring format. This book is for professionals at the very beginning of an intimidating Lean journey and with very little background or formal Lean training.

Although these leadership principles are framed in the approach of being necessary to support an innovation culture change, the principles are, in fact, those necessary to support effective employee engagement. In addition, this set of leadership principles, if modeled consistently by the leaders, will create an organizational culture that will attract and retain great employees.

These principles form the strong leadership foundation that must be established in organizations where, previously, many of the leadership behaviors were contrary to what is required by a "Lean" organization. The proper adoption of these leadership principles by an organization will support the long-term success of the Lean journey, and that this will enable a lasting, not a temporary, change to a continuous improvement culture.