How to to define a lead/group leader?

[safetydave]

HI everybody! its been awhile since my last visit here and things have gotten very busy for me at my job.

We have been working any where from norm-40hrs to 60hrs steady since September and it looks like it will be this way past Jan, which is good compaired to alot of other places that are not so lucky.

So my post is this...

Our company is changeing the pay scale for our welders and leads people for the better, as of now they are very low paying even for guys with knowledge like myself and other who work for them and the asked us leadmen to give them an idea of what we think the qualifications should be for this job position.

I have allready given them my veiw-idea on this according to past lead positions I've had with other companys, but I'm wondering what your company has for qualifications for there leadmen/group leader?

Any input on this would be greatfull from all points of the welding trade fields.

Just to give you some back ground on our company we make returnable automotive racks, were they can be used more then one time or we can retrofit them for other parts they might have or would like to use in their company in the future check us out @ www.vci.com.

I almost forgot the good part! the company owner informed us through
our boss that since we are a certified weld shop according to AWS that we should have the tools to go along with it and so us line leaders got to order
ALL THE TOOLS WE NEEDED!! to run our lines properly so with big tool books in my hand I set out to get everything I know I would use to run my line and turned in my 3 page list waiting for them to say ARE YOU CRAZY!! this would cost a small fortune but instead they went by my list and ordered every thing that was on it for all the weld lines, all 7 of them.

The owner asked me why my list was so big and I told him because I looked at every guy who was going to be on the line and what his job would be every time and the tools we all would need and not just myself and he said that is what I wanted to here from some one that knows what his job is.

[fjk]

The owner asked me why my list was so big and I told him because I looked at every guy who was going to be on the line and what his job would be every time and the tools we all would need and not just myself and he said that is what I wanted to here from some one that knows what his job is.

I can't speak specifically for leadership positions in welding, but
in general what you said right there is a big chunk of it -- ability
to think about a much bigger part of the the whole job/project/
whatever, not just your little piece of it. It also means some
aptitude/skills/experience in things other than the technical
area (welding in your case) - working with the next level up
to do budgets and schedules and HR issues and quality and design
issues in the product and so on.

The other side of what you said was that the guys who you lead
now see that you have their interests (as well as the company's
interests) in mind. The thing to remember is that the leader's
job performance depends on the group's performance, not their
own. I've worked for people who don't quite understand this -
but I have not worked for them for very long...

Anyway, congratulations on having some fairly enlightened
management.

Good luck

Frank

[travlinbumm]

I have allready given them my veiw-idea on this according to past lead positions I've had with other companys, but I'm wondering what your company has for qualifications for there leadmen/group leader?

Any input on this would be greatfull from all points of the welding trade fields.

I’m glad to hear you are getting a raise and new tools on top of that. It’s good to hear of hard work paying off in these slow times.

My position is fab/weld lead 2nd shift for a company that builds industrial shredders and compactors. I’m not sure what qualifies me for my position at this company, but I’ve been doing it for seven years and everyone seems to be happy with my performance (subordinates and supervisors). However, I still feel that I need to do/learn more as a leader…. As a welder/fabricator too.

Before I came to work here, I worked my way up to a crew leader position at another company. That company had a written set of standards a person was suppose to meet before they would be eligible for a lead position.
Each position from helper-3 to engineering assistant-1 had a specific set of skills that you had to master before you could get that rate/title. To advance to crew leader you had to;
[possess all of the before mentioned skills and prove the ability to successfully lead crews of 5 or more individuals in an “out of town” environment. Must be able to lead]

Want to know why I memorized that last bit?

Because they would send me out to run install crews with four guys or less from our shop and then hire temp help at whatever city we found ourselves in. Regardless of how well the installs went I would be denied a rate/title increase because, in their eyes and according to their written qualifications, I was running crews that where too small to prove real leadership skills. They did not count the temps as part of the crew because they considered them to be “unskilled help”

Ahhhhh well, I treated those years as a learning experience.

PS: I tried to go to vci.com and it shuffled me off to some software web site named intervalzero.

[safetydave]

Thanks for your comments and I'll look int the site issue to see if I put the web site in wrong.

Like I said I'm just trying to get a better understanding of what some other company's have for leadership quailifications and what if any specialization skills are needed for that positon.

I did put the wrong web address in so here is the right one.www.vciusa.com
it should take you to our company site as to what we do at our shop.

Agian thanks for your input on my post