If you’re a CI leader, you know the feeling. You’re standing outside a meeting room, about to walk in and make the case for improvement to people who may not want to hear it.
Allison McLean, who leads global transition, transformation and delivery leadership teams at Computacenter, admitted on the LCS Conference 2026 panel that she’s been there many times. And being in that position for years means she now gives a pep talk to herself before every meeting.
“Put your big girl pants on. You’re going to have to have this conversation.”
Because, as she put it, at some point “the challenge of not having the conversation… becomes bigger than the challenge of having the conversation.”
For the continuous improvement leader, that conversation matters more than ever and one panellist argued it’s time to have it from a much stronger position.
“If I were you guys, I’d be much, much bolder. I’d be wanting a seat at the top table.” Leon Hardwick, OpX
Leon Hardwick heads OpX’s software division and has spent 28 years building and scaling technology businesses. He described himself as an outsider on the panel, but his view of the profession was striking. Continuous improvement, he said, is “probably the most undersold, undervalued function in an organisation.”
Part of the problem is how CI teams get used. As OpX described in its keynote, many are treated like International Rescue: called in when something goes wrong, expected to fix it, then sent back to base. That makes CI look like a service, and not a strategic capability. Read more in blog 3 of this series – Your Improvement Person Shouldn’t Be Your Operating System
Part of it is how CI teams present themselves. Allison described how asking for support can sometimes feel like asking for approval, or “for a ticket at the dance.” If you’re doffing your cap, she warned, you’re easy to ignore.
And part of it is fear. As David Bovis, a leadership and culture change specialist who spoke on the LCS Conference 2026 panel, put it, the prevailing belief for most people is that if you stick your head above the parapet, it’s going to get shot off.
Psychologists have a name for the opposite. Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson defines psychological safety as “a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking.” In her study of 51 work teams at a manufacturing company, teams that felt safe were more likely to seek feedback, ask for help and talk openly about mistakes, and that learning behaviour was linked to better performance.
For CI professionals, that cuts both ways. Improvement depends on people feeling safe enough to raise problems, but CI leaders need that safety too. If challenging senior leaders feels risky, it’s easier to stay quiet, and quiet functions are easy to undervalue.
Leon’s argument for boldness wasn’t just about today, but about where organisations are heading.
As businesses push further into automation and AI, he said, “they’re going to need the gaps to be filled. And you guys are the ones that understand where the gaps are and what the information in those gaps actually means to the business.”
That’s a strategic role. Organisations can’t automate, digitise or transform well without people who understand how work really flows, where it breaks and what needs to change. Oliver Conger, who gave the conference’s closing keynote, shared how his manufacturing business only automated its ordering process after Lean had cut the lead time from six weeks to three days. Somebody had to understand the process before the technology could improve it. That somebody is the CI professional. Read more in blog 5 of the series - Fix the Process Before You Automate: Why Lean Must Come Before AI.
Getting a seat at the table means changing the conversation. Leaders don’t think in projects, instead they think in objectives, risks, customers and growth.
Dan Capers, Head of Business Improvement at Sellafield Ltd, put it plainly: it’s the CI team’s job “to help the leaders create the culture.” That means spending time where it has the most influence, with leaders, and connecting improvement to what they’re trying to achieve.
It also means making the commercial and strategic value of improvement visible. When CI leaders can show what has changed, in terms leaders care about, the conversation shifts from “why do we need this?” to “how can this help us?” Read more in blog 2 of the series – Can You Prove the Value of Continuous Improvement?.
Boldness doesn’t mean being difficult. Allison called it getting “your elbows out a bit… in a nice way, in a professional way.”
She gave a practical example. When leaders sit in a meeting and don’t engage, it can be worth calling it out, ideally with support in the room. Ask directly what they need, rather than waiting for permission.
That takes confidence, and confidence comes partly from knowing your value. Among the post-it notes delegates left on the LCS board, two summed it up neatly: “Sometimes directive is the right approach” and “Know your worth.”
This isn’t just about individuals. Opening the conference, Catrin Archer, who leads the Lean Competency System, described a growing desire to professionalise CI.
“There’s a lot of people now saying we are something special. We do make an impact. We’ve got something to give.” Catrin Archer, LCS
That’s driving big questions across the profession.
LCS is refreshing its own framework to help answer them.
Recognised standards matter because they make capability visible. A seat at the table is easier to claim when your expertise is credible, consistent and recognised beyond your own organisation.
Lyndsay MacLeod was named Global Champion at the LCS Awards 2026 winners in recognition of her outstanding leadership in driving large-scale, people-centred Lean-Agile transformation.
As former Head of Agile Adoption and Lean Portfolio Management at HSBC Technology, Lyndsay MacLeod led a global Lean-Agile transformation impacting over 10,000 colleagues across four continents. Starting without a formal team or budget, she influenced stakeholders from frontline teams to senior executives, embedding continuous improvement into leadership behaviours and governance. Her work developed over 350 change agents across 34 value streams and helped HSBC Technology achieve industry-first LCS accreditations.
CI professionals spend their careers helping organisations see what’s really happening, where the waste is and what could be better. Too often, they don’t apply the same clarity to their own value.
As automation and AI reshape how organisations work, that value is only going to grow. The continuous improvement leader who understands the process, the people and the gaps between them will be one of the most important people in the room. As Leon put it: “Be as bold as you possibly can.”
This article is part of our series on the big themes from the LCS Conference 2026. Read the first blog - Scaling Continuous Improvement: What Happens When Your CI Team Disappears?
LCS Level 3 goes beyond technical mastery. It recognises the leadership, influence and strategic capability that transformation leaders need to earn their seat at the table.