From the Trenches to the Top: 7 Leadership Lessons from Jim Little

These lessons come from a conversation I had with Jim Little on The Learning to Lead Show.

When someone is literally standing on your desk demanding to know why something isn’t fixed yet, what do your people see in you?

Sit with that for a second. Because that moment, when the heat is highest and the margin for error is thinnest, is the moment your leadership actually shows up. Not in the strategy off-site. Not in the polished town hall. On the plant floor. In the hallway conversation right after the bad news lands.

Here’s what I’ve learned: most of us are pretty good when things are calm. The real test is what you do when everything is on fire, and your team is looking at you for the next move.

That’s why I wanted to share what I learned from my conversation with Jim Little, a Navy veteran turned senior reliability engineer who has led from every position imaginable, with direct reports, without them, from the front line, from the manager’s office, through union shops and turnarounds and rebuilds. Jim has walked out of those rooms with a leadership playbook that is practical, earned, and battle-tested. Let’s dig in.

Jim Little’s path into industrial leadership began with a “no” that turned into a career. After serving in the Navy as an aviation electronics technician, trained for avionics but spending two and a half years rebuilding an aircraft carrier in Philadelphia, Jim entered the civilian workforce ready for a clean break from electronics.

So when his plant manager pulled him aside and told him they wanted him in maintenance, Jim said no. They fired him on the spot.

“We’re not going to let you waste the talent you have here. You can take it somewhere else if you’re not going to use it.”

That moment shaped the rest of his life. Jim’s reluctant pivot led to a career he now calls a great journey, a steady climb from electrician to electrical supervisor, maintenance manager, safety manager, and eventually senior reliability engineer.

Along the way, he was part of one of the more remarkable turnarounds I’ve witnessed: a paper mill that went from last place in its division to first. Jim is the kind of leader who tells you the truth, shows up when it’s hard, and cracks a joke right when the pressure peaks. And as you’ll see, that’s exactly the point.

Ask Jim what the Navy taught him about leadership, and he doesn’t hesitate: lead by example. It’s not a cliché for him. It’s the foundation.

“I came out of the military with a mentality that I will do whatever I ask you to do. If I’m asking you to do it, I’ve either done it, or I’m gonna be right there beside you to do it.”

Stay with me here; this isn’t just a nice posture. It changes everything. When your team knows you’re willing to get in the trenches with them, they’ll follow you. Not because they have to. Because they want to.

Jim carried this into every role since. As a maintenance manager, he didn’t just send people into difficult jobs; he showed up. As a safety leader, he didn’t just post policies; he had the conversations face to face. Your team feels the difference before they can articulate it. And that feeling determines whether they give you their best or just enough to get by.

Reflect: When did you last do the work alongside your team rather than just direct it?

What would it look like to show up in the trenches with someone on your team this week?

Leading from the front isn’t a one-time gesture; it’s a daily posture.

One of the most freeing leadership lessons Jim ever received came from the leader who gave him his first real management role. Jim was being hired as an electrical and maintenance leader at a paper mill. His new boss sat down with him and delivered one of the most honest job descriptions he’d ever heard:

“I don’t know anything about electrical work or maintenance for that matter. That’s what you’re here for, to make sure that I don’t get in trouble.”

“As a leader, I don’t have to know everything. I just have to be able to rely on the people that I have working for me and make sure that they feel appreciated, they’re held accountable, and they will make sure that I have what I need to be a successful leader.”

Sound familiar? This cuts against the ego-driven version of leadership that says you need to be the smartest person in the room.

You don’t. You need to be the person who knows how to find the right people and create the conditions where they can do their best work. The paper mill went from last to first not because Jim became an expert in everything; it happened because his leadership team was transparent and clear about who owned what, then got out of each other’s way.

Knowing what you don’t know is a superpower.

Reflect: Where are you holding onto territory that belongs to someone with more expertise than you?

What would it look like to truly trust a team member with something they know better than you do, and then get out of the way?

When Jim talks about the paper mill turnaround, he names one factor above all others: radical, consistent, no-secrets communication. The leadership team didn’t hide the bad news. They laid it out: here’s where we are, here’s how serious it is, here’s what we’re up against. And then they asked for input.

“I think communicating that to everyone made it a little more real so that everyone understood that we have to make some sacrifices, everyone does, if we’re gonna be successful or even become successful and stay in business.”

Here’s what struck me: when employees bring up problems and hear nothing back, it creates disengagement, distrust, and eventual turnover. Jim describes it as feedback dropping into a black hole.

The silence isn’t neutral; the silence does damage. Communication has to work in both directions: downward so your team understands the plan, and upward so their challenges reach the people with the authority to address them.

Reflect: Where is communication breaking down on your team? Are there “black holes," places where feedback goes in and nothing comes back out?

What is one habit you could build this week to close that loop?

Jim calls it a catchphrase. But he’ll also tell you it’s the bedrock of everything. When he tells someone he’s going to look into their problem, he looks into it. When he commits to being somewhere at two o’clock, he’s there at two o’clock. And when he can’t solve something, he comes back and says so, clearly and honestly.

“I will go out to someone, and I want them to tell me where their problems are. I want them to tell me what their challenge is, and then I want to help them. And I will go back to them, and I will say, here’s what we are putting forward to help you with that challenge.”

Jim has earned something most leaders hunger for, but few achieve: he’s become the person people seek out. People don’t come to Jim because he always has the answer; they come because they trust they’ll get a response.

Trust is built in small, repeated moments of follow-through. It’s eroded in small, repeated moments of dropped promises.

The leaders who are trusted most aren’t the most talented. They’re the most consistent.

Reflect: Think about the last five commitments you made to someone on your team.

Did you follow through on every one?

What is one area where your follow-through has been inconsistent, and what would it take to close that loop this week?

Jim’s definition of a great leader begins with listening, not the polite, nodding, waiting-for-your-turn kind. The real kind.

“A great listener listens to understand, not to respond. That’s very important. I struggle with that still to this day sometimes, because we all have our faults.”

That kind of honesty is rare. Jim isn’t presenting himself as a finished product; he’s naming a principle he’s still working on, which is precisely what makes it believable. Most of us listen the wrong way.

We’re forming our response before the other person finishes their sentence. True listening requires slowing down, quieting your own noise, and inhabiting someone else’s experience long enough to grasp what they’re really saying.

Sometimes, Jim says, people just need to vent.

“Maybe they just need to vent for a minute. I can be that person. You can vent to me. I love you for it.”

That posture, the willingness to absorb someone’s frustration without making it about you, is what makes Jim someone people seek out.

Reflect: In your last ten conversations with team members, were you listening to understand or listening to respond?

What would it look like to slow down in your next difficult conversation, to ask one more question before offering your take?

One of the most significant transitions in Jim’s career was the move from maintenance management, where he had direct authority, to safety leadership, where he had no direct reports. In safety, you can’t order people to change. You can cite the code. You can explain the risk. But none of them report to you. So Jim got off his desk and onto the floor.

“I took that message out to the floor, and I tried to spread that message to every employee on the floor. If I see the problem, pull ‘em aside, have that conversation. Why are we doing this? Because of these reasons.”

That’s influence without authority. Not demanding compliance. Building the case, face to face, one person at a time. Jim takes the same approach when leading up; rather than scheduling formal presentations, he’d pop into a manager’s office informally.

“Hey, can I have a couple of minutes?”

Informal and specific beats formal and vague, almost every time.

Most leadership happens outside the org chart. Your title gets you in the room. Your credibility determines whether anyone listens once you’re there.

Reflect: Where in your work right now do you need to influence without authority?

What’s your plan for building the relationship and credibility that makes that influence possible?

Jim has been in situations where people were, in his words, “effectively standing on my desk screaming at me” about why something wasn’t done yet. His answer is not to panic. It’s to know the plan cold.

“As long as you have an understanding of the project, the plan, whatever it is — then you can explain, here’s where we’re at, here’s the next steps. Plan the job and work the plan is the only thing I can say for that.”

Under pressure, the absence of a plan is catastrophic; it turns noise into chaos. But when you’ve thought through the steps, you can walk someone off the ledge with a calm, clear account of where things stand.

Jim adds something most leadership books leave out: you need thick skin. Not callousness, the emotional stability to absorb pressure without becoming the pressure. Because what your team needs when everything is on fire is a leader who isn’t.

And here’s where Jim surprised me. After all the principles about discipline and steadiness, his final piece of advice was this:

“Leadership is a lot of fun. When you make it fun, it can be very challenging, it can be very demanding, but one key that I always like to say, especially when I’m new on a job, is: let’s have a little fun at work today.”

I’ve watched Jim live this out. We’ve worked through genuinely terrible situations together, and right in the middle, Jim would crack a joke about something we were all too deep in to see clearly. And something would loosen.

Levity at the right moment doesn’t trivialize the situation; it humanizes it.

Reflect: When did you last bring genuine levity to your team, not to avoid the hard things, but to make the hard things survivable?

Jim Little is not a leadership theorist. He’s a practitioner, someone who learned most of what he knows the hard way, in plants and ships where the stakes were real and the margin for error was thin.

Here’s what struck me most about Jim’s philosophy: how integrated it is. Leading by example builds the trust that makes communication land. Communication builds the transparency that lets teams take on hard challenges.

Serving your people creates the relational capital that lets you influence without authority. And bringing a little fun to the work is what sustains all of it over the long haul.

Jim is also deeply honest about his own failures, the moments where he didn’t listen as well as he should have, the situations where he’s still growing. That honesty is itself a form of leadership. It gives the people around him permission to be imperfect, to learn, and to keep showing up.

Leadership isn’t a destination. It’s a practice. Jim has been practicing it for decades, and he’s still at it. Still learning. Still showing up. Still having fun.

That’s the kind of leader worth becoming.

Pick one principle from this list, just one, and put it into practice this week. Not all seven. Just the one your gut already knew you needed when you read it.

• Maybe it’s getting out from behind the desk and into the work alongside someone on your team.

• Maybe it’s closing a feedback loop you’ve been letting drift into a black hole.

• Maybe it’s slowing down in your next hard conversation and listening to understand instead of waiting to respond.

• Maybe it’s naming the plan calmly when the next round of pressure hits.

Whatever it is, take the step. Then come back next week and take another one. That’s how leaders like Jim are built. One intentional decision at a time.

You can do this.

• It’s Your Ship — Captain D. Michael Abrashoff (the book that taught Jim if you see something that needs fixing, fix it — you don’t need permission to do the right thing)

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