Leadership Myths That Hold Reliability Back

Welcome to The Reliable Edge

We guide leaders in transforming maintenance into a competitive edge—one proven idea at a time.

This week, we’re focusing on a hidden challenge: Leadership Myths. Too often, leaders believe they’re driving reliability by pushing harder, setting tougher targets, or celebrating quick fixes. But the truth is, some of the most common leadership practices can quietly erode reliability and resilience instead of building them.

Because reliability isn’t just about systems, tools, or processes—it thrives when leaders set the tone, model the right behaviors, and create an environment where teams own reliability at every level.

Field Insight: Why Aren’t We Improving?

At a large manufacturing site, leadership believed they were doing the right things. They rolled out new KPIs, launched daily huddles, and pushed supervisors to hold the line on output. On paper, it looked like progress.

Yet on the floor, teams felt pressure to prioritize speed over quality. Failures repeated, improvements didn’t stick, and people quietly reverted to firefighting mode.

The breakthrough came when a senior leader admitted: “We’ve been rewarding the wrong things. We celebrate the hero who fixes the breakdown, not the person who prevented it.”

By shifting recognition to prevention, encouraging open problem-solving, and aligning supervisors to model accountability, the culture began to change. Reliability improved—not because of more systems or reports, but because leadership changed the behaviors that mattered most.

Leadership Myths That Hold Reliability Back

Myth 1: “Reliability is a maintenance issue.”
📌 Reality: Reliability is an organizational outcome. When leaders see it only as the maintenance team’s job, they miss the bigger picture—production, supply chain, procurement, and leadership all shape reliability outcomes.

Think about it: maintenance can do flawless work, but if procurement sources the cheapest parts, production overrides downtime windows, or leadership fails to align priorities, reliability will suffer. According to a study, organizations that treat reliability as an enterprise-wide responsibility are 3x more likely to achieve top-quartile performance than those who silo it in maintenance.