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Frontiers November 2014 Issue

A big white board in Vonda Davis’ office in St. Charles, Mo., lists the many important projects that the new Boeing Military Aircraft manager is responsible for—and one of them has Tony Salt’s name on it. Salt, a production lead, wants to be a manager someday. To aid his development, Davis assigned him one of the big tasks on her plate: setting up an entire production area for a new weapons derivative. This entails coordinating resources ranging from manufacturing engineering, production and industrial engineering, to facilities, production electrical support, parts management and scheduling. Salt said he looked forward to this 22 Frontiers November 2014 opportunity, yet he kept seeing Davis at the meetings he led for the project. That made him wonder whether she thought he could achieve the project goals. “Vonda’s very hands-on, like me,” Salt said. “We face the same struggle— of learning not to finish a project all by yourself, and how to delegate parts of it.” Boeing provides many opportunities for employees such as Salt, who want to become managers, but it also is helping new managers such as Davis be better leaders in the eyes of their employees. Developing current and future leaders is a priority for Boeing, which counts on managers like Davis to challenge and stretch their teams, said Dennis Muilenburg, Boeing vice chairman, president and chief operating officer. “We give them the tools to develop themselves and the people they lead,” Muilenburg said. “In return, we become a stronger, more competitive company that’s better able to meet our growing global business challenges.” Developing effective leaders is also important to Boeing because a large segment of the employee population will be eligible to retire within five years. Cultivating the next generation of leaders ensures the company can continue to meet customer and market demands, while providing development opportunities for current and future employees, Muilenburg said. (See Page 6.) Davis had spent 27 years at Boeing


Frontiers November 2014 Issue
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