 The turbulent waters of today's healthcare industry have prompted the search for new ways to navigate patients back to health without sacrificing quality or safety. One promising route has been the implementation of lean management, a business strategy that reduces the activities of an organization down to those that deliver the greatest value to clients. But in the healthcare context, lean is largely uncharted territory, particularly when it comes to understanding what leaders can do to make lean practices successful. In this study, researchers explored the field of lean to discover six main principles that healthcare leaders can adopt to help their institutions deliver the highest level of healthcare under today's demographic and financial constraints. The most important attribute that upcoming leaders should work on is self-development. Self-development involves leaders clearly explaining to their employees what lean production is and why it should be implemented, arranging materials and training sessions to ensure that employees understand the meaning of lean and clarifying how lean can be implemented in healthcare systems. Having planted the meaning of lean in their employees' minds, leaders should then look to cultivate this meaning by creating a culture of continuous improvement. Employees should be encouraged to recognize and report mistakes, understand why they were made, and generate ideas for improvement. The key here is for leaders to actually implement these ideas so that employees feel heard and valued. The best way for healthcare leaders to understand what improvements should be made to elevate the quality of patient care is for them to visit the work floor. The clinic, the consulting room, the hospital ward, and the operating theater are where value in healthcare is created. Because work floor workers know best about what patients want, it is important that healthcare leaders involve them in decision-making processes. This requires leaders to develop coaching skills that can help them empower employees to solve problems and take on more responsibility. Leaders' ability to empower employees necessarily depends on developing strong communication skills. Even if they are unable to find opportunities to communicate face-to-face on the work floor, leaders can establish lines of communication by adopting the tools of visual management. Visual displays such as whiteboards on the work floor help employees monitor their performance continuously and provide an avenue for giving and receiving feedback. But communication is not enough. Leaders must ensure that their employees are motivated. The problem is that the benefits of lean practices are not always easily observed or even understood, particularly in a healthcare setting. Leaders can therefore inspire employees to take up lean practices by demonstrating what a lean enterprise looks like, either by visiting a successful lean organization or by launching a pilot study in their own institution. The researchers admit that this set of principles is neither exhaustive nor a strict plan for successfully implementing lean practices in the healthcare sector. Rather, it is a framework of skills that can be adapted by healthcare leaders as they begin the journey toward lean management.