If your version of leadership is standing at the whiteboard asking why targets were missed, this is not your role.
If your version is being in the work, coaching leaders, and fixing systems so the same problems stop coming back, keep reading.
This is a regional WA manufacturing and industrial services business that operates more like a tight, production-focused operation than a traditional workshop.
They design, build, install, and maintain safety‑critical assets and visual systems for mining and commercial clients across regional WA. Output, quality, safety, and delivery pressure are non-negotiable, and the work runs to mining-sector expectations.
After six years of steady, deliberate growth, the owner is bringing in a General Manager to deepen leadership capability, stabilise systems as the business scales, and step back from being across every operational decision.
What this role is really about
Your job is to be the coach and anchor point for a growing leadership group, not the person who runs around “fixing” everything. You will:
- Develop and stretch team leaders so they can lead without constant escalation.
- Strengthen and mature an operating system built on Lean and continuous improvement.
- Look for why work breaks down, not just where, and design fixes into the system.
- Build leadership maturity across manufacturing, installation, and field services so they operate as one business, not three silos.
- Reduce the owner’s day-to-day operational load while improving decision quality and consistency.
If you are wired to walk the floor, ask good questions, and leave more capability in the room than when you arrived, you’re in the right territory.
How the business runs
Lean Manufacturing and Toyota Production System principles are baked into how this organisation operates, not treated as a buzzword.
The rhythm includes daily morning meetings, standard work and routines, clean and visual workplaces, and teams expected to find and solve problems early.
Leaders go after root causes, and accountability sits alongside a no-blame culture. If that energises you, this is your environment. If it feels like jargon, it will be a tough fit.
Who you need to be
This will suit a seasoned GM or senior operations leader who has:
- Led manufacturing, production, industrial services, logistics, or mining services operations under real-world constraints.
- Lived Lean or the Toyota Production System as a day-to-day operating model, not a one-off project.
- Proven experience developing team leaders or supervisors, with success measured in capability uplift, not personal heroics.
- Worked in owner-led or founder-driven businesses, helping professionalise and stabilise without smothering them in corporate process.
- The emotional maturity to lead with curiosity and humility, and the edge to hold the line in tough conversations.
This is not a mining leadership role, and there is no large corporate support function. It is a lean, hands-on, high-expectation operation that happens to service mining clients.
Location, support and upside
The role is based in Kalgoorlie.
You’ll have a vehicle and full relocation assistance (if required), a competitive base salary with regular performance bonuses, and long-term upside tied to the success of the business. For the right person, there is serious development on offer, including advanced lean training offshore.
If you recognise your own leadership style in this and are ready to commit to both the region and the work, I would be very keen to talk to you. You can call me (Andrew) on 08 6140 1800 for a highly confidential chat.