Griselda Abousleman: The Lean Master Leading Businesses to Transformative Success

After spending nearly three decades in corporate leadership, Griselda Abousleman, Founder and CEO of Lean Business Excellence began her illustrious entrepreneurial journey. Her global experience, managing diverse teams across 26 countries, powered her passion for mentoring and coaching.

Building on this wealth of experience and passion, she founded Lean Business Excellence (LBE) for management consulting and Excellence Coaching for professional development in 2023. By 2024, she merged both companies under the LBE umbrella. Certified as a Lean Master, along with her expertise in continuous improvement and strategic growth, Griselda helps people achieve their personal growth goals and businesses achieve profitability and operational excellence—emerging as one of the most inspiring women business coach to follow.

Motivation and Passion at The Core

Griselda Abousleman’s passion for lean methodologies stemmed from her studies in industrial engineering at Stanford, where she explored Toyota’s revolutionary lean principles. Crucially, she recognized its potential to eliminate waste and improve processes by up to 80%. Intrigued by its transformative power, she pursued mastery in lean practices, particularly in the aerospace sector, where these lean principles were relatively unknown.

Globally, she implemented lean systems through her work at Allied Signal Aerospace (now Honeywell), and optimized processes across functions to help organizations achieve strategic growth and operational efficiency. This ensured their competitive advantage.

Transformational Leadership Style

Griselda’s transformational leadership style inspires individuals and organizations to achieve their goals and exceed expectations. She empowers clients to envision ambitious targets and develop strategic plans to reach them, often pushing beyond boundaries through a “what if” methodology. 

By breaking complex objectives into manageable steps and fostering creative thinking, Griselda equips teams to achieve dramatic gains—tripling revenue or significantly increasing operational efficiency. Her leadership approach combines authenticity, engagement, and a commitment to sustainable growth.

Overcoming Organizational Hurdles

Griselda Abousleman identifies two common challenges in the organizations she coaches: 

1. Lack of Standardized Processes: Many organizations may perform tasks efficiently but inconsistently, leading to costly inefficiencies. She emphasizes creating “one best way” for functions across the organization to streamline operations and drive improvement.

2. Data-Driven Decision-Making: Leaders often struggle to prioritize problems effectively. Griselda advocates for using data analysis to identify top issues and applying a standard problem-solving methodology, fostering a unified language and approach to tackling challenges across an entire organization.

Driving Success Through Innovation and Lean Principles

Griselda Abousleman emphasizes the power of integrating lean principles with innovation to drive organizational success. One of her key strategies is conducting a Value Stream Analysis, which maps the entire process flow—from order placement to delivery and beyond. This approach reveals hidden inefficiencies such as time delays, unnecessary rework, and excess inventory. 

With this thorough assessment, Griselda finds that often, only 5-10% of a process is truly value-added, with the rest consisting of waste. The key for organizations is to identify and eliminate these inefficiencies—streamlining operations, reducing costs, and delivering more value to customers.  However, Value Stream Analysis is also a catalyst for innovation. By encouraging teams to imagine an ideal state with no constraints, the tool allows them to think beyond current limitations and focus on the value-added steps of a process ultimately coming up with a creative and impactful solution to serve their customers.

A Case Study in Engine Manufacturing

Griselda shares a remarkable success story from her time leading a transformation in an engine manufacturing line. Originally, the process took over three months to complete, but the goal was to reduce the cycle time to just one week. To achieve this, Griselda and her team worked closely with customers and suppliers to redesign the assembly and testing processes while consolidating operations into a single facility.

The results were extraordinary. The time to complete an engine was reduced from months to under one week, and parts were delivered to the line within a single day. For the manufacturing company, this transformation boosted market share and also sparked a cultural shift across the company. Employees and leaders who had once been skeptical of such dramatic changes were now eager to apply the same lean principles across other areas of the organization—driving continuous improvement and innovation throughout every aspect of their business.

The Power of Standardization

Griselda Abousleman highlights another impactful transformation, this time in a smaller company specializing in precision fastening equipment. The company faced a lack of standardization across key functions like order handling, shipping, and inventory management, resulting in chaotic, inefficient processes. Griselda’s team stepped in to implement lean principles and standardize these workflows. Over the course of four months, through collaboration and debate, they developed a clear, streamlined process for every function that everyone could follow. 

The results? Operations became smoother, countless hours were saved, and errors were significantly reduced. This process simplification enhanced operational efficiency and also improved employee morale by replacing chaos with clarity and structure. This transformation allowed the company to grow and provided a more stress-free environment for employees, demonstrating how lean principles can create lasting positive change in any organization.

Griselda explains that the standardization of processes had a transformative effect on team dynamics and the overall company culture. Prior to the changes, employees were overwhelmed by inefficiencies, which led to burnout and high turnover. However, after implementing lean principles and streamlining workflows, stress levels decreased, and employees found they had more time for collaboration and continuous improvement. 

The clear, standardized processes helped employees understand how their work contributed to the broader goals of the company. This shift nurtured a culture of teamwork, innovation, and empowerment, where individuals were motivated to propose and implement positive changes. Ultimately, the company saw a more peaceful, productive work environment, which directly contributed to both employee satisfaction and overall organizational success.

Griselda Abousleman’s Vision for Sustainable Success

Griselda’s ultimate vision is to cultivate organizations that excel not only in efficiency but also in creating a positive and empowering environment for their employees. She believes that by integrating innovation, automation and lean principles, companies can eliminate waste, optimize processes, and deliver significantly greater value to customers.

However, the true goal is to build workplaces where employees feel supported, engaged, and motivated to strive for continuous improvement. For Griselda, business success goes hand-in-hand with enhancing the quality of life for the people who drive that success, creating a culture where both the organization and its employees thrive together. She refers to this as her Truly HUMAN leadership model, in which she focuses teams on Humility, Uplifting each other, Mindset of growth and resilience, Accountability, and Nurturing a culture of continuous improvement every day.

Adapting to and Shaping New Trends

Griselda is actively adapting to and shaping key trends—primarily focusing on AI, In-region/For-region manufacturing, and e-commerce.

1. AI Integration: Griselda is leveraging AI to revolutionize business processes. By deploying AI-powered sales teams, she is efficiently targeting potential clients through platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook. This innovative approach not only automates tasks but also offers personalized and efficient solutions. She is transitioning from traditional methods to cloud-based platforms that harness the collective intelligence of countless minds, significantly boosting productivity and effectiveness.
2. Regional Manufacturing Focus: She is advocating for a shift towards regional manufacturing. Instead of solely focusing on cost reduction through offshoring, Griselda emphasizes understanding her customers’ regional needs and producing locally. This approach minimizes transportation and logistical costs, aligning production more closely with consumer demand.
3. E-commerce Adoption: Griselda stresses the importance of embracing e-commerce to stay competitive in today’s digital landscape. She recognizes that companies without a strong online presence are at a significant disadvantage. By adopting e-commerce, businesses can engage customers effectively, communicate constantly and drive sales.

Empowering Women Leaders 

As a prominent woman leader, Griselda advocates for inclusivity and diversity by emphasizing the importance of earning opportunities through hard work and results rather than relying on gender or ethnicity. She believes that women, especially in technical fields, should rise based on their ability to deliver outstanding results, not just because of their gender or background.

Her advice to aspiring women leaders, including her two daughters, Briana and Gabriela, is straightforward: “Roll up your sleeves, take on challenging assignments, and do what it takes to demonstrate through results that you deserve to be there.” She encourages women to focus on their achievements and to earn their place through dedication, hard work, and proven success—especially in technical and global environments where leadership and results matter most. 

Inspiring the Next Generation of Leaders

Griselda Abousleman inspires others by sharing her personal journey and success story. She emphasizes perseverance, determination, and emotional intelligence (EI) as key elements for achieving success, particularly for women. Drawing from her books, “Extraordinary Latinas” and “From the Border to the Boardroom,” she highlights the power of resilience in overcoming challenges.

Women’s unique strengths, such as emotional intelligence, can propel them to leadership roles, Griselda believes. She views EI as a female superpower that surpasses even technological advancements like AI. “Women tend to have a keen sense of how to approach any difficult situation with tact and impact,” she claims. She also emphasizes the role of women’s nurturing instincts in enhancing their leadership skills. For her, leading with heart and authenticity is a powerful tool for business success.

Griselda’s long-term vision for Lean Business Excellence is to become a global consultancy and coaching business that positively impacts companies and individuals worldwide. She aims to help business leaders harness lean principles to drive growth and prosperity. Additionally, she aspires to inspire entrepreneurs and executives, teaching them the value of respect for people, constant thirst for delighting customers and engaging teams on lean principles to empower them to create successful ventures.

Legacy of Empowering Industries and Individuals

In terms of legacy, Griselda envisions leaving a mark in two main areas: the manufacturing sector and the personal development of individuals. On the manufacturing side, she aims to revitalize skilled trades and lean processes to help companies generate profitable growth and thrive—countering the current loss of apprenticeship programs and expertise. 

On a personal level, she wants to help individuals shatter existing barriers to success, especially those facing adversity or vulnerability in unlocking their full potential. Inspired by her son, Gregory, who defied medical expectations, Griselda wants to help others achieve what may initially seem impossible and ensure that they can see beyond their challenges to find long-lasting success and fulfillment.

About The Leader:

5 key Insights from Griselda Abousleman’s Inspiring Journey

1. Mastery of Lean Principles: Griselda Abousleman’s expertise in lean methodologies, rooted in her Stanford education and global experience, has revolutionized processes across industries, proving the transformative power of eliminating inefficiencies and driving growth.
2. Empowering Leadership Style: Her transformational leadership inspires teams and organizations to achieve ambitious goals, fostering innovation, collaboration, and sustained success.
3. Commitment to Standardization: By creating standardized processes, Griselda has helped businesses streamline operations, reduce costs, and enhance employee satisfaction, showcasing the value of clarity and consistency.
4. Passion for Diversity and Inclusion: As an advocate for inclusivity, Griselda emphasizes earning opportunities through hard work and results, inspiring women and underrepresented groups to rise to leadership roles.
5. Legacy of Resilience and Vision: Griselda’s story, from overcoming challenges to empowering industries and individuals, underscores the importance of perseverance, emotional intelligence, and a commitment to making a lasting impact.