As industries face ever-increasing technological and operational complexity, leaders must adopt Systems Thinking to remain effective. A Forbes study reveals that 73% of executives in high-tech and industrial companies believe it is critical for achieving project success. Systems Thinking equips organizations to integrate processes, enhance collaboration, and implement innovations with measurable impact.
Fortunately, any professional can become an effective leader by combining technical competence with organizational strategy. This means having the ability to rescue complex projects in critical situations, implement innovations in conservative and high-risk industries, and blend deep technical expertise with next-generation leadership qualities.
Our compatriot Sravya Yelamanchili, an Engineering Manager at Juniper Elbow Co. Inc., introduces innovations in an extremely complex and conservative industry and demonstrates in practice how these principles work. She integrates people, processes, and technology into a unified system, achieving impressive results in U.S. Navy projects where every detail and decision is critical to success.
In addition to her corporate achievements, she is a Senior Member of the IEEE and a Fellow at the Hackathon Raptors community—prestigious roles that reflect her leadership and technical excellence beyond her organization.
These positions not only recognize her expertise but also establish her as an influential contributor within the global innovation ecosystem, driving collaboration, mentorship, and cutting-edge problem-solving. Her methods and approaches can also be effectively applied in the civilian sector, helping companies master the art of rescuing projects while enhancing quality, efficiency, and team coordination.
Focus on Adaptive and Systems-Oriented Leadership
Early in her career, Sravya focused on technical mastery but soon realized that leading high-risk projects demands a wider perspective, integrating people, processes, and outcomes. She evolved from a detail-oriented engineer into a leader who balances technical precision with team engagement and manages projects end-to-end, from design through delivery, ensuring both technical rigor and team cohesion:
"I now emphasize collaborative decision-making, clear communication of expectations, and structured problem-solving."
At Juniper, she coordinated engineers, planners, and production teams during the implementation of the ERP system, which integrated configurable Bills of Materials (BOM). This allowed for customer requirements to be met while reducing production cycle time by 25%. Few professionals in her position achieve such a measurable transformation in an industry as conservative as naval engineering, which underscores the singular impact of her leadership.
Through this process, she learned that leadership is not only about process oversight but also about uniting people:
"Teams must understand that their contribution is valued and feel ownership for results. My style allows rigor to coexist with team autonomy and initiative."
Recommendation: Develop Systems Thinking skills by designing solutions that create positive ripple effects—where improvements in one area enhance the performance of the entire team.
Implement Tools and Processes for Quality and Efficiency
In naval engineering, precision, compliance, and reliability are critical at every stage; even minimal variances can compromise system safety and operational efficacy. Sravya promptly identified shortcomings that previous teams had simply accepted as the inherent challenges of defense projects. Instead, she deployed a set of innovative tools and structured processes that are rarely applied with such breadth and effectiveness.
A core quality control tool is the Material Review Board (MRB)—cross-functional team including engineering, production, quality, and procurement—that systematically evaluates nonconforming materials and prevents recurring errors:
"I lead it by ensuring cross-functional collaboration—bringing together engineering, quality, production, and procurement to the table. Our decisions go beyond quick fixes, focusing instead on eliminating root causes to drive lasting improvement"
To implement changes, Sravya designed and actively utilizes standardized Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) alongside the ERP system:
"Some senior engineers resisted, fearing that the structure would limit their autonomy. Instead of imposing changes top-down, I created workshops where they could voice concerns and test new workflows."
Integrating their feedback into the final design and demonstrating how automation could minimize repetitive tasks, she reshaped the initiative to make engineering work more purposeful rather than limiting.
For Engineering Change Notices (ECN), she applied Lean principles to eliminate duplicate reviews, accelerate approval processes, and minimize repetitive tasks—streamlining operations for greater efficiency. These optimizations are more than process tweaks—they represent a cultural shift, rare in defense, where continuous improvement is now embedded in daily work.:
"I encourage engineers and technicians to identify waste in their daily routines and reward proactive problem-solving. This achieves efficiency while building a culture where improvements are an ongoing responsibility."
Recommendation: Engage employees in process development, use digital tools for coordination and control, integrate cross-functional MRB teams, maintain transparent records, and apply Lean at both operational and mindset levels.
Mentorship as a Tool for Professional Growth
Sravya views mentorship as a key element of leadership:
"To me, it means bridging technical training with professional growth. It’s not just teaching tools and methods, but also cultivating confidence, judgment, and leadership qualities."
She entrusted interns and junior engineers with small process improvement projects, building both hands-on skills and confidence, while providing a structured support framework. Many of them have since advanced to more responsible roles, which she considers one of the most valuable outcomes of leadership.This focus on mentorship distinguishes her leadership—few managers in high-risk industries invest so directly in developing the next generation of engineers while simultaneously running mission-critical projects.
Recommendation: Delegate real tasks to junior staff while providing mentorship and guidance.
Make Quick Decisions Without Compromising Quality
Operational responsiveness and accountability are critical in high-risk projects. Under tight deadlines, Sravya uses a tiered decision-making framework to respond quickly while preserving core quality standards.
For high-priority incidents, she swiftly conducts a criticality assessment to identify elements essential for safety and regulatory compliance—these are maintained without alteration—while non-essential parameters are refined or optimized through Agile methodologies:
"I also maintain predefined escalation protocols with my team so we don’t waste time debating roles under pressure. This structure allows us to act decisively while ensuring core quality standards remain intact even when deadlines are demanding."
Such structured agility is rare in naval engineering and highlights her ability to combine speed with uncompromising quality—something that even veteran managers struggle to balance.
Recommendation: Predefine critical process elements to accelerate decisions without reducing quality.
Systems Thinking as the Core of Management
Sravya optimizes product data management within the ERP system to accurately represent complex configuration variants, reducing data redundancy and minimizing engineering change errors. By leveraging a centralized knowledge repository, she enables the reuse of validated design solutions—accelerating development cycles, enhancing data integrity, and ensuring individual engineering contributions are traceable and acknowledged.:
"Every validated solution, drawing, or method was credited to its creator, giving visibility to individual expertise for the entire team. This not only reduced duplication of effort but also boosted morale, turning knowledge-sharing into a source of recognition. The repository became both an operational asset and a cultural win."
By embedding recognition into system design, she not only improved operations but redefined how knowledge management drives culture—something rarely seen in conservative industries.
Recommendation: Integrate processes and data into a single system so that decisions in one department inform others.
Develop the Team and Measure Success Through People
Alignment and collaborative culture are essential in high-risk environments. Sravya applies structured communication to synchronize cross-functional teams:
"Each project begins with a cross-functional kickoff meeting where goals, roles, and dependencies are clearly defined. I then organize regular syncs focused on exceptions rather than routine reports."
Mutual respect between teams is equally important; she ensures engineers understand production challenges and vice versa so collaboration feels like a shared mission, not negotiation.
She measures leadership effectiveness through team growth and process sustainability, not just productivity metrics, tracking whether interns develop into independent engineers, whether cross-functional trust improves, and whether morale remains high:
"The true measure of leadership is not only in improving processes but in people’s ability to carry improvements forward."
Few leaders in defense measure success in such human-centered terms, which sets her apart as both a strategist and a culture-builder.
Recommendation: Measure success by the team’s ability to maintain and develop improvements independently.
Key Qualities of a Leader in High-Risk Sectors
Sravya emphasizes:
"While productivity, cost reduction, and lead-time are important, I assess leadership success through process sustainability and people’s outcomes. If a process improvement functions without constant intervention, that’s a sign of strong leadership."
She identifies five main qualities of an effective leader:
● Technical competence – teams must trust that the leader understands the complexity of the work.
● Decisiveness with accountability – decisions must be made quickly and fully owned.
● Integrity in quality – compromises on safety or standards are unacceptable.
● Systems Thinking – ability to integrate design, supply chain, and operations into a coherent framework.
● People-centric orientation – motivated and engaged teams drive both quality and efficiency.
By demonstrating these qualities in some of the most conservative and high-stakes projects in the U.S. Navy supply chain, Sravya distinguishes herself not simply as an effective manager but as an innovator redefining what leadership in engineering can mean.
These qualities, combined with concrete management recommendations, are essentially universal and applicable in any industry worldwide.
