Roles and Characteristics of Modern Leaders and Managers

This report discusses the different roles and characteristics of modern leaders and managers in a general context. It also explores the application of leadership theories and models in different situations. The role of leaders and managers in Toyota is highlighted as well.

OPERATION
AND
MANAGEMENT

TABLE OF CONTANT
INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................................3
TASK 1......................................................................................................................................4
P1 Different roles and characteristics of a modern leader and a manager in general context4
P2 Application of roles of leaders and function of managers in different situations.............6
P3 Application of different theories and models of leadership approach..............................8
TASK2.......................................................................................................................................9
P4 Key approaches to operations management and role of Toyota leader and manager.......9
P5 Importance and value of operations management..........................................................11
P6 Factors within a Business environment that affect operational management and decision
..............................................................................................................................................13
CONCLUSION.......................................................................................................................14
REFERENCES.......................................................................................................................15

INTRODUCTION
Management and operation is the backbone of every organization that helps managers to
achieve their goals prior to the set defined time. Managers have to deal with the complexity
of an organization. They need to plan and organize everything according to time and
implement the plan in most efficient manner. They are responsible for the outcome of the
result of the plan so they have to coordinate and control very precisely. The present report
reveals around Toyota Motor Company. Toyota is the world’s largest automobile
manufacturer with a market capitalization exceeding that of General Motors, Ford, Daimler
Chrysler and Honda. Toyota core business is the manufacturing of automobile and parts of
the heavy industry. They have a presence in more than 170 countries. As of today Toyota
revenue is 27 Lakh crore and growing with almost 3.5 lakh employee working day and night
to meet the demands (Caniani and et. al., 2015). In this global era, company leader plays an
important role in quality decision making process. With help of his vision and skills, a
manager can observe the performance of their employees which is required in the globally
competitive era. This assignment will focus on several aspects that affect decision making
process of Toyota directly and indirectly.
TASK 1
P1 Different roles and characteristics of a modern leader and a manager in general context
It is a basic task of managers and leaders of Toyota to keep an eye on all activities of the
corporation to obtain all objectives efficiently. Leadership and management are two pillars of
a company’s growth and excellence. Without them, the company will never reach the new
heights.
Leadership is a process where everything is done intentionally in order to fulfill and facilitate
activities and relationships in a group or organization. A leader has to give the direction to its
employee so that everybody works with the same vision. Effective leaders should be
visionaries and should inspire everybody.This is what everybody sees in an effective leader.
Management involves organizing staff people and resource to achieve the required objective.
Managers have to control the employee working under them and they have to make it sure

that company gets the required work from the employee (Expósito and et. al., 2016).
Managers should trust their employees to be involved in the decision-making process instead
of excluding them.
According to Morgan, the modern manager must have five important qualities, including the
 Lead the employee from the front in order to ensure the employee success.
 Be more technologically aware so that no challenge come while communication with
labour
 Being more transparent, honest, courageous, open so that everybody can feel
comfortable
 Should believe in sharing information and collective intelligence.
The interrelation between Managerial role and traits
The above figure shows the interrelation between the managerial roles and the factors
which affect its decision. As one can see personality and experience of an individual
directly affects the managerial roles and managerial capabilities. But in order to make it
more effective one should understand the global complexity and various other factors
associated with it.
The responsibilities performed by management to accomplish their goals are stated as
follows
 Organising: - Seniors should treat everybody equally and should distribute task
irrespective of their color and religion.

 Staffing:-The HR should hire the people and should assign the responsibilities
according to their current skills and knowledge.
 Coordinating: - Adequate information should be provided to every individual so that
the task can be accomplished more efficiently (Fayol, 2016). This ways coordination
between the employees will also prosper thereby make in the healthy working
environment for the labors.
 Controlling:-Superiors should always examine the employee so that they can
understand whether the employee will do the assigned work on the given deadlines or
not. This helps them take actions if any deviation comes from the standard.
Managers and leaders are not same as they have these differences.
Manager Leader
Formation of strategies and plans are done by
managers
They are leaders and thus direct the .lower level
employee
Managers should know the requirement of the
employees so that proper sessions can be
conducted in order to improve their capabilities
Leaders should determine proper channels
through which they can make their sub
employee more efficient.
They should be aware of the skills and
knowledge of their employee so that the work
assigned to them is according to their caliber.
They are illustrative of the firm and they should
take the decision very quickly.
P2 Application of roles of leaders and function of managers in different situations
Managing is all about coping complexity and therefore establishing control and predictability,
whereas leadership is about coping with and promoting change and adaptability. They
perform their role of directing their subordinates and taking care that organizational goals and
objectives are accomplished efficiently. Consistency, commitment, dependability, and respect

are obligations of strong leaders. In Toyota, superiors are able to attain their target because
they care about their clients. Toyota has applied different strategies to bring changes in the
policies of the company .operational department has reported a subsequent drop in cost and
increasing, manufacturing production of the unit.
The strategy formation of a leader starts with the vision and then thinking and a lot of
brainstorming and finally it establishes a culture where everyone knows what to do, what are
the values of the firm. Everyone should clearly understand the need for change and the motto
of strategy and try to reflect flexible behavior for proper strategic planning. It is important for
the leader to handle it carefully because there is always a tendency of people to resist change
and with proper planning and convincing a leader can make it sure that everybody follows
him. Leaders should always adopt a realistic approach than a literal approach to identify the
strategic gaps. For effective implementation, a leader has to make it sure that people
understand why there is a need for change. That is only possible by creating an environment
that integrates the strategic and operational activities. A leader can also evaluate the work by
creating an evaluation system that evaluates the strategy at every stage of the work within the
organization. Leadership basically influences three areas of organization the vision, the
strategies and the values. It knows what are the risks and returns of a particular change.
These are some situations in which both manager and leader are required to perform their role
which is stated as follows:-
 Delegation of authority: Seniors should equally divide the roles and responsibilities
among their lower level collegues so that they can always feel that they have an
important role in the company. This enhances the efficiency of the employee as they
now work more hard to attain the preset goals. Proper formulation of strategies should
be done so that they can be easily understandable. The manager should provide duties
to their workers according to their skills so that they are able to complete it on time
efficiently. And if the work is divided, then because of the variety they can learn skills
more efficiently.
 Decision-making process: It is necessary for manager of the company to take
judgment in an appropriate manner as this will help them into their success and
development. Both leader and manager play an eminent part in this. Managers should
trust employees to be involved in the decision-making process instead of excluding
them They should take help of their subordinates into this because it involves all level

of employee. Along with his, they will become more punctual and will finish their
work on time.(Morschett, Schramm-Klein, and Zentes, 2015). Employees who have a
voice in decision making tend to promote changes in their work environment place.
As a result, the firm will able to improve their market share effectually.
 Employee engagement: Workers are considered as an important part of every type of
organization as they aid them to attain their vision and goals within a specific period
of time. Managers are responsible for accomplishing tasks through the employees
who report to it them. Effective managers should motivate their employee to achieve
measurable short-term goals. Coordination between manager and leader should also
be there so that they will complete their task effectually. Superior needs to take help
from their employee so that they all can work on the same goal.
 Training and development: It is must for manager of the enterprise to find out the
requirement of a training session at the workplace. This helps to improve working
efficiencies of staff members. As a result, unwanted cost and wastage will get
reduced. Along with, it helps to improve their skills and knowledge which aid them to
complete work with maximum effectiveness (White, 2016). Moreover, subordinates
still need further training and practice in giving constructive feedback, so the first
assessments should be quite objective and should include various valuable comments
from top managers. They must lead with confidence and knowledge while also
implementing evidence-based practices.
 Proper use of resources:- One of the most important duties of a manager is
effectively using an organization’s resources. This duty involves assigning roles to
various individuals and manipulating human resources, as well as efficiently
allocating the organization’s financial, technological, and natural resources. With the
proper use of resources the company can easily maximize the profit and thus can give
more bi\onus and benefit to its clients.
Therefore, it has been observed that managers and leaders are much important part of an
organization and help to achieve targets and objectives efficiently. This aids organization to
take benefits from its competitors and become make leader within a few years.

P3 Application of different theories and models of leadership approach
In an effort to understand the complex phenomenon of leadership, over the years,
there have been developed approaches and models of leadership. Superiors are required to
encourage their members so that they carry out activities through which organization is able
to enhance their position in the market (Thaler, Priest and Fuchs, 2016). Manager of Toyota
apply these theories in their system to make their company work efficiently:
Situational leadership theory: It emphasizes the behavior of the leaders regarding
different situations. It arose due to the lack of success regarding the identification of efficient
leadership style which gave birth to the idea of the situation which later proved to be an
effective and specific style of leadership. It is an important method in which superiors
employees perform their duties according to market situations. They are made flexible so that
they can be called to work any time. In Toyota, executives are utilizing opportunities by
fulfilling their customer’s requirements. Managers in Toyota make their system more
efficient so that they can get the best out of the present scenario.
Contingency leadership theory: In the contingency leadership theory, a new method
of calculation was introduced by a man named fielder, which gave a term called LPC which
stands for Least Preferred Co-worker which his used to measure the leadership effectiveness
of a leader. With the help of LPC Orientation, personality traits can be measured. The scale
contains 1 to 8 ratings for the leader of the individual with whom the leader may work
(Nassiri and et. al., 2016). To get at the best scale of 1, The leader should be able to make
appropriate decisions, the leader should evaluate each situation whether they are able to attain
desired results or not. The leader should be able to solve problems and find solutions so that
they are able to deal with emergencies.
System leadership theory: The collaborative leadership in a company of network of
people in different places and at different levels in the system creates a shared endeavor to
make a significant change. Here executives should provide complete information about their
work to their superiors so that they are able to perform their duties properly. While there is a
lot of learning, there is no fixed template or agreed way of doing things. Superiors should
take care of external and internal factors while designing strategies and policies so that it does
not become difficult for anybody. They should apply tools and techniques in such a way that
they are able to handle complexities of the system and solve out problems.

In Toyota superior have adopted a Democratic style in their organization to support their
employees by encouraging and motivating them towards their work so that they complete
their tasks with deadlines.
TASK2
P4 Key approaches to operations management and role of Toyota leader and manager
It is important for seniors of Toyota to give training and development to their manpower
so they can serve their clients in a proficient manner. This will lead to better production and
in addition, it will attract more business towards the company (Nassiri and et. al., 2016).
There are some techniques that a manager has to apply in their organization in order to
become more efficient. These are described beneath:
 Six Sigma: It is a standard that is to be provided to those organizations who
accomplishes all aspects of customer satisfaction with the context of control, defines
improvement, measure and analyze. The main purpose of six sigma is to reduce the
factors causing errors and defects which affects total production. It also indicates that
production is going smoothly and in a well-planned way.
Toyota got this because if their client relationship terms. Manager of this association
are very efficient and generally are of the top-notch level. Total Quality Management: Organisations who are conducting their business
operations in e-commerce industry or on the surface need to improvise their services
on regular basis. This is because once the service is improvised, then they can
understand the demands of their clients very well and will thus fulfill every need of
the people. This action helps in gaining the attention of various consumers and with
assistance from this activity, Toyota can take extra benefits like the increased
performance of their workers in all shifts, more financial freedom, competitive
advantages etc.
Lean Production: For making production lean, it mainly includes three steps: - design,
prepares and implementation. The design is where the engineers do brainstorming to
get a finalized product, prepare is to prepare the die and molds and other paper
works and implementation is implementing all the planning and thinking that has
been going on for a long time (Caniani and et. al., 2015). As every activity could get
manage by managers without making any use of resources, thus it will make the

decision better. This will enable employees to use assets in efficient and adequate
manner.
 Continuous Improvement: Toyota has various methodologies and techniques that
help their senior management in convincing the people o the company for the purpose
of skill enhancement after conducting the proper training. Instead of directly directing
them to the field, seniors can take feedbacks from their employee by filling the
questionnaire and by various other methods. This approach can also be used to
consumers. This will provide information about their weaknesses and they will be
able in overcoming them and developing new policies in the result. It will ensure the
growth of the company.
 Kaizen;- It is a new and systematic approach which leads to void proof systems and it
includes rules and regulations to give rise to a healthy work culture at the
organization. The procedure of Kaizen plays a crucial role in employee and customer
satisfaction through small and continuous changes and eliminating defects which are
indirect. Kaizen tools give rise to a well-organized work line which results in better
productivity and brings better results (Fayol, 2016). It also leads to employees who
strongly feel attached towards the organization.
Role of leaders and managers of Toyota in operations management
The leaders play an important role in which they influence the employees to bring changes in
the operations in order to meet the challenges prevailing in the market. It is their duty to
manage their business operations in a manner so that they could gain more profits and
benefits. The managers of Toyota considered the reasons of the increased cost of
manufacturing in the production line and applied the theory to implement some changes in
the operational activities to bring down the cost of the materials and equipment received from
the various parties and accordingly they changed the policies of the company in production
and operation department. With help of managing activities, they will be able in catering
needs and demands of their clients.A manager needs to formulate some tactics and policies
for the company whereas a leader implements them into action. By executing fine strategies
management can increase their returns and market share along with better productivity. The
main role of managers and leaders of Toyota assign a task to their different staff members as
per their skills and specializations. It is necessary for superiors to use innovative and new
methods into the day to day manufacturing services and products.

P5 Importance and value of operations management
It is actually the management of systems or processes that make it sure that
production of goods goes on uninterrupted and/or there is no distraction in services. The
dividing of a company's activities into various categories occurs at the very initial stage, even
if a company is formed and operated by a single individual (Tian and et. al., 2016). Most
companies make a product to sell in the market or produce a service which needs to be
charged. They also have to carry out sales and marketing function, an accounting function,
and an administrative function to manage employees and the business as a whole. Operations
management majorly focuses on the process of providing goods that are being made and
services that are being given. Their job is to assure that the production is of good and/or
service is of the company’s standard or not. They apply ideas and technologies and
brainstorm to increase productivity and reduce costs. Toyota has a great strategy o manage all
this. Toyota makes it sure that all the products that are being manufactured are of a specific
global standard and quality. This way they make a strong bond with the consumers.
We can also take the case of Toyota. The case of Toyota is perfect to explain why Operations
Management is important to all types of business whether it is a production or manufacturing
sector or the company aims to reduce the cost, increase productivity and time and resource.In
order to make sure that the operating profit remains high, the company aims to make sure that
the production go uninterrupted and the floor lines are always working with a minimum cut
of time (White, 2016). Employees are explained the details and finally, the product is
delivered without any problems. Also, Toyota created an initiative where a low level
employee can learn more skills in order to become a long-term high value employee. This
way Toyota gets high value special expertise employee at low cost and the increased trust of
its employee further adds to its advantage.
Increased profit:-Profit is widely increased if you use proper operation management
technique. Cost of production is reduced to ensure that tangible and intangible assets both are
used efficiently in the organization. Firms make the best use of its product and services
through Operations management. Excellent execution of workforce, resources and raw
materials is what required for the optimized cause and this can be done by operation
management.
Optimized use of assets: - Assets are both tangible and intangible and are the most important
inventory of a production unit. Operation management helps in optimizing the use of assets

by following various strategies. It is the role of manager to keep an eye on the production line
so as to ensure that all the assets are being used to its full potential.
Increased Performance: - All the five performance characteristics i.e. quality, speed,
dependability, flexibility are greatly affected by the operations manager. Managers tend to
improve them every time by making it sure that everything goes on line unaffected (Caniani
and et. al., 2015). Capacity management, logistics, inventory management are all included to
give an overall boost to performance.
Healthy relations:-Managers and leaders can appreciate others and be positive in order
maintain a healthy relationship with their employees. With proper operation management, a
manager keeps interest in all the people working on the line and thus he knows who can do
extra work and who cannot. As a manager, one should not be afraid to ask employees for the
feedback of all kinds. One thing which anybody can tell is if the people of the company are
happy then the output of the company will automatically boost to its utmost point.And in
order to make them happy managers should always distribute reward and bonuses amongst
the employee (Expósito and et. al., 2016).
P6 Factors within a Business environment that affect operational management and decision
There are several factors that affect the quality of judgments of managers.Some of the
factors are as follows:
 Political environment: - The political environment which includes the decision of the
ongoing government influences the business of any country to a greater extent. This
political environment is influenced by the political parties, ideology, type, and extent
of bureaucracy.
 Technological environment:-With ever-increasing technological advancement in the
world, there is a need to change the production accordingly. Any technological
advancement affects the business in a country. If technological advancement does not
happen, then the company will lag behind in the market and the competitor will take
advantage of it. Thus a manager or a leader should be well averse with what all is
going on technological advancement in the world. The organization should know
about needs and preferences of customers with help of internet or with the help of any
third party consultancy.

 Economic environment: - It depends on how bulletproof is country’s economic system
its structures, and economic policies. Sometimes economic policies are not in the
favor of the company. At those time managers should be able to decide what is best
for the company and should plan accordingly.
 Shareholders: These are actual owners of company and management should always
take care of them as it the company is feeding on their money. These funds will be
used by company executives in ensuring the effectiveness of production and other
management related activities (López and et. al., 2015). For making judgments,
stakeholders should always be kept in mind and manager should understand the
importance of stakeholders.
 CSR activities: Corporation must have and should always do the work that helps in
the betterment of the society. They need to make it sure that their actions are not
affecting the social life of people. This brings s the customer loyalty to the company.
 Legal environment: - Legal factors involve how flexible and adaptable are the law and
legal rules of the country that governs the business. It also includes the exact rulings
and decision of the courts. Legal provisions may also affect the profit depending on
the environment of operation
 Miscellaneous:-Various other factors such as market and suppliers, competition,
consumers, company staff also affect the decision of managers and leaders.
Sometimes if the suppliers are keeping you on hold then it affects the production line
directly (Loucks and Van Beek, 2017). In those cases, it is quite important to
strategize every move so that you can gain the maximum output from the labour.
Competition sometimes becomes so fierce that even if the product is made with the
best quality then you get lost because of the cheap prices offered by the online
markets.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it is concluded that operation management is key factor which
provide competitive advantage at market place. Toyota has its way called “Toyota way”
which includes various business philosophies. It has introduced many of the world known
technological innovation and quality management concepts like kaizen, time management
etc. It is one of the most important decisions for the company to decide whom they name
managers. With the help of managers, they can easily get the push they need in order to
get way ahead of their competition.

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