Analysis of Leadership and Operational Management at Toyota Plc

This report examines the leadership and operational management practices of Toyota Plc. It begins by defining the roles and characteristics of leaders and managers, contrasting their responsibilities and functions within the company. The report then explores the situational context of leadership and ...Read More

Management and Operation

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................4
P 4. Approaches of Toyota and role of Manager and Leaders....................................................4
P 5. Importance of operational management in achieving business goals and objectives..........6
P 6. Factors of business environment that impacts upon operational management...................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Management and operation includes processes like organising, planning , supervising,
provision of service and manufacturing. This also helps in increasing efficiency of organisation
for gaining maximum output from minimal resources. Inputs can be ranged from technology,
material equipment and human resources (Smith, Rahn and Wang, 2010). This report has
focussed Toyota Plc. And their approaches in internal and external business organisation. There
will be detailed analysis of roles of leaders and managers and approaches they use in maintaining
their business successfully. It also pinned down certain factors that effect decision making of
organisation in their business activities.
TASK 1
P1Roles and characteristics of leader and a manager.
Toyota Motors Company is a largest auto mobile company in the world that was founded
and formed in 1965 having headquarter in Burgh Heath, Surrey, UK. It is one of the fact growing
company in the world, they are able to increase their base due to potent marketing planning and
effective leadership. Peculiar feature of leadership of Toyota is that they follow traditional
Japanese business technique where every department is directly controlled by higher level
authority.
According to M Chemers ' It is a process of social causation where one person takes help
of other for completing their work '. On the other hand Alan Keith 'Leadership is about creation
of a way to contribute in doing something different and extraordinary'. The term manager is
also defined by different dictionary and expert and dictionary (Neck and Manz, 2010). Business
dictionary said that ' A manager is an individual who is in charge of certain group of task having
power to take decision on it accordingly'. By Chambers dictionary ' A manager is that person
who take overall control or charge of an organisation, enterprise or project.
In Toyota Plc. Leaders and managers have different roles in business activity of
organisation. Both of them have their defined roles and area of activity where they contribute in
development of company in future prospectives.
Roles of leaders are: They have different and unique qualities which holds a superior
position in organisation. They are mostly involved in taking risks for company, for e. g., In
developing a design of a car leaders take risks to generate innovative ideas. Their main focus is
1

on leading people and generate ideas so that company can achieve maximum profits and desired
success. Their main responsibility is to guide and direct their followers. They help company to
develop innovative and creative vision statement and provide directions in order to achieve that.
They focus on increasing involvement of workers in business process of organisational. Most
leaders are driven by creativity, imagination, people, charisma in the organisation.
Role of manager are: Managers have main focus on managing business activities, resources and
goals. Manager are task oriented and can be transformational, autocratic, democratic,
authoritative. They help company to develop short term goals and formulate strategies in order to
achieve them. Managers build effective system to initiate smooth flow of business activities and
more satisfaction by employees.
Below is the comparison between managers and a leader:
MANAGER LEADER
Manager is responsible for setting goals and
objectives for the company.
Responsibility of a leader is to guide and direct
their followers and staff members.
Various functions of managers are planning,
organising, staffing, directing, controlling.
Various functions of leaders are inspiring and
motivating their followers.
They take risks for company. They minimise risks.
P2 Role of leader and function of manager in situational context in Toyota.
Managers and leaders both are key personnels for any company. They both work in
association in order to help company to achieve their success by completing all business
objectives and goals on time. In the fast moving world, business organisation have to face
different challenges in macro and micro environment and in order to prevent any problems they
have to effective plans and strategies for gaining profit in challenging competitive market. For
example, after the Proposals of Brexit passed in UK their is certainty in future of trading
practices in UK market because many laws were enacted by EU that are followed by UK. After
Brexit all legal policies and guidelines will be made by UK government that may hamper
proceedings of organisation. It is also expected that government will support and fund different
small scale organisation to grow their business. It is a bigger problem to Toyota Plc.
2

Leaders and managers should formulate effective plans in order to tackle unpredictable
situations and also guide their employees to work in appropriate direction to handle different
situations. It is the responsibility of a manager to analyse market, its opportunities and demand
forecasting of competitive market that will help them in better and effective planning for
organisational development. Managers can perform their functions in efficient manner in order to
gain marker share and increase their productivity (Ming and et. al., 2013).
Managers can identify various functions and activities which can result Toyota to
improve and enhance their business in competitive market. They can make alternate plans to deal
with any uncertain situations and thus they can avoid possible losses to company. Better
management of workforce helps Toyota Plc to make better goal setting and decision making. It is
observed that Toyota is a largest company in terms of market capitulation in all over the world
and included among top ten profitable company in world. The major factor of their success lies
in their innovative ideas and hard work done by staff members. Toyota is known for their
engineering work and technology. Employees keep generating ideas and implement them in
manufacturing of cars.
Managers and leaders can implement strategies which can benefits organisation as well as
environment. For example, Toyota is one of the first company dealing with reduction of carbon
emission form their cars to increase efficiency of their cars and reduce pollution, they have also
worked in increasing torque that will increase speed of car. All these have been successfully
achieved by potent leadership and management of Toyota company and are active in reacting
against demands and wants of customer in different market.
P3 Theories and several approaches of leadership
Managers and leaders follows different style of leadership and management for better
growth and development of company. Initially Toyota used to follow traditional Japanese type of
leadership where every department copes under owner and all final decisions lies with owner.
Later after expanding their business they have adopted different leadership theory in their
business activities. Some of the major theories of leadership which are used by leader are
contingency leadership, situational leadership and system leadership. Contingency leadership is
also known as situational theory, in this different department of organisation prepare themselves
for unpredictable situation to handle those situations effectively. This help employees to become
more diverse and talented and sharpen their abilities. This make employees used to challenging
3

environment and improves their confidence level. Contingency theory comprises of 4 different
theories that includes Fielder's contingency theory, path goal theory, Vroom- Yetton- jago
decision making model and out of these theory Fielder's theory was widely accepted because it is
used to power leadership decisions include effectiveness in that decision (Lisi, 2010). There is
one more situational theory which is known as Hershey-Blanchard situational leadership which
suggested that leader adjust their leadership styles according to different situations. There are
four leadership styles in this theory and they are telling, selling, participating and delegating.
According to this theory, there are four maturity levels that describes those who are making up
the team. At maturity level 1, team members are instructed about how the task will be performed.
In maturity level 2, team members are those who are more eager to work on a job, even if they
are not ready to do it correctly. In level 3, team members might perform most of the work on
their own, without help of anybody else and in maturity level 4, team members are capable of
handling a task and they know that they can get the job done without the help of the leader.
All the three theories are distinct apply at workplace such as; situational approach is used
by leaders of Toyota in various different circumstances because decision as per the requirements.
On the other hand, contingency approach is plan which is design by managers according to the
situation. On contrary to this, system approach is used by company while having meeting with
other suppliers or competitors. Thus, all the three frameworks are used by Toyota leaders
according to the circumstances which vary from situation to situation.
This theory pinned down some favourable condition that enhance potent of person-
oriented behaviour. Another theory is path goal theory that help in analysing employees
behaviour and try to enhance them. They used to describe four different attitude and behaviour
like pronouncement, supportive participation and achieving oriented leadership. For example in
Toyota company used to determine performance of employee on regular basis and provide them
required training and development to improve their skills and and potential. The other theory
they are using is Situational analysis that is used to guide leaders and managers in their action.
Different people have different type of leadership and management approaches for a given
situation e.g. there is rapid development innovation going on all over the world so manager must
make sure that they implement best technology in their cars, in current scenery they have
planned to adopt artificial intelligence, they are planning about launching a new company to
make driverless car with investment of $2.8 billion having year 2020 as deadline. The other
4

theory which is also being used in Toyota Plc is System leadership theory. This theory is a
collection of total hard work and analysis of different research and development in company.
This can also be said as management discipline that concerned with identification of different
roles and relate different type of components accordingly. In this theory leaders and managers
are used discuss different factors and problems in organisation and efficient plan plan to rectify
them. For example Toyota used to have several brainstorming session to discuss ideas and and
innovation in market and utilise those technique to good effect, this has given opportunity ton
employees to express their ideas and suggestion to organisation due to arrangement of these
activities and programmes in organisation. Some of the major outcomes of these brain storming
sessions are company is able to implement artificial intelligence in their organisation,
modification on wheels has helped them to increase speed of their cars.
From the above discussion it is being observed that efficient operation and management
in an organisation has helped Toyota Pls to increase their efficiencies in business environment.
Through this different roles and objectives of managers are also being discussed. Owners of
Toyota Plc. Knows roles and values of manages and leaders and the way they can aid in
achieving organisational goals (Lindström and et. al., 2012). Company is adopting different
strategies and implementing them in different functions of organisational activities. Through
adopting all these activities they are able to increase core competence among major competitors
like General Motors, Daimler Chrysler, Honda and Nissan and emerged to be top earning
autocomplete company in all over the world.
TASK 2
P 4. Approaches of Toyota and role of Manager and Leaders
Operational management is a vital cog in management practices inside Toyota. Company
consider it as a backbone of company in business organisation. Potent management and
organisation in company used to increase productivity by efficient workforce management, and
put innovative ideas to a greater effect several. Company are using different operations and
management in their organisation for better planning and increasing productivity for theory
organisation.
Six Sigma – It is a tool for making efficient techniques and process improvement. This
technique was developed by Bill Smith. This factor is used to make potent and efficient product
5

that minimise wastages and defected product in organisation. Managers can formulate strategies
by implementing six sigma in their business operations and ensure effective production of
products. They can also manage their waste easily which is generated at the time of production
and manufacturing of products and services. It has propose to use efficient infrastructure and
modification of machinery that for attaining zero defect margin. It is a stepwise process for
identification and rectification of work. The process is mentioned below:
 Define – identification of project goal
 Measurement – Evaluation of current performances
 Analyse – Identifying main effect of any defect
 Improvement – Plan to improve and eliminate defect and adopt a corrected process
 Control – Manage processes so that it cannot be repeated in future prospect. TJ
Toyota has used this process for development of wheels
 Step 1 – They want to increase speed of their
 Step 2 – Engineers have identified that minimising weight wheels and change in design
of exhaust headers and manifold will be better and cost effective solution.
 Step 3 – They have identified event of this problem and plan to design better engine.
 Step 4- They plan to design and manufacture light weight wheels that can be
implemented.
 Step 5 – They have made planned it perfectively that it will become effective in future
business prospects (Handschin and Petroianu, 2012).
Lean technology - This is also termed as Toyota Production System. This product is
founded by Toyota Company. It is responsibility of managers to generate innovative ideas and
mangers of Toyota have talented managers which has come up with this system which has
helped company to manage their wastes. They have developed this method for reduction of
wastages in organisation. This method was so efficient that many organisation have adopted this
policy in their business function. Toyota is using CAD/CAM tools for designing their machines.
These tools used to make design by minimum use of raw material.
Total Quality Management – This is a management system that have defined
approaches and planning that guides employees and management to maintain standard of
organisation in work places. This also helps inspiring and motivating people at their workplace.
It is the responsibility of managers for ensuring that products which are being manufactured at
6

the company should meet all quality standards and implement TQM within organisation. Toyota
used to maintain positive environment in workplace so that they can have better coordination
between employees that is used to make better coordination between employees.
Just in time approach – This is regarded as inventory technique also used to minimise
wastages in organisation. Toyota Company has implemented this technique for control of
inventory and adoption of new technologies like they are using innovative techniques like metal
stamping equipment, automotive supplier equipment in their automation process for minimising
defects in their products. Managers come with different and innovative techniques which help
company to improves their operation.
There are different types of leaders in an organisation and are mentioned below:
Autocratic leader: This type of leader are very authoritative and bossy in nature. They
implement only those strategies and plans which are made or developed by them. They don't like
choices and advice given by others. This type of leaders enables dictatorship within work
environment.
Democratic leader: This type of leader are very supportive and help their employees
with their work. They allow participation of employees in decision making and guide them to
develop creative plans for company. They listens ideas and advice given by staff members and
implement them in final plans.
Laissez-Faire leaders: In this leaders are only involved at the time of formulating
critical decisions and main decision are made by employees. This put immense pressure on
employees for making effective plans for company. Sometime this leads to low productivity and
profitability.
Tranformational leaders: This type of leader are mainly inspiring, risk taking, daring,
visionary, thinkers, etc. They have charismatic appeal. This type of leader exhibit some factors
like inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, idealized influence and individualized
considerations.
P 5. Importance of operational management in achieving business goals and objectives
Operation management is very important because it help in managing entire business
operations and functions in appropriate manner so by this it can easily accomplishing the
potential goals and targets. For making successful business, the main aim of company is to gain
maximum profitability and productivity. Management operation mainly focus on different
7

business functions which underlying the required organisation activities. The main motive of
Toyota company is to maintain various activities for increasing productivity and also help in
enhancing the level of business organisation concerns in effectively. In Toyota firm, managers
can implement various tools and methods which help in achieving potential targets and outcomes
in proper way. An enterprise can focus on making effective productivity and higher functions
which can managed proper business operations for producing best quality products and services
for satisfying major needs and requirements of customers. Importance of operational
management that are discussed as follows:
 Coordination- This is essential for getting accurate success and growth for the company
by doing different activities and functions which should be necessitate. It is required in
described encouragement for each workers so all task can be allotted and smooth running
of all functions and activities of business. Coordination is the best effective technique
which help in formulating for making strong relationship among people. All the
employees can ensure about sound and healthy working surroundings (Fayol, 2016).
 Minimisation of cost- Generally, it mainly concern for reducing effective cost of
production in accurate products and services. Managers and leaders can develop
appropriate schemes for reducing cost within manufacturing department. If value is
diminishing then it will assist in attracting more number of customers towards company
products and services so they can maintain strong relation with their desired customers at
large market place in proper way.
 Reduction in wastage- It is important for every firm for considering different factors to
maintain working environment so they are responsible for preventing from climate from
any harm. This should be required for taking care of all waste material in manufacturing
goods. Managers can adopt various tools and techniques for managing and controlling all
large level wastage that can be minimise wastage such as water, electricity, extra labour
etc.,
Cost of quality (COQ):
This is effective method which help every business entity for identifying different degree which
can used firm resources for reducing product quality in proper manner.
 Protection costs- This can be understand that cost has been attached with various
functions and activities such as designing, managing various factors, creating.
8

 Appraisal costs- These type of cost is basically evaluating and measured quality goods
and services for analysing whole value. Company manager require to determine such cost
which should be evaluated for making accurate decisions towards particular
commodities.
 Internal failure costs- It is that type of cost which mainly measured for supply specific
goods and services for end customers and assist in minimising standard quality.
 External failure costs- Such type of value can be measured when various material
should be render for high value of customers at large market place.
P 6. Factors of business environment that impacts upon operational management
Operational management is the process of managing entire business activities that are
surrounded by environmental factors. These forces have major impacts on the functions and
operations of the business as they can affects on the decision makings process regarding
company. It may also decrease the profitability as well as productivity of an organisation. For
managing the work force of the company, managers and leaders play an important role so that
competitive advantages can be achieved in effective manner (Expósito and et. al., 2016). They
use several approaches and make favourable strategies to avoid such kinds of forces. Managers
and leaders always ensure about factors of environment that can affect on the decisions making
procedures at various ways. Toyota company also consider all these aspects and the manager
make effective strategies for facing those elements and survive in better way. In this includes
several factors such as internal and external which have impacts on the business.
Internal factors :
These factors are related with organisation as it can be control by taking some corrective
actions and make better decisions regarding this. In this consider various elements such as :
Corporate objectives : This is a major element which directly linked with business
operations. It is compulsory to consider all these forces and make an appropriate strategies for
effective Automobile firm. It will help in producing effective goods and services (Cruz and
Marques, 2011).
Finance : This is also another important factors which directly affects on the organisation
as the issues can be occurred while running the operations. Managers requires to allocate funds
among various activities including cash flow, profitability and liquidity etc.
9

Human resource: This factor also can impact on the workforce and environment of an
organisation. It is related with working staff or employees who are responsible for achieving
particular tasks or objectives.
External environment:
Economical environment: This factor is related with external forces that can influence
when business expansions. Toyota company requires to consider this factor because in this
includes several changes regarding demand, optimisation of available resources etc.
Competitors flexibility: Competitors are most important factor for every organisation as
it can be create threats for running business. They are increasings fast or rapidly such as entering
of new small medium enterprises with innovative ideas or creativity in the market place which
can affects on the organisation.
Technological changes: It is based on the environmental technologies changes which are
flexible, therefore Toyota company require to adopt new techniques or tools for manufacturing
best models of cars so, it should be consider in the organisation (Chen and et. al., 2011).
All the above factors are having major impact on company performance because it helps
an organization while making corrective decision. Basically, planning of an association requisite
to consider necessary terms and condition which is designed by political bodies for running
business operations. However, fluctuation in currency rate is a major factor which is essential for
organization to consider while making contracts with various suppliers. For example; aids in
protecting seller and buyer from exploitative activities by imposing lawful acts and norms.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it has been summarised that management and operation are
important aspects for managing the entire business operations as managers and leaders play vital
role in performing better functions as well as activities of the company for achieving pre-defined
goals or objectives. This report is based on Toyota firm in which manager adopt various theories
and approaches of different leadership styles within an organisation.
10

11

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Chen, C., and et. al., 2011. Smart energy management system for optimal micro grid economic
operation. IET renewable power generation. 5(3). pp.258-267.
Cruz, C. O. and Marques, R.C., 2011. Contribution to the study of PPP arrangements in airport
development, management and operation. Transport Policy. 18(2). pp.392-400.
Expósito, A.G., and et. al., 2016. Electric energy systems: analysis and operation. CRC Press.
Fayol, H., 2016. General and industrial management. Ravenio Books.
Handschin, E. and Petroianu, A., 2012. Energy management systems: operation and control of
electric energy transmission systems. Springer Science & Business Media.
Lindström, J., and et. al., 2012. A development process for Functional Products: hardware,
software, service support system and management of operation. International Journal of
Product Development. 16(3-4). pp.284-303.
Lisi, A. J., 2010. Management of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom
veterans in a Veterans Health Administration chiropractic clinic: a case series. Journal
of Rehabilitation Research & Development. 47(1). pp.1-7.
Ming, Z., and et. al., 2013. Historical review of demand side management in China: Management
content, operation mode, results assessment and relative incentives. Renewable and
Sustainable Energy Reviews. 25. pp.470-482.
Neck, C. P. and Manz, C. C., 2010. Mastering self-leadership: Empowering yourself for personal
excellence. Pearson.
Smith, K. A., Rahn, C.D. and Wang, C. Y., 2010. Model-based electrochemical estimation and
constraint management for pulse operation of lithium ion batteries. IEEE Transactions
on Control Systems Technology. 18(3). pp.654-663.
White, P., 2016. Public transport: its planning, management and operation. Taylor & Francis.
Winget, N. C. and Thomson, A., Cisco Technology, Inc., 2010. RFID tag management and
operation. U.S. Patent 7,817,042.
12