Toyota Corporation UK: Leadership and Management Roles in Operations

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Management and Operations
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Table of Contents
Introduction...................................................................................................................... 3
LO1.................................................................................................................................. 4
LO2.................................................................................................................................. 6
LO3.................................................................................................................................. 9
LO4................................................................................................................................ 13
Conclusion..................................................................................................................... 15
Reference Lists.............................................................................................................. 16
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Introduction
Business operation in a company includes activities of various managements and
workforce departments. The business strategies are most important for starting an
operation in an organisation. Management takes the responsibility to handle all the
tasks by making decisions and implementing those decision ideas through workforce
teams. A leader in a particular organisation leads the workforce team to the right
directions. Leaders motivate the workforce team also encourage them to meet the
targets of the organisation. Toyota Corporation has chosen which is extending its
business unit in the UK. In the year 1965, Toyota has founded. The headquarters of this
corporate unit is in Burgh Heath, Surrey, United Kingdom. In this report, there will be
an investigation regarding the roles of manager and leaders in an operation of the
chosen organisation. Here, all the approaches and planning are discussed and
analysed with respect to the selected organisation. For a good understanding of
business strategies at Toyota Corporation, the role of manager and leader also have
explained. The report also explained about the relationship between the leadership and
management in the mentioned organisation. It is been analysed that how this
relationship affects the environment of business and large community in Toyota
organisation.
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LO1
Differentiate between the role of a leader and the function of a manager
P1 Define and compare the different roles and characteristics of a leader and a
manager.
Management is a group of individuals working to coordinate, manage, control, and
organise the resources of the organization. It motivates employees to achieve the
objectives of an organization. Leadership is the ability of the individuals working in a
business organization to manipulate and lead the employees. Leaders influence
employees to work better under pressure and to achieve the required goals of an
organization. Leaders and managers hold a crucial role for any business organization..
Leaders and managers perform different roles and responsibilities. Leaders focussed on
innovations but managers tries to stick to the traditional techniques (Ulmer, 2018). In
this section the comparison between the roles and responsibilities of the leaders and
managers are explained. They are:-
Base of comparison Leaders Managers
Definitions Leaders working in a
business organization
possess the controlling and
influencing powers. They
help in attaining the target
of the business
organization more
efficiently.
Managers are responsible
in coordinating, managing
and controlling the
resources of the
organization. They always
stick to the rules and
regulations.
Approach Leaders are responsible for
showing accurate way to
the organization, in order to
fulfil its objectives. They are
also responsible for the
entire operations carried
out in an organization.
Managers always fix the
planning process for the
organization which is about
to start. This helps in
attaining the goals more
easily and efficiently.
Characteristics Prediction is one of the
qualities leaders must
possess to fulfil the goals of
an organization (Desveaux
et al., 2016).
Managers should be
organised and focussed, in
order to plan the systematic
operations for the
organization.
Subordinate Leaders must influence its
staffs and should lead from
front under any
circumstances.
It is the duty of managers
to look out the
performance, ability, skills,
and knowledge of the
staffs. Managers also
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motivate employees to
bring out the best from
them.
Models Leaders must possess
transformational leadership
styles, transactional
leadership styles, autocratic
leadership styles, Laissez-
faire leadership styles,
hands-on, Participant
leadership styles.
Managers must have
scientific management
theory, Bureaucratic
management theory,
Human relations theory,
and Systems theory (Kang
et al., 2015).
Aim and Focus Leaders of Toyota, aims the
development of staffs
working in the company.
They believe that without
development of staffs the
organizational target cannot
be achieved.
Managers aim to meet the
requirements of the
organization. Managers
focus on involving
employees to achieve
organizational goals.
Change and conflicts Leaders are always advised
to come up with changes;
those are beneficial for the
organization. This also
affects employees of the
organization.
Managers of Toyota are
responsible for maintaining
proper work culture within
the organization along with
the company’s staffs
(Monden, 2018).
Endeavors Risk taking ability,
dedication and innovative
skills are the qualities
leaders must have
Managers are responsible
to carry out operations,
management and
production of the
organization.
Table 1: Roles and functions of Leaders in an organisation
(Source: Created by learner)
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LO2
Apply the role of a leader and the function of a manager in given contexts
Managerial role
Managers are required at every organisation sector and its responsibility is to track the
overall business running within an organisation. By implementing business knowledge,
skills, a manager manages the whole framework of a business in an organisation. A
manager must have the capability to operate the framework in a business. Here, in
context of the company Toyota, it has different activities and components. The
managerial functions are same to each manager with respect to his status. Therefore,
there are five important operations of management. They are follows:
Planning
It is most basic operation in a business, in which before starting an operation a basic
plan is mandatory. Without several strategies, a management operation cannot decide a
specific goal. An essential process that ensures all resources are properly using in each
sections in the industry. Planning is a process which can be said as an advance
decision of a particular job, that how to do, what to do, and what after (Reid et al.,
2015). Planning an operation in a company is providing correct guidelines that are
decided by managers and leaders by targeting its specific business goals. Toyota
Corporation develops a plan, which directs as a long-term operation in the company.
The organisation mainly focuses about the quality of products, satisfaction of the
customers and products manufacturing. This planning is actually implements in the
organisation to reduce the costs of operation by ensuring the quality of the products as
well as to meet the consumer requirements. As in the world, every organisation aware
about the globalisation factor, and thus the competition is increasing day by day in the
market. The organisation practise lean manufacturing to lower the costs so that it can
be a good competitor in the market. The organisation makes a strategy based on
experience of customers and product quality to improve its brand image.
Organising
It refers the process of gathering all resources of organisation together and developing
a fruitful relationship to make sure about achieving the company goals (Davies et al.,
2018). The organisation involves resolution and provision of non-human and human
resources both to a selected business framework. Through right organisation process,
the financial, human and physical resources are brought together. Organising requires
identification of several activities in a business, its classification, assignment of duties,
creating roles and responsibilities as well as handling of responsibilities and relationship
authority. Toyota coordinates its operations in all the subordinates across the world to
make sure that business is running smooth. Toyota manufacturing activities goes
through centrally and the spare parts transferred for assembling in its respective
subordinates. This operation is done in order to reduce costs and ensure consistency.
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Staffing
Staffing is an essential function of a business unit. It is the process in which gathering
human resources and putting them together to make sure that the management is
aiming to achieve a particular goal. This operation has become more essential in recent
years. The reasons are advancement in technology, increasing size of the business,
diversity in human behaviours. The main goal of staffing is to make sure that right jobs
provided to right people. A HRM manager should have the estimation that how many
skills and employees will be required to fulfil the positions and putting them in that
position (Correia et al., 2015). Toyota hires top qualified and highly talented employees
that benefits value to the organisation. The organisation has competitive workers who
are hired through a specific process. Employees of Toyota are well paid and the
company provides frequent exercises of training to improve their skills.
Controlling
Controlling is the last function of a management that measures the performance of
employees regarding a goal and also corrects the problems in operation that might
arise. It is the procedure of measuring the performance of an operation and taking right
decision to correct if it is necessary. The main task of controlling is to make sure that
operations are obeying the business standards. Toyota very carefully controls its
operations and assesses its performance against the business standards.
Leaders Role
Path Goals theory explains about the business planning and approaches which are
executed by leaders at several situations within the organisation. It tells about the
several roles and responsibilities of a leader in a business unit. There are 4 types of
approaches they are supportive, directive, participative and achievement oriented (Hirt
et al., 2016).
Supportive role
In this role of leadership, the leaders motivate and treat the employees with respect and
dignity. Through this way of approach, employee of the company feels valued and being
cared. In certain difficult situations, the staffs help the company in return.
Participative role
In this role of leadership, the leaders try to encourage employees regarding their job
and let them to take decision sometimes for particular task. The participation of a leader
in a certain task helps employees to work efficiently and assists in achieving goals. An
employee can directly consult with the leader in this case (Iqbal et al., 2015).
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Directive role
Here, in this role the leader directs an employee towards achieving a target by creating
performance objectives within the team. The leaders provide a framework and explain
the roles of that particular job to the particular team (Radomska, 2015). Leaders
motivate the employees to handle some changes in situations effectively whenever
there is a new implementation in operation by higher authorities of the management.
Achievement-oriented
In case a leader thinks that, his team and his employees can implement better
performance in their task job and push the employees to reach the high target goals,
then it can be consider that the role of the leader is achievement-oriented. In this role,
leaders continuously encourage the employees to improve their work. The leader
empowers the staffs and gives them liberty at work. Leaders in this role motivate and
give the feeling of confidence regarding capability to do tasks to each employees and
teams.
P3 Apply different theories and models of approach including situational
leadership, system leadership and contingency.
There are different types of models and theories adapted by the leaders of the company
Toyota. These models help them to tackle several situations in the organisation.
Situational Leadership
Paul Hershey and Kenneth Blanchard proposed this type of leadership model where
they said that an effective leadership leads to develop an effective workforce within an
organisation (Thompson et al., 2015).The situational leadership theory said that efficient
strategies are effective when leaders make decisions based on the workforce, which are
available in the organisation. This leadership makes a leader to judge potential in an
employee in an organisation.
System Leadership
This leadership style provides specific techniques to managers and leaders of Toyota
Corporation, UK. This lets them to go through clear decision and planning to achieve
company goals. The leaders use their issue handling skills to search out the input
sources in the company and the employee’s dedication towards the process of the
operation. In order to provide best results regarding manufacturing, the prediction
always helps the leader in this case (Boylan, 2016). Before launching any product in the
market, the quality always checked by the professionals. This leadership style create
variety of goods in the department of automobile manufacturing of Toyota, UK
Contingency leadership
In order to achieve the organisational role, contingency leadership represent the
responsibilities and roles of leaders and managers regarding to increase the operation
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quality in the organisation. Lorsch and Lawrence developed contingency leadership
theory. This theory allows the leaders in Toyota to create specific approach in the
business planning strategy to analyse the environment in business (Fiedler et al., 2015).
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LO3
Demonstrate an appreciation of the role leaders and managers play in the
operations function of an organisation
P4 Explain the key approaches to operations management and the role that
leaders and managers play.
The operation management is concerned about organising, predicting and tracking
different functions in an organization. Operation management manages equipment,
technology, people and all other resources, involves in production activities. It is the
central core body of every organization. The approaches of operation management are
discussed below:
Total Quality Management
Total quality management states that staffs of all concerned departments must preserve
required standards in the business organization. In this type of management the
employees must focus towards their own functions. The organization helps workforce by
standardising the methods and process of operations. This can be only achieved if
employees feel motivated and passionate towards providing best quality service and
products to the customers. Total Quality Management consists of several principles like
customer focussed, process centred, integrated system, strategic and systematic
approach, continual improvement, fact based decision making and communications.
The primary focus of Toyota, UK is customer satisfaction and customer relationship
(Toma and Naruo, 2017). Toyota, UK has formed an objective to serve quality product
to customer by ignoring the situation of the company. Toyota brought total quality
management in the organization by application of different business strategies. The
strategies are quality control, quality planning and quality improvement. The service and
quality of Toyota has improved by the application of the above-mentioned strategies.
Quality planning comprises of development of project, customer identification and the
needs of customers. Toyota manufactures products by knowing requirements of
customers. The steps of operation follow by demands of products. In manufacturing
products, Toyota tries not to waste excess materials. They also believe in controlling
environmental pollution and preservation of resources. Toyota follows single minute
exchange of dies, to reach at a new height in automobile industry sector.
Six-Sigma
Six-sigma consists of four strategies for controlling operations of an organization. It is
applied by various organizations for enhancing quality control in production and
operation. In this study the four strategies of six –sigma applied by Toyota in its
operations will be discussed. First strategy of six-sigma is utilised by Toyota to minimize
the procedure of set up, as valuation in the operation is evaluated. The second strategy
consists of ways of manufacturing product at fewer prices. The manufacturing process
of Toyota is quite cheap. The focus of Toyota is to provide best service and products to
the customers at reliable price.
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Toyota believes in manufacturing fewer quantities of automobile parts, in order to
reduce the organization cost and to know about the qualities of operation. The
employees are being provide with provide training, so they can manufacture quality
goods for the customers. Fourth strategy of Sig-sigma is very significant as it involves
the participation of dealers in operations of Toyota (Allen, 2019).Dealers actively
participate by providing suggestions regarding various defects in automobile parts,
failure of machine components. Another significant steps taken by Toyota is market
research. Market research provides them accurate data, which helps in forming
statistics for the organization. The statistics helps in enhancing the operations functions
of Toyota, UK.
Just in Time
Just in Time is a strategy implemented by Toyota to control the inventory during
manufacturing of automobile parts. This also helps in minimizing waste, which is caused
by the manufacturing of extra items. The management of Toyota is responsible for
providing parts of an automobile when it is required. Its inventory system is organised
according to the requirements of the automobile parts. The cost of inventory of
manufacturing department is brought down to minimum. Toyota reduces wastage in the
operation like wastage in transportation, wastage in overproduction and consumption of
time (Ledbetter, 2018).
Continuous improvement
Toyota has adopted Kaizen philosophy for improvement in automobile sector. Kaizen
philosophy evolves fruitful to Toyota from every context. Kaizen philosophy states that
any organization could achieve tremendous improvement if the employees and
management associated with it works efficiently and dedicatedly. This philosophy
enhances the operation of the organization. Toyota had assigned responsible role to
qualify employees to analyze different drawbacks in the organization. This experienced
staffs provide solutions to the problem according to the operational needs. These ways
helps in removing the unnecessary steps, thus reducing the consumption of excess
material. The wastage of materials and time has also reduced to minimum (Soliman,
2016).
Lean Production
The maximum production received from least resources is known as Lean production.
Toyota has implemented this concept for manufacturing more items from less available
resources. Lean production minimizes the chances of wastage in the organization by
increasing the quality of manufactured goods. Time used for manufacturing and
operations has also reduced. This strategy is so helpful that it took Toyota at some
other level, regarding customer’s satisfaction and manufacturing. Customers lean
towards Toyota more, as they provide high quality and service at reasonable rate
(Chiarini et al., 2018.).
Role of leaders and managers
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Operation manager is responsible to provide guidance to the technician and other
departmental staffs. They also encourage engineers to design and manufacture
innovative vehicles, which will force customers to purchase their product. Leaders
always motivate workers to focus on quality control, this will enable employee to
perform efficiently. Employees may find assigned work tough sometimes. The role
assigned to them is quite difficult and at that moment, they are unmotivated. Leaders
play a significant role during this time. They tries to solve the problem by constantly
motivating the employees. Operation manager works to achieve the organizational
goals by giving maximum effort in employee productivity.
Operation management are given two responsibilities. They are maintaining
effectiveness and maintaining efficiency for the organization Toyota. These two major
issues could be solved if management focus more on the utilisation of optimum
resources present in the organization (Chiarini and Vagnoni, 2015). The resources are
intellectual resource and technical resource. Managers of Toyota are responsible for
maintenance, operation, production, planning and others involved in manufacturing
process. The service of manager is only limited to manufacturing of vehicles. Managers
possess all the required data available to any business organization.
P5 Explain the importance and value of operations management in achieving
business objectives.
The objectives of operations management of organisation are mentioned below:
 Profit increase for the organization
 Customer satisfaction in terms of service and
 Sustainable approach for operating
 Increase in market share
 Enhancing brand value and organization’s reputation
The importance of Operation management in valuation and acquiring the goals of the
business unit are mentioned above.
The important functions of operation management help in building more business for the
organization. These are mentioned below:
Control and Distribution System
Control and distribution system is very essential from Toyota point of view. Toyota has
already implemented control and distribution system in its operation. This system
ensures the quality control of the vehicles. It has been observed that the quality of the
vehicle enhances. Control and distribution system is a perfect approach to attain
organizational objectives.
Besides that, Toyota also has effective distribution system, in order to provide
customers with goods and services all around the globe (Suzuki and Akei, 2015).
Scheduling
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