Toyota Motor Corporation Leadership and Management Styles

Desklib provides solved assignments and past papers to help students succeed.

MANAGEMENT AND OPERATIONS
TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION
1

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................................. 3
LO 1 & LO 2.................................................................................................................................... 4
INTRODUCTION TO THE ORGANISATION...................................................................................4
DIFFERENT ROLES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MANAGER AND LEADER IN TOYOTA..........5
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE FUNCTIONS OF A MANAGER AND A LEADER AT TMC WITH
CONTEXT TO DISTINCT THEORIES...............................................................................................7
ROLE AND FUNCTION OF A MANAGER AND A LEADER IN DIFFERENT SITUATIONS.................11
MODELS OF APPROACH FOR LEADERSHIP...............................................................................12
UPs AND DOWNs OF THE ABOVE THEORIES............................................................................13
CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................14
LO 3 & LO 4.................................................................................................................................. 15
KEY OPERATIONS OF THE ORGANISATION IN TMC..................................................................15
KEY APPROACHES TO OPERATION MANAGEMENT AT TMC.....................................................16
KEY FACTORS WITHIN THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT THAT AFFECT THE DECISION MAKING OF
A LEADER AND A MANAGER.....................................................................................................18
WAYS TO IMPROVE OPERATIONAL MANAGEMENT EFFICIENCY OF THE ORGANISATION BY
LEADERS AND MANAGERS....................................................................................................... 21
CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................22
REFERENCES.................................................................................................................................23
2

INTRODUCTION
In any organisation, managers and leaders are works as a key pillar (Lewin et al., 2017). They
provide directional and decisional support to the organisation. This assignment is focused on
the functions of a leader and manager in an organisation.in this assignment, the study is based
on Toyota Motor Corporation. It is one of the largest automotive manufacturing and selling the
brand in the world. In this assignment, the different roles and functions of a leader and
manager will be discussed with reference to various approaches and theories. Manager and
leaders are very essential in improving the performance and productivity of the organisation. At
Toyota, managers and leaders work on various theories which provide them decisional stability.
Various decisions related to the operational management of the organisation are taken by
leaders and managers. In an organisation, many factors influence the performance of the
organisation. It can be managed by improving the decision-making skills of the organisation
(Bea et al., 2018).
3

LO 1 & LO 2
INTRODUCTION TO THE ORGANISATION
Toyota Motor Corporation is very well known and developed the brand in the field of
automobiles (Furterer, 2016). It works in the field of manufacturing and selling of the
automotive, luxury, and commercial vehicles, and their engines. It is headquartered in Toyota,
Japan. Toyota is the world's first-largest automobile manufacturer. It was the first company to
cross the sell over 10 million vehicles per year. It is a public venture in Japan. Japan's economy
moreover revolves around Toyota. It was founded in 1937 by Mr Kiichiro Toyoda.it is listed in
TSE, LSE and NYSE. As of 2019, Toyota has a net revenue of US$272 billion with more than 106
million production outputs. It is providing employment to more than 370,000 people in the
world. Currently, Toyota is also working in the field of banking, leasing and financing under the
presidency of Mr Akio Toyoda (Toyota UK, 2019).
4

DIFFERENT ROLES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MANAGER AND LEADER IN
TOYOTA
Leadership and management are the most critical process involved in any organisation. They
both possess various useful functions for improving the effectiveness of the organisation. At
Toyota, roles and functions of managers and leaders are distinguished (Bea et al., 2018).
ROLE AND CHARACTERISTICS OF A MANAGER
A manager is the one who performs managerial work in any organisation. It also possesses the
responsibility of administrative work. Management can be defined as a study and the one who
practised it, is known as a manager (Lewin et al., 2017).
ROLES OF A MANAGER
Administrative Roles
Informational Roles
Decisional Roles
ADMINISTRATIVE ROLES
Administrative roles are mainly performed by a manager in any organisation. This function
includes the responsibility of distributing information, directing, planning, supervising, and
controlling etc. these plays very crucial role at the time of decision making in any organisation
(Laureani, and Antony, 2017).
INFORMATIONAL ROLES
The manager is the one who takes important decisions related to hiring and staffing. So it is
liable for broadcasting the information. In TMC, it is very essential to provide important
information to everyone.
DECISIONAL ROLES
5

In any organisation different decision associated with staffing, hiring and recruitment are taken
by the management. The manager has a very effective role in this process. The manager takes
the decision related to the arrangement of the resources. It also decides the processes to be
used for the particular task (Åhlström, 2015).
CHARACTERISTICS OF A MANAGER
 A manager is a task-oriented person which only concerns the effective result (Åhlström,
2015). The manager is only stable from the entire team in any organisation. A manager provides the direction and monitors its team to achieve their desired aim. A manager is working for efficient results. For that, it can choose any approach and also
take decision appropriately.
ROLE AND CHARACTERISTICS OF A LEADER
A leader is a person who handles a set of a person with having a common goal for achieving. It
always works with the team. It prefers to select the approach i.e. taking all as one. It offers
directional support to the team members (Gliddon et al., 2018).
ROLES OF A LEADER
VISIONARY
A leader is a person in any organisation who provides a vision to the team members. This vision
is focused on achieving a common goal. A visionary person can only give the direction of
achieving the target (Gliddon et al., 2018).
PASSIONATE
A leader should be passionate about its work. It also motivates team members for working hard
for achieving the targeted aim. It is the basic quality of the leader that makes it superior to
others.
6

MOTIVATOR
A leader always works as a motivator for its team members. It provides moral support to the
team. Motivation helps the team members to achieve their targets. Performance of the team
depends on the leader’s attitude. At TMC, team members are motivated by virtue of rewards
and recognition for better work performance.
CHARACTERISTICS OF A LEADER
 The leader always initiates any task in the group. It makes the leader risk-taking. It
always treats the team as a whole (Pinto et al., 2018). A leader always tends towards the creativeness. It does not work only for the results it
also focuses on the methods applied. This strategy gives a comparison between the
procedures applied. The leader has good observation skills which enable it for taking appropriate decisions
about the workers. The leader has good conflicts management. It helps in disputing situations between the
organisation and the employees (Pinto et al., 2018).
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE FUNCTIONS OF A MANAGER AND A LEADER AT
TMC WITH CONTEXT TO DISTINCT THEORIES
According to functions and responsibilities leaders and managers can be differentiated as: -
MANAGER LEADER
Manager performs the managerial works like
planning, recruiting, staffing etc.
Leader performs the work of controlling such a
number of people as a team.
Manager delivers the responsibilities to the
leaders related to the organisation (Soliman,
Leader itself works with the team. This
depends upon various theories as
7

2016). transformational, transactional, autocratic and
democratic and so on.
Manager mostly delivers the documentation
duties. It requires for signing the papers for
proceeding.
A leader is a ground worker who works with
the team. It is a part of the organisational
team of the company.
Manager at Toyota works in the initiation
phase of the product i.e. conceptualisation,
design, identifying need etc.
Leaders are associated in every phase of the
organisation. It works in the planning
department as well as the production
department too.
The manager gives the task to the teams. Leaders encourage and inspire workers
(Soliman, 2016).
Role of a leader and a manager in apply in a different situational context
A leader and a manager in Toyota possess different theories in different situations. Some of the
leadership and management theories are: -
LEADERSHIP THEORIES
Leadership theories distinguish the leader according to their approach to controlling the team.
Various leadership theories are followed by different industries. Toyota initiated some of the
theories (Furterer, 2016).
 Transformational leadership
 Transactional leadership
 Charismatic leadership
 Level 5 leadership
8

Transformational Leadership
It is a type of leadership in which the leader prefers to change by having a vision. It helps the
organisation to move in a better direction. At Toyota, it uses a model for the management of
credit of crucial cycles to save from various corporative credits (Swanwick, 2017). This
leadership theory is followed by TMC in some situations.
Transactional leadership
Transactional leadership is applied in practice for increasing the communication between the
leader and employees. This theory is related to providing good and bad results to the
employees on the basis of their performance. Rewards and punishment work as a kind of
motivation for the employees (Conger, 2015). This theory is also followed by the TMC, as it also
used for recognizing the employees.
Charismatic leadership
Charismatic leadership is a theory followed by TMC. According to this theory, a leader is said to
be a charismatic leader on the basis of its actions and decisions, not on process. The charismatic
leader follows the vision and also provides it to their teams. The charismatic leaders motivate
their team to perform well (Conger, 2015).
Level 5 leadership
Level 5 leadership is a concept followed by a lot of companies. It gives 5 different levels of a
leader that hoe it coordinates with its team. The figure shows those different levels of a leader,
which makes it superior to others. In an organisation, the lowest level of leadership is highly
effective. It takes part in every activity of the organisation which takes them near to their target
(Conger, 2015). This leadership theory is innovated by the TMC and by this they are able to
produce good results with their team.
9

FIGURE 1: LEVEL 5 LEADERSHIP
Source: Conger, 2015
10

ROLE AND FUNCTION OF A MANAGER AND A LEADER IN DIFFERENT
SITUATIONS
In any organisation, different situations related to different operations take places. In these
situations, the manager and leaders deliver their role as follows:
Stable situation this is the situation when an organisation operates in normal situations without
any fluctuations. This situation does not change as the changes in the factors affecting any
organisation are negligible. This is the very most favourable situations for a manager and a
leader (Ansoff et al., 2018). In this situation in TMC, mostly it is handled by the leaders. It is a
very normal situation where fluctuations do not take place.
Moderately varying situations in this situation some fluctuations in the factors affecting the
organisation takes place. This moderately affects the decision-making skills of a manager and a
leader, e.g. inflation. It can change at any time, so it can affect the organisational operations
and also affects the market conditions (Swanwick, 2017). In Toyota, this situation occurs when
the global market is not stable. It is controlled by the mutual decisions of management and the
organisation.
The rapidly changing situation these are the situations when the market is not stable and
frequent changes takes place in the factors affecting an organisation. It can cause big damage
to the organisation (Lussier, and Achua, 2015). For example, in the market, rates of some
products hoes rapidly change so it can cause the procurement process of any organisation that
will directly affect the post processes like production, maintenance etc. it is the very worst
situation for any organisation. For Toyota, it is a very unstable situation as well as a very difficult
situation for handling the team. In these situations, the role of leaders and managers is very
important.
These are the situations take place in any organisation but with proper communication and
decision making, it can be resolved easily. It depends on the maturity of the leader and the
manager (Lussier, and Achua, 2015).
11

MODELS OF APPROACH FOR LEADERSHIP
Situational leadership theories
This theory is mainly focused on the statement that no single theory is best for decision making
of a manager and a leader. It describes that a good leader is one who selects the leadership
theory for work on the basis of the situations (Pardey, 2016).
System leadership theories
According to this leadership theory, an organisation is working as a system. It can be open or a
closed system. In an open system, its subsystem takes part in making strategies b8ut in the
closed system; the subsystem does not take part in making strategies (Ansoff et al., 2018).
Contingency leadership theories
According to Fred Fiedler, the best leaders take actions according to the conditions. They
observe and analyse the condition and then make the strategies. Some terminologies related to
the performance of the employee are used in this theory such as LPC which means least
preferred co-worker (Pardey, 2016). It allows the leader to choose appropriate worker for any
work in the organisation.
Every leadership and managerial theory has its own merits and demerits. So it solely depends
on the leaders and manager’s perception that how they consider the things.
12