leadership

Name: Sharman Mohamed Shariff Student ID No.CGS00421017Center of Graduate Studies MPM Intake: May 2009

INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT

Case: Toyota’s Drive for Global LeadershipSource: Certo, Samuel & Trevis (2009) Modern Management 10e, pp. 411-412

Question 5aHow would you describe Akio Toyoda’s leadership style? Explain

Leadership is the process of directing the behavior of others toward the accomplishment

of some objective. Directing, in this sense, means causing individuals to act in a certain

way or to follow a particular course. Ideally, this course is perfectly consistent with such

factors as established organizational policies, procedures, and job descriptions. The

central theme of leadership is getting things accomplished through people.

Leadership is one of the four main interdependent activities of the influencing

subsystem and is accomplished, at least to some extent, by communicating with others.

It is extremely important that managers have a thorough understanding of what

leadership entails. Leadership has always been considered a prerequisite for

organizational success. Today, given the increased capability afforded by enhanced

communication technology and the rise of international business, leadership is more

important than ever before.

Leadership style, on the other hand is the behavior a leader exhibits while guiding

organization members in appropriate directions. Two distinct studies have been carried

out to identify leadership behavior, one by the Bureau of Business Research at Ohio

State University (referred to as the OSU studies), and another by the University of

Michigan (referred to as the Michigan studies).

The OSU studies conclude that leaders exhibit two main types of behavior:

Structure behavior is any leadership activity that delineates the relationship

between the leader and the leader’s followers or establishes well-defined

procedures that followers should adhere to in performing their jobs.

Consideration behavior is leadership behavior that reflects friendship, mutual

trust, respect, and warmth in the relationship between leader and followers. This

type of behavior generally aims to develop and maintain a good human

relationship between the leader and the followers.

In a recent finding by Lore International Institute, a consulting firm, the company

found that to succeed in the workplace, it is important for leaders to demonstrate

trustworthiness, honesty, and an ability to collaborate. According to the findings, leaders

can “kill” trust between themselves and workers by being (1) credit hogs who take credit

for the good ideas of others, (2) lone rangers who work mostly by themselves and not

closely with other workers, (3) egomaniacs who believe that success will only come

through the efforts of management as opposed to workers, or (4) mules who are

stubborn and inflexible.

Mr. Akio Toyoda was born May 3, 1956 in Nagoya, Japan. He was appointed to

President and Chief Executive Officer of Toyota Motor Corporation on June 23, 2009.

Akio Toyoda has long been seen as a leader of the company and rose through the

ranks twice as fast as his predecessor, Katsuaki Watanabe. He is also the grandson of

founder Kichiro Toyoda. He joined Toyota in 1984.

Akio Toyoda’s leadership style, in my opinion, could be describe as having a

consideration behavior, where it is a leadership behavior that reflects friendship, mutual

trust, respect, and warmth in the relationship between leader and followers. It is a type

of behavior generally aims to develop and maintain a good human relationship between

the leader and the followers. He could also be described as a hardworking leader. This

is reflected while he was heading Toyota’s China division when he worked tirelessly for

a year to complete a merger with a larger, more aggressive local partner by convincing

Toyota’s top management and government officials to approve the deal.

He is concerned with the management gaps that appeared while he was heading

Toyota’s China division. The country’s department heads were accountable only to

headquarters executives, which isolated the managers and complicated coordination.

With Toyoda’s change, department heads work more closely with each other and report

to an executive vice president who can make decisions for the China business instead

of waiting for corporate approvals.

The actions taken by Akio Toyoda; forward looking, hardworking, aggressive as well as

innovative are marks of a leader and undoubtedly, a captain of his industry.



Question 5bWhere on the continuum of leadership behavior (Fig. 16-2) would you place Yoshi Inaba, and why?

One of the most important tasks of the leader is making sound decisions, all practical

and legitimate leadership thinking emphasizes decision making, Tannenbaum and

Schmidt, who wrote one of the first and perhaps most often quoted articles on the

situational approach to leadership, stress situations in which a leader makes a

decisions. Figure 1.1 below presents their model of leadership behavior.

Figure 1.1 Continuum of leadership behavior that emphasizes decision making

This model is actually a continuum, or a range, of leadership behavior available to

managers when they are making decisions. Note that each type of decision making

behavior depicted in the figure has both a corresponding degree of authority used by

the manager and a related amount of freedom available to subordinates. Management

behavior, at the extreme left of the model, characterizes the leader who makes

decisions by maintaining high control and allowing subordinates little freedom. Behavior

at the extreme right characterizes the leader who makes decisions by exercising little

control and allowing subordinates much freedom and self-direction. Behavior in

between the extremes reflects graduations in leadership from autocratic to democratic.

In the case study it was stated that in the United States division of Toyota, reinforcing

employee commitment and involvement are top priorities. Yoshi Inaba was roped in

specifically to address these priorities. He took an unconventional step of releasing the

profit and expense data to all U.S. sales personnel so they can understand how their

activities affect financial performance. In his role as managing director, Inaba helps

Toyota managers grapple with decisions about balancing market share and profitability.

The act of releasing company’s sensitive data such as the profit and expense data to

the sales force would suggest that, in the continuum of leadership behavior, Yoshi Inaba

was trying to get the sales force, in fact, the whole organization of Toyota U.S. division

to be involved in invigorating sales. And, he is willing to take the risk of “…..maybe we

lose in terms of total volume, but that’s acceptable because it’s all about return”,

suggesting a man whom has his sights on the future rather than the present.

In the Tannenbaum and Schmidt Leadership Continuum, I will place Mr. Yoshi Inaba

in group 5, where the manager presents the problem, gets suggestions, and then

makes the decision. This leadership activity is the first of those that allows subordinates

the opportunity to offer problem solutions before the manager does. The manager,

however, is still the one who identifies the problem.



Question 5cDo you think Fiedler’s position power, task structure, or leader-member relations were the most important aspect of Gary Convis’s leadership at the Georgetown plant?

Situational theories of leadership such as the life cycle theory are based on the concept

of leader flexibility – the idea that successful leaders must change their leadership

styles as they encounter different situations. Can any leader be so flexible as to span all

major leadership styles? The answer to this question is that some leaders can be that

flexible while some cannot. Unfortunately, numerous obstacles get in the way of leader

flexibility. One is that a leadership style is sometimes so ingrained in a leader that it

takes years to even approach flexibility. Another is that some leaders have experienced

such success in a basically static situation that they believe developing a flexible style is

unnecessary.

One strategy, proposed by Fred Fiedler, for overcoming these obstacles is changing the

organizational situation to fit the leader’s style, rather than changing the leader’s style to

fit the organizational situation. Applying this idea to the life cycle theory of leadership, an

organization may find it easier to shift leaders to situations appropriate for their

leadership styles than to expect those leaders to change styles as situations change.

After all, it would probably take three to five years to train a manager to use a concept

such as life cycle theory effectively, while changing the situation that the leader faces

can be done quickly simply by exercising organizational authority.

According to Fiedler’s contingency theory of leadership, leader-member relations,

task structure, and the position power of the leader are the three primary factors that

should be considered when moving leaders into situations appropriate for their

leadership styles:

Leader-member relations are the degree to which the leader feels accepted by

the followers.

Task structure is the degree to which the goals – the work to be done – and other

situational factors are outlined clearly.

Position power is determined by the extent to which the leader has control over

the rewards and punishments followers receive.

I am of the opinion that Gary Convis’s leader-member relations were the most important

aspect of his leadership. Recognizing the importance of North America in Toyota’s 2010

Global Vision, Mr. Convis hopes to bring an American perspective to the consolidation

and continued progress of Toyota’s North American operations. In addition, he hopes to

develop people who can practice the Toyota Way in North America and work toward

self reliance by strengthening management systems to support Toyota’s globalization.

He arranged his line managers to sharpen their quality improvement skills by working

on projects for plant suppliers. Convis was also involved in the establishment of the

Organization Development Group to educate shop-floor managers as the plant leaders

of the future.

His actions involved working closely with his subordinates. His subordinates are

probably very similar to him in attitude, opinion, technical background, race, and cultural

background.

Fiedler’s work certainly helps destroy the myth about one best leadership style and that

leaders are born, not made. Further, his works supports the theory that almost every

manager in an organization can be a successful leader if placed in a situation

appropriate to that person’s leadership style. This matching of leadership style to the

situation, of course, assumes that someone in the organization has the ability to assess

the characteristics of the organization’s leaders and of other important organizational

variables and then to bring the two together accordingly.

leadership

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