Comparing Traditional to Toyota Leadership

Now, a Toyota leader wouldn’t blame Convis for the disaster in this story. In fact, stories like this from Convis’s experience at Ford, and earlier at GM, are what got Convis hired at NUMMI (New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., a joint venture of Toyota and General Motors in California). But Convis’s “leadership” in this instance illustrates the chasm between what has been traditionally considered leadership in many Western companies and what is considered leadership at Toyota.

We’ve summarized these differences in Table 1-1, based on the four stages of developing Toyota leaders explained later in this chapter. Leaders at Toyota must develop themselves to a certain level before they can take responsibility for developing others in the Toyota Way and leading the organization to achieve challenging goals. In short, the traditional approach uses the sink-or-swim model to select or hire proven senior leaders who make the right decisions and who either get results through heroic actions or get out. Toyota’s approach is to create a challenging, yet nurturing environment that grows leaders from within who follow Toyota values to drive continuous improvement at all levels.