Toyota 2nd Spring Discussions 2020 — Don’t be a boss, be a leader

I’m a strong advocate of leadership and give my best attempt to learn as much as I can and put it into practice. I may not always do it, and surely have my faults. Although I put in a conscious effort to reflect my actions to become a better leader. This will be my 1st of many “leadership series” that I will write based on various learnings, and more importantly my personal experiences.

To give a bit of context of this post, I recently watched Toyota’s Spring Discussion sessions amongst their executive officers and senior management. Each executive gets to speak based on a “theme”. Akio Toyoda’s them was on the topic of “Boss vs Leader”. It’s humbling to see the CEO of a very traditional company address this type of topic.

In fact, even from other occasions, we see Toyoda himself showing that he recognises on what it is to be a leader despite being a CEO of Fortune 500 company. In one interview, between Toyoda, Ichiro (baseball player), and a famous reporter (this is also a very interesting segment), Toyoda speaks on how he starts being conscious about the way he dresses. He says that during his visits to various schools, when he dresses down casually, the students are able to relate to him more. Instead of the tense response“oh my goodness, this is THE CEO of TOYOTA” by the students when he used to dress formally, once he started to dress casually he found that the students opened up to him more. One key trait of being a leader is empathy. What Toyoda did was to put himself in the students’ point of view and asked himself “how can I relate to these students more”.

I’ve translated Toyoda’s excerpt when he starts speaking about the “Boss vs Leader” below. You can find the original discussion here (in Japanese) with the accompanying YouTube link.

Do you all know the difference between a boss and a leader? This is the words of the founder of a British luxury department store chain, and I’d like to quote some of them here:

• The boss says ‘I’, the leader ‘We’
• The boss fixes the blame for the breakdown, the leader fixes the breakdown
• The boss knows how it is done, the leader shows how
• The boss inspires fear, the leader inspires enthusiasm
• The boss says ‘Go’, the leader says ‘Lets go!’

There is a reason why I chose this tope of “boss vs leader” this time. The other day, I attended the graduation ceremony for Toyota Engineering Academy. As every year, the graduating class is filled with young, bright, and well-trained professionals. It is always heartfelt, to welcome the new “leaders” that represents Toyota’s values. At the same time, I questioned myself on the Company that was welcoming them.

I believe that most employees above middle management, despite facing challenges are doing their best as leaders. However, the reality is that there are people that aren’t doing the obvious. Today, I hear from many that there are employees leaving, and in fact there’s been a relief of joy for those who have left. As top management, this is something we all need to reflect upon.

At the previous labor-management meeting, Vice President Terashi said, “In the current state of the workplace, even greetings are not properly done”. If these basic parts do not change, nothing will change. For everyone above middle management, what I’d like to say is “I want you to create a workplace, where people can do the obvious without being taken for granted”

• Give a proper greeting in the morning.
• When you receive help, say “Thank you”.
• If you organise a meeting, be the first one there.
• Instead of always asking your counterparts to come to your office, go to theirs sometimes.
• If there are parts where you are behind against your competition, admit that loss.
• Go back to the drawing board. Create a message to send. Hav you been outsourcing these tasks?
• Look back and think about if we have only become managers of our calendars and schedule.
• Think about whether if you are in a place to tell your subordinates “Go beyond being yourself”.

Let’s all start with these basic items.

As of now, I have reduced the level of hierarchies within each division. The aim is to increase the role and importance of each post by reducing the hierarchy levels and to recruit candidates who can move the company from a management perspective rather than a functional perspective. Additionally, I want to change the mindset from “I want to be more superior” to “I want to grow more”.

However, as I mentioned, there are people who aren’t able to do the obvious, as a result can’t serve as a role model to their team. There have been cases where those people were evaluated, and promoted. I take this as my own responsibility. I will face the reality and will move forward to ensure this company can be one that properly evaluates and identify those leaders who are making great efforts to become role models.

Therefore, to all the leaders out there, I ask for you to show in your behaviours, that you can be an example of such a leader. I firmly believe that this will remove the “functional boss” from Toyota and ask for your cooperation.