Servant Leadership in the Toyota Culture

Last week, I had a chance to attend Lean Frontiers’ workshop on The Role of Leadership in Creating a Sustainable Lean Culture. The course demonstrated the role of leadership in connecting and simultaneously developing the “Product” and the “People” Value Streams in an organization. In a lean implementation this really sets the foundation for a sustainable lean culture.

The Presenter was Mike Hoseus, the Executive Director for the Center for Quality People & Organizations (CQPO). Mike was a corporate leader for 13 years at Toyota Motor Manufacturing’s Georgetown, Kentucky, plant both in Human Resources and Manufacturing. CQPO is an organization developed in 1999 as a vision of Toyota Motor Manufacturing to share Lean Quality philosophy and human resource practices with education, business, and community organizations. Mike is the co-author with Dr. Jeffery Liker (Author of The Toyota Way ) of Toyota Culture: The Heart and Soul of the Toyota Way.

In Mike’s presentation, he discussed the idea of Servant Leadership which does not mean that they hand over the reins of the company to self-directed work teams but rather develop a culture which can effectively delegate to and trust teams to produce excellent results. Another insight was the ineffectiveness of a leader the further they are away from the value stream.

Lean Frontiers the host of the event, provides high-quality, laser-focused events aimed at integrating organizational silos in support of the lean enterprise. These focused events provide an ideal venue for like-minded professionals to explore the common issues they face in supporting lean. They will be hosting the upcoming Lean Sales & Marketing Summit this July.