Analysis of a Contemporary Leadership Challenge: Style, Strategy, Communication, Resistance to Change - Essay Example

Analysis a Contemporary Leadership Challenge Throughout the history of human development, leadership practitioners and thinkers have constantly contemplated on the entire leadership facets including personality characteristics, creativity, leadership styles, and approaches of empowering employees. Leader’s ability to develop a vibrant organization that can endure and flourish in an increasingly changing and multifaceted market has to some extent determined the success of organizations. A successful leader ought to develop the competence and skills of their subjects. Contemporary leaders should as well place relevant tools in an organization to facilitate organization success. Effective leadership style at the Toyota Motor Cooperation has played an incredibly decisive role in the present prosperity of the company. Akio Toyoda is the president and chief executive officer of Toyota Motor Corporation. Toyoda joined Toyota Motor Cooperation in 1984. He was later appointed in Toyota board of directors in 2000. In 2005, he was allotted in the position of an executive vice president. Toyoda was later promoted in to the post of a chief executive officer and president of Toyota Motor Corporation in 2009. As stated by members of the Toyota board of directors, Toyoda’s promotion was to a greater extent motivated by his exceptional leadership styles. By being a transformer, Toyoda has in the recent past transformed the efficiency and development of the entire Toyota Motor Corporation (Hasegawa 23). Toyoda has all through his career relied on transformational leadership style. This essay focuses on transformational leadership styles and challenges encountered by Akio Toyoda in his leadership and drive to transform Toyota into a more vibrant corporation it is today. The essay will also tackle decision making styles in the company as well as the strategies used to counter the emerging challenges. Transformational leadership inspires employees to identify and accomplish visions that are far beyond their personal interests. The style focuses on transforming individuals and organizations profitability to coincide with the existing development and market demands. By using a transformational leadership approach, Toyoda has demonstrated four main traits that are exceptionally vital in the prosperity of the company and for his own personal development. These traits include: individualized consideration, intellectual stimulation, inspirational motivation, and idealized influence. Idealized influence is the manifestation of the manner in which leaders present themselves to their employees (Gary and Robert 98). Throughout his career, Toyoda has presented admirable personality to his followers. However, the main challenges he encounters in developing a workable relationship between himself and the employees is to understand the most effective way of controlling his emotional in frustrating situations. Additionally, when interacting with his followers, Toyoda institutes an inspiring trust and confidence to his subjects. In his inspirational motivation traits, Toyoda always communicates the company’s vision to the employees and motivates them realize the set goals and objectives. However, being a chief executive officer, Toyoda encounters a big problem of getting feedbacks and relevant information from subordinate employees. The chief executive officer intellectual stimulation has as well played an extremely vital role in soliciting the employees’ inputs. The president encourages his employees to think creatively for the prosperity of the company. However, lack of effective communication channels to reach the company’s employees has turned out to be a common challenge in the achievement of the organization goals and long term objectives. A Description of Decision Making Styles In his current position, Toyoda relies on collective-participative decision making style. In this style, Toyoda involves all organization stakeholders in the decision making process. Toyoda encourages all the participants in the organization to fully participate in the company’s decision making process by bringing forward their perceptions, ideas, information, and concerns on a decision making process (Smith 91). However, despite the massive contributions by all members, the company’s president has the final mandate of selecting the most effective ideas that can necessitate the development of the company. The Toyota Motor Corporation’s chief executive officers also encourage group participation and involvement. Toyoda is always ready and willing to accept the heartening and daunting outcomes of the company’s decisions. The president recognizes and encourages participants who have provided essential and supportive contribution to the company. Additionally, Toyoda is an effective listener to his followers’ contributions. He is a good communicator and easily accessible by operations managers. Due to his excellent listening and communication ability, Toyoda is always in a better position to understand the market situation. Despite its encouraging advantages, collective-participative decision making process has some glaring shortfalls that interfere with the company performance. For a starter, the Toyota Motor Corporation’s upward communication process is complex and challenging. As a result, most of the suggestions and concerns by junior officers do not get to the company’s Chief Executive Officer who is the final decision maker. The decision making process is fairly slow and time consuming. Additionally, the security and confidentiality of the company information and decisions are in most cases not adequate. This is due to the fact that the company’s decision making process involves many participants. Strategy to Counter Communication Challenge in Toyota Motor Corporation To necessitate effective growth of Toyota Motor Cooperation, Toyoda should facilitate effective communication in the company’s structures (CLC Human Resources 67). The elimination of the existing differences in perception amongst the company’s employees is especially essential in necessitating effective communication and team work. This can be achieved through employment of the right and qualified professionals in the company. The company should as a result employ workforce that has adequate command of written and spoken language. The company’s Chief Executive Officer ought to control his emotions in the communication process. Together with other employees, The Chief Executive Officer should learn the most effective means of using body language in communication. In most cases, demonstration of emotions leads to misinterpretation of the communicated message. The company should institute simple communication structures as opposed to the current multifaceted communication system. The number of hierarchical levels should be minimized to necessitate effective communication. The company should also advocate for the need of giving constructive feedback to the company’s management team. Finally, taking into account the current information technology development, the company’s top executive officers should select suitable communication media. Due to the company’s size of the, the company should as well adopt the fastest and the most cost effective communication channels. The company’s top management ought to encourage oral communication and face to face interaction. Work cited CLC Human Resources, Improving Business Leader Effectiveness Survey, Corporate Executive Board, 76. 23 (2008), 50-92 Hasegawa, Yozo. Rediscovering Japanese business leadership: 15 Japanese Managers and the companies they're leading to new growth. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley. 2010 Gary William and Robert Miller. Change the way you persuade. Harvard business review, 23.2 (2002), 1-17. Smith, Montagno, Transformational and servant leadership: Content and contextual comparisons. Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, 10. 4 (2004), 80-91. Read More