Management and Leadership at Toyota Motor Corporation
Nancy Mitchell-Edwards
MGT/330
January 17, 2010
Walter Goodwyn

Management and Leadership at Toyota Motor Corporation
Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) is one of the leading automobile manufacturers in the world. The name itself inspires trust in the brand and for many people around the world, purchasing a vehicle manufactured by Toyota is also a sound investment. In 1933 Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, Ltd established the Automobile Department. In 1935 the first A1 prototype passenger car and the G1 truck were made at Hinode Motors and in 1937 Toyota Motor Co. Ltd was launched (Company, 2011).
These are the facts, but to understand the culture of Toyota, one must first have …show more content…

The key role that each has is engendering an atmosphere of trust, honesty, integrity, innovation, collaboration, cooperation, teamwork, and good stewardship of resources (Bateman & Snell, 2009). The organizational culture of Toyota stresses continual improvement and the role of management and leadership is to model this behavior. The “Toyota Way” is toward lean production, but globally Toyota may be too provincial and not as open as Western businesses are and that may be why it took so long to admit fault with the accelerator problem (Ozawa, 2010).
Globalization and Management
Therefore, the organizational culture of Toyota is drastically different from the organizational culture of Western businesses and the public relations catastrophe caught this normally staid, unassuming organization by complete surprise. According to Ozawa (2010), the company “lacked a real feeling” about what was occurring and it “failed to sense” what the consequences would be for its foreign markets. Ozawa (2010) goes on to say this crisis showed Toyota had trouble negotiating the “publicity landscape” because it was not accustomed to aggressive media and consumer groups. Toyota had an air of detachment about its responsibility; however, the lack of communication on Toyota’s part was cultural differences not detachment. Communication was just the last thing Toyota management