Guest Blog from Keith Groves

What style are you?

I have been for the last year and a half been involved in the Leadership Academy at IPS.  We have been exposed to some interesting concepts and styles.  One of my assignments is to construct a blog on the topic of choice. 

Currently, I am co facilitating a class on leadership within the manufacturing world called Toyota KATA, the management style of Toyota Motor Company.  What is unique about this KATA style of management is the deliberate pattern by which continuous improvement takes place with the shop floor.  Kiichiro Toyota, founder of Toyota Motor Company, learned from his father that he must seek to improve every day.  This process is not conducted in a vacuum in a classroom, but on the floor where the work is going on.  Toyota’s method was to not give the worker the answer, but to challenge them to discover for themselves the right way to improve processes and learn from the experiences during the discovery process.

So in my journey with the Leadership Academy, we studied an American President Abraham Lincoln, who also had a very distinct style of leadership.  It has been reported that Lincoln spent very little time, during the US conflict, in his office at the Whitehouse.  Lincoln was very involved with his leaders about how the war was going and how progress was being made.  He spent many hours with Generals and others learning strategy and next steps.  His goal was a resolution to the conflict.  He didn’t have all the answers or maybe didn’t even know all the questions but he challenged his officers to develop plans to meet this objective.  Manage by walking around, is how Lincoln’s management style has been described.

As I began to put together these two philosophy patterns, I began to realize that these leaders, one changed the course of auto manufacturing worldwide and one changed the course of our Nation, but both had a very similar style.  These two men lead by the vision they had for their respected entities and the outcome they desired, Lincoln, peace for his beloved Country and Toyota, success for a highly respected auto manufacturer, who began his career making weaving looms. 

What I believe we can take away from this is, we don’t always have to have all the answers before we impart on a journey.  We do have to have a vision of where we want to go and trust those that we depend on to get us there.  Our job as Leaders is to draw the creativity of our co-workers and guide them in paths that lead to that desired outcome.  Give them the satisfaction and help them feel their worth in what they are doing as we travel together down the path of discovery. 

Our mission should define our outcome and everything we do, every lesson we learn should focus on that mission.