Encourage genuine development. Respect every individual.

Jim Laughton

03 Nov 2025 — 1 min read

Image generated from Readwise daily review

Today’s Readwise highlight aligns to an area I believe many organisations struggle with.

This is the 'Way'

Demonstrating one of the foundational pillars of ‘The Toyota Way’ of respecting individuals, especially by supporting genuine development of employees at every level. It is respecting them to apply their knowledge, to test their ideas and learn from success and failures (hopefully the latter are not punished, have little impact and drive learning for improvement?).

Who builds the systems?

It is more than providing training. We should develop systems that support psychologically safe problem solving by all employees. This includes training, coaching and most importantly, practise!

Mahatma Gandhi will be happy

Leadership is responsible for ensuring the resources exist for systems. Through respecting every individual, giving them the opportunities to develop, the good leaders will create more good leaders.

References

Butterworth C, Jeavons B, Dargan S. Leading Excellence: 5 Hats of the Adaptive Leader. BookPod; 2024.

Liker JK. The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World’s Greatest Manufacturer. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2021.

Toyota Motor Corporation. The Toyota Way 2020 Internet. Toyota Motor Corporation; 2020 cited 2025 Nov 3. Available from: https://global.toyota/en/company/vision-and-philosophy/toyotawaycode-of-conduct/index.html

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