Introduction
Management in organizations is not only about job satisfaction and performance. Both the organization and employees have incorporated spirituality. Spirituality is integrated in its many aspects such as humility, love kindness trust fairness among many other values. Toyota Motor Corporation has been performing well in all aspects. Spirituality is adopted in the organization through humility. The satisfaction of employees and performance of the organization can be partly attributed to spirituality in the company. This paper examines the integration of spirituality in Toyota Motor Corporation through humility.
Spirituality
Spirituality is the ability of individual people to be connected with God. The aspect of spirituality is the spirit at work in an individual. Aspects of spirituality include humility, love, kindness and searching for truth as well as awareness. Higher purpose of an individual is an aspect of spirituality that usually leads people to guidance. According to Howard (2002, p. 232), spirituality is the ability of a person to be able to connect with one’s self others and the entire universe. It is also the ability of individuals to express the various aspects of spirituality in their behaviors, and policies of their organizations. Kinjerski & Skrypnek (2004) note that although spirituality was initially based in religion, it is today applied in organization and work places and these applications are not connected with religion.
According to Freshman (1999), spirituality in organizations is thought to be an individual phenomenon that comprises of the efforts of individual employees or the efforts of the organization. When applied in the work place, Spirituality refers to efforts that try to integrate spirituality and work by the individual employee and the organization. Howard (2002) argues that the ability of the organization to enact spirituality is the result of the positive relationship that exists between the quest of individual employees for the spirit and the organizational environment. It is possible for employees to asses their own individual spirituality than the spirituality of others. The application of spirituality at the work place is used to connect the divine principle by setting the workplace and the work place process of work.
Spirituality is important in organizations. According to Mitroff & Denton (1999), organizations have five dimensions that are material, intellectual, emotional, volitional and spiritual. Spirituality is an inherent dimension in an organization (Achmos & Duchon, 2002). Spirituality can be implemented in organizations in various models. The models include the religion based, evolutionary model, recovering and value based model. Despite these models, the organization can also develop spirituality in four different steps. The management can begin by articulating the organizational spiritual values, delineation of business and employee plans and goals and employing the human resource management practices. Lastly, the organization will need to measure the outcomes in terms of the performance of the organization and the individual employee attitudes and spirituality.
Toyota Company profile
Toyota Motor Corporation is a multinational car manufacturing company that has its headquarters in Toyota Cho, City of Toyota in Japan. The company was established in 1937 by Kiichiro Toyoda the company manufactures vehicles and it some of its brands as Toyota Lexus, Scion, Daihatsu and Hino motors. The company has expanded worldwide and it has stakes in other companies. The branches of the company worldwide are approximately 522. Some of these branches are manufacturing plants. The company also deals with financial services and the financial services branch of the company lends money to borrowers (Toyota, 2010).
Toyota Company has established itself as a quality manufacturing company because its products are known to be of high quality. This trend has made the company to be the best company in the world for the manufacture of motor vehicles. However, the quality of the products of the company has been compromised of late and the company has been forced to recall more than 8 million vehicles because of the sticky brake pedal.
Humility in Toyota Corporation
Spirituality in Toyota Motor Corporation is depicted in many aspects. However, this study examined spirituality in the company in terms of humility. According to Mitroff & Denton (1999), humility is a recent topic to be talked of in management of organizations. Humility in Toyota Motor Corporation is measured in five components. The five components of humility include fairness, sincerity, open-mindedness, and respect for others and conceited or lack of arrogance. Using a preliminary survey, the data of the study provide the findings concerning the use of humility as a spirituality aspect in Toyota Motor Corporation (Scheid, n.d).
Employees in the organization depict sincerity especially when they indicate that the level of trust between them, the employees and the higher level of management in the company is high. Fairness indicates the presence of humility when the employees indicate that the leaders in the organization behave fairly and with integrity. Moreover, the management demonstrates compassion to all employees in the organization at all levels. Open mindedness as a component of humility in Toyota Corporation is indicted by the ability of the organization not only to seek the opinions of its employees, but also to act on the suggestions.
The lack of arrogance is indicated by the ability of employees to have authority to make decisions that pertain doing their work and their satisfaction with the recognition that they receive for excellent work performance. Additionally, lack of arrogance is indicated when employees are involved in decision-making. The managers in the organization depict humility since the employees reported that their bosses care about them individually and that they would make explanations of major decisions in the organization concerning the employees. All these components of humility in the corporation indicate the presence of humility hence the application of humility at the work place in the organization.
The application of spirituality through humility at the work place has impacts on the outcome of the organization. According to Scheid (n.d), the adoption of spirituality through humility at the work place can lead to creativity, honesty, trust and the personal fulfillment of employees in the organization. These outcomes will translate to job satisfaction by employees, motivation and therefore, improved employee and organizational performance.
Conclusion
Spirituality in the workplace refers specifically to the efforts by the organization to integrate spirituality in the workplace through individual employees and the organization. Many aspects including love kindness humility and trust among many others depict spirituality. Toyota Motor Corporation has adopted spirituality with humility as one of the major aspects of spirituality. Humility in the organization is indicated using the five components of humility such as lack of arrogance, sincerity, fairness, respect for others and open-mindedness. The adoption of spirituality in the organization is by both the individual employees in the organization and the organization. Spirituality in Toyota Motor Corporation has positive impact on the performance of the organization.
References
Achmos, D & Duchon, D. (2002). Spirituality at Work: Conceptualization and Measure. Journal of Management Enquiry, Vol. 9, pp. 134-145.
Freshman, B. (1999). An Exploratory Analysis of definitions and applications of spirituality in the workplace. Journal of Organizational change Management, Vol. 12. pp. 318-327.
Howard, S. (2002). Spiritual Perspective on Learning in the Workplace. Journal of Managerial Psychology. Vol. 17. pp. 230-242.
Kinjerski, V. & Skrypnek, B. (2004). Defining Sprit at Work: Finding Common Ground. Journal of organizational Change Management, Vol. 17. Pp. 26-42.
Mitroff, I. & Denton, E. (1999). A Study of Spirituality in the Workplace. Sloan Management Review. Vol. 40 pp. 83-92.
Scheid, K. (n.d). Humility: What is it, and how do employees perceive it? Web.
Toyota, (2010). Toyota Motor Corporation. Web.