Recommended Reading Toyota Way to Lean Leadership: Achieving and Sustaining Excellence Through Leadership Development Buy Book Jeffrey K. Liker and Gary L. Convis, McGraw-Hill Companies, 2011 The missing link to long-term Lean success! Despite the fact that companies worldwide have adopted Lean production, none have sustained the same levels of excellence as Toyota. Why? Leadership. In The Toyota Way to Lean Leadership, Jeffrey Liker and Gary L. Convis, a former executive V.P. and managing officer of Toyota, help executives and senior managers get employees to refocus their efforts – from simply performing their singular function to continuously improving in collaboration across the organization.