Honda Production System/BP sensei Teruyuki Maruo on Leadership:

         Being a leader is very difficult.  The leader has to have teaching abilities.  If he is not able to teach the leaders of his team, they are not going to be able to trust him.  The leader needs to have confidence in evaluating members of his team, and he needs to provide them with direction.          

And from Jim Womack, founder Lean Enterprise Institute, co-author Lean Thinking and The Machine That Changed the World:  

For those who think of Toyota as the leader in lean thinking, here's a colorful explanation of how Honda's "racing spirit" is creating a truly lean enterprise in North America.  Nelson, Mayo, and Moody provide a step-by-step plan for building a smoothly-flowing value stream from ra materials into the arms of the customer.  Anyone who can't follow their simple instructions (and who doesn't get on the case immediately after putting this book down) has little chance of staying in the race.  

More from Maruo on teams and leadership:

Maruo believes in the magical number seven for the ideal number of team members.  When he started BP (Honda's production system) in Japan, all his teams had seven people.  "People cannot operate alone.  They need to work in teams.  It's a natural human weakness. 

He wanted team leaders to look for seven people who have strong technical skills and personal communication skills, but who are not well-rounded.  "I like to work with people that are not yet well-rounded, geometrically more triangular."