Episode #500: The End Of The Driving Leader In Japan

Western leadership is a meritocracy where the most driven, talented, hardest working and ambitious are given the responsibility for those cannot make it to the top. Everyone knows the rules and the system works pretty well. The American version is at one end where the degree of ruthlessness is more pronounced and accepted. Other Western nations have less stringent variations, but fundamentally follow the same basic ideas about who deserves to be a leader. What happens when you put these leaders in charge of a Japanese team?

The hero’s journey is not pronounced so much in Japan because the hero cannot make it alone. Here the team is required to pull together as a unit and strengths and weaknesses are evened out across jobs and personalities. The idea of 1 + 1 = 5 is often talked about in the West as a aspiration but in Japan it is the reality. The component parts are harmonised and concentrated to get the results. Individual requirements are not promoted above the good of the group.

Landing into Tokyo and applying the Western hard driving leadership model will end in tears for everyone and make the newbie’s stay here brief and frustrating. Intangibles are important and connections is a big one. I remember a previous staff member of mine seeking advice on what to do about his new bolshie boss. I told him to hang in there and wait until to he got posted somewhere else. Unfortunately, he couldn’t bear it anymore and quit. When he quit, 200 others quit as well. They weren’t other staff, they were key relationships in that industry built up over multiple decades. My previous staff member was no doubt was replaced but those relations of his will only be replaced over decades to come and that loss is huge. The new broom was clueless about that aspect, because he thought he was getting the staff aligned with the new direction. His own glorious career was uppermost in his mind as he wrought havoc left and right.

As I have talked about before, getting change in Japan is tough, tough, tough. It is also tough for Japanese leaders too and requires immense amounts of time to be invested and one-on-one persuasion. This effort requires trust, communication and persuasion skills. Imagine trying to do that where there is no common language level capability. Mistakes, misunderstandings and confusion are bound to be the product of two people trying to communicate but doing so imperfectly. Also imagine if in 2023 you were illiterate and trying to run a complex organisation. That is the reality for maybe 99% of foreign leaders in Japan, because few speak Japanese and even fewer can read or write in Japanese. It is hard to be majestically self-assured when you cannot read or write.

“All of our staff speak English”, is the supposed antidote to the plight of the illiterate leader. Just to make it more interesting, as foreign leaders we speak too quickly, to directly and pepper our language with idioms and uncommon phrases. Even as a foreigner here, I find American English can be challenging, because I didn’t watch their television programmes and I didn’t grow up there. I don’t listen to rap music and I don’t watch many movies these days. Sometimes I have no idea what they are talking about and have to ask for a clarification. Now I am a native speaker, who coming from sporty Australia and fairly used to sporting metaphors. If I have grown up in Japan though and English is a language I have earnt at school and varsity, there are bound to be huge gaps in understanding. Being a diligent Japanese team member, I won’t embarrass the boss by admitting their communication is flawed and that I have little clue as to what they are talking about. I will nod, smile and act polite and wonder what is going on.

Pushing a piece of string is a good metaphor for the driving foreign leader in Japan. Strength of will, will only get us so far in our own cultures and will basically get you nowhere here because that isn’t how things work. Firing people who won’t do what you want isn’t considered a valid reason for termination in Japan, so persuasion is the required method. Often the reason is related to the client relationship. The foreign boss may be here for three to five years, but the client is here forever, long after the memory of that pesky boss has faded away.

Also we should add in time – lots of time. If you are in a hurry, then you are piling on heaps of unnecessary pressure. Rushing things through, getting lots of stuff done, making quick decisions and driving the results are the hallmark of the successful boss in the West. That would be a list very hard to apply to most Japanese leaders. Quick decision making here is seen as being flippant and not being considered enough, not taking the time to gather the facts and information needed to make the right decision.

In fact, rather than the right answer, Japan is more concerned in getting the question right. Think about that and you see what a different approach is being taken here. Japanese leaders are masters at building a consensus, smoothing out obstacles and finding a harmonious path forward. They don’t want hidden resistance and slowing down the execution of the decision. They know the clients and the staff and they know the limits of how far they should push and where they should compromise today for the future benefit.

Humility and a desire to learn new skills and methods is a worthy set of aspirations for the foreign leader transplanted here for a few years, rather than imagining business infrastructure and customs have to now change because the foreign leader has now landed at Haneda. Japan has a lot to teach us and we should be open to the lessons, because these will hold us in good stead wherever we go in the world.