Episode #306: Why Japanese Staff Refuse Leadership Positions

It is an irony. In the West ambitious people have the elbows out to bundle you out of their way. They are scheming and plotting to get the next promotion. They exaggerate their qualifications, experience, talent and capability at every turn, if they think it will serve to see them step up over the bodies of their rivals. They fake it now hoping they can make it later. They suck up to those above and criticize those below. Their peers are seen as the enemy who must be vanquished if they are to prevail. In the Game Of Thrones and in the Game of Promotion “you win the game or you die” is the prevailing philosophy. In Japan, when staff are recognized for their good work and given the chance to move up often they refuse. They say things like, “it is too early”, “I am not ready yet”, “maybe in two years time”. This drives Western leaders here nuts.

Why are these Japanese staff so bashful and unmotivated? The speed of promotion is fast in Western companies. Age isn’t thought as important as capability. Seniority however is a big deal in Japan. Younger staff are reluctant to make a suggestion in meetings, if those around them are older or higher in rank. The possibility of having to manage staff who are older when promoted than them sends shivers down their spines. Culturally, this is extremely awkward. It is awkward in the West too, but we are all locked in a Darwinian struggle to get to the top, so everyone just has to suck it up and get on with it. If you don’t like it, there is the door, goodbye and good luck.

“The nail that sticks out gets hammered down” is traditional wisdom in Japan, so everyone is very adept from childhood at not sticking out. You get along, by going on. Getting a promotion over your peers is bound to cause aggravation with those passed over. Spite, backbiting, nasty comments, vicious rumors are all part and parcel of the employ landscape. Getting a higher salary and higher status doesn’t fix this issue.

Japan has solved this problem by promoting everyone together based on when they joined the firm. Your patron promotes you and you become a loyal follower. They are there to protect you as you climb the ranks. Only in the top layers are the wheat sifted from the chaff and age and seniority dimensions break down.

In Western firms, it is meritocracy based, so synchronicity is irrelevant. Nobody cares who entered the company when or how old anyone is. The firm wants the outputs and therefore they want the best people in charge of producing those results. In Japan your Western boss is not reliable. Your patron who promoted you is just as likely to leave town and head off to sunny shores elsewhere to their next assignment and your have no air cover internally anymore.

There is also the nasty issue of accountability and responsibility. If you are promoted you have to be judged by your results. In Japan, because of group decision making no one steals the glory, as it is shared around. Likewise, when things go pear shaped and scapegoats are sought, they can’t be found because everyone was a party to the decision, so no one is individually responsible. “We are all responsible, so no one is responsible”. What a perfect system! There is zero protection in a Western firm. If you fail, you are expected to fall on your sword and disappear. In the West, the mobility of the job market is such that you can dust off the beating and live again to fight another day. Japan has not been like that because of its postwar lifetime employment system. Getting removed is a serious blow to one’s career prospects, so caution at all time is the watch word.

Better to forego that promotion until all the risks have been contained. The support groups internally need to be lit up, the consensus arrived at and the opposition reconciled. None of this fits into the firm’s calendar of leadership development though. The big bosses back at HQ ask why you can’t produce new Japanese leaders, why are the high potentials so unmotivated? What is wrong with your leadership of Japan?

So what can you do? If they have been identified as a high potential, then give them additional training that marks them out from their peers. Bolster their credibility by giving them additional skills. Have them assume an additional “assistant” role to the boss, so they can be drawn into doing the actual work, before they are handed the entire responsibility. Include them in meetings now, which normally they would only attend once they are in that new role. Give them a project where they have to lead their peers. If the peers are being snarky then sort them out quick smart. This is the same for staff who may be older. They have to get the message, we are going to promote Tanaka and if you don’t like it, then vote with your feet and leave.

Coaching them specifically for their new role is important. When decisions have to be made, ask them for their opinion and input. Get them used to taking responsibility at that level for bigger budgets, more people and higher risks. Have them attend key meetings representing the team, especially if these are being held overseas. Have them deliver the reports, do the presentations, take a more prominent role. Have lunch with them and their spouse and outline what the company has in mind for them.

The support of the spouse is important and having lunch together with both of them is not something we would ever dream of doing in the West. Well Japan is different and we know that we want the spouse supporting the step up in position too. Whenever we are offering a job to people, the candidates always say they have to talk it over with their spouse. Changing jobs or taking on a new job is a big deal in risk averse Japan. Promotions are seen as risky, so let’s cut off that line of retreat and get the whole family behind the programme.

Expecting everyone to be like us, want what we want, react the way we do is a formula for leadership disaster in Japan. Knowing that in itself is a big insight and so the positioning of a promotion needs to take a different route. This means starting much earlier in the process than in the West. It means stifling any negative comment and opposition by rivals and critics early. You have to sell the idea here and get the spouse behind it too. Japan should operate differently, you say. Good luck with that and let us know how that is working out for you.