Episode #118: Jennie Petit, President & CEO, TUV Rheinland in Japan

Jennelle “Jennie” Petit is the President of TUV Rheinland in Japan. Over 30 years, Ms. Petit has gone through different positions in a various companies including the service and manufacturing industry. Her first leadership experience was after her first year in Japan when she was training new teachers who had come to Japan to teach English. In the corporate world, Ms. Petit first had an opportunity to lead a team when she was about 35 years old in the hospitality industry. Her main function was training and development of all the staff in the hotel.

Ms. Petit feels that trust is an essential factor in motivating team members and encouraging collaboration. According to Ms. Petit, many Japanese employees prefer to take orders and avoid responsibility. Therefore, she tries to have an engaging conversation with them in the beginning. She claims, it is important to take a collaborative, soft, low-key approach and try to understand the culture. Ms. Petit adds, this approach needs patience. She tries to be authentic and consistent, treating people equally. She also points out that trust comes from communication, and if you are not communicating with anybody, you cannot expect to have a high level of trust.

To get engagement in Japan, Ms. Petit takes a bottom up style. Although it is difficult to implement change in Japan, trust is what makes it possible. One of the examples is teleworking. Ms. Petit was already looking into teleworking before the pandemic. Work-life balance was the key word. She focuses on having engagement, empathy, and a bottom-up approach to her leadership. By listening to the voice from the field-level, Ms. Petit is constantly rewriting the employee committee and guideline and other implementing changes.

In terms of making innovation, Ms. Petit encourages it through regular meetings. TUV Rheinland has different committees and different groups of people that meet regularly. They have discussions about strategy, and how to grow the company. In doing so, they are able to create an open culture and environment.

Ms. Petit is the first female to run TUV Rheinland in Japan. She says, even as a woman, you can do a lot if you focus on the right things and find people that are willing to work with you. Trying to be open to those things is also important. Ms. Petit adds that in order to increase female leaders in Japan, we need to provide training on diversity, in order to prevent discrimination among both men and women.

As an advice for new leaders, Ms. Petit raises two points. Firstly, to listen before you start to make any changes. Secondly, to make an attempt to learn the culture of the language.

Ms. Petit suggess to not try to change people’s culture in Japan but to work with it and put your assumption aside.

On defining what is leadership, Ms. Petit says, leadership happens first with the leader themselves. It is the ability of a person to reflect and then take the appropriate action based on a particular situation. Leadership is also possessed by people that look at things in general and are willing to say, we can do something better here, and make a split decision. Moreover, Ms. Petit adds, leaders should always ask and answer “why”, and provide information on their decisions. On whether one should learn Japanese or not, Ms. Petit says being able to speak Japanese is an advantage, but it is more important to understand the culture.