The Leadership Japan Series

I have talked before about the loneliness of the leader. You feel it most strongly when things are going badly.

The entrepreneur, in particular, owns the company and carries the ultimate responsibility. I am reminded of ship captains in the age of sail. They were responsible for getting their passengers and cargo safely to the destination while dealing with terrible weather and even worse pirates.

The modern company captain faces different dangers, but the responsibility is just as real. People's livelihoods depend on the decisions we make. Get things badly wrong and we can bankrupt the company or become vulnerable to a takeover that destroys what we have built.

When a powerful competitor appears, though, there is another way to look at the situation.

That rival may actually become one of the leader's most useful tools.

Why can a strong competitor actually help a leader?

A powerful external competitor can give the team a common enemy, creating greater unity, urgency and commitment around winning in the marketplace. Instead of allowing the rival to generate fear, the leader can use the competitive threat as a rallying cry.

This becomes particularly important when industries are disrupted.

The Covid years damaged long-established companies across sectors affected by lockdowns, government restrictions, declining customer demand and supply-chain problems. M&A activity followed and, in many cases, the strong devoured the weak.

Perhaps your company survived.

Great.

But now you may be facing larger, better-funded competitors with greater resources.

That can be terrifying.

Or it can provide the team with a clear external challenge around which everyone can unite.

The leader's job is to convert anxiety into purposeful action.

Do now: When a powerful competitor appears, don't communicate only the danger. Frame the challenge around what the team can collectively do to win.

Why are internal enemies so destructive to organisations?

Competition should be directed outside the company rather than between divisions, departments or ambitious individuals inside it. Internal rivalry consumes energy that should be directed toward winning customers and beating genuine competitors.

I have experienced this myself.

In big organisations, ambitious people sometimes eye your patch and decide they should be running it instead of you.

Before you know it, the elbows come out.

Political alliances form. People start protecting territory. Information gets withheld. The other division gradually becomes "the enemy".

This is madness.

The customer doesn't care about your internal politics. Neither does your external competitor.

While everyone inside the organisation is busy fighting over the main deck, the real pirates may be pulling alongside the ship.

Well-run companies squash destructive internal rivalry before it develops momentum.

Do now: Make it absolutely clear that the competitor is outside the organisation. Internal functions may disagree, but they should ultimately be fighting on the same side.

How should smaller companies respond to powerful competitors?

Smaller companies should resist trying to match larger rivals dollar-for-dollar or entering destructive price wars; they need to compete through differentiated value.

When a powerful competitor starts flooding the market with advertising, smaller companies can feel helpless.

Usually, we don't have unlimited financial reserves. Trying to match their advertising spend may simply burn through the cash we need elsewhere.

Price wars are equally dangerous.

They are a race to the bottom, and the bigger rival may have enough financial muscle to absorb the pain much longer than we can.

So don't fight exclusively on their terms.

Instead, ask how you can strengthen the value offering.

Perhaps the product line-up needs changing. Maybe the packaging of the offer needs adjusting. Perhaps customers need a clearer reason to choose you rather than the larger competitor.

Differentiation becomes the battlefield.

Do now: Instead of asking how you can match a larger competitor's spending or pricing, identify where your value proposition can become meaningfully different and stronger.

How can leaders persuade teams to accept competitive change?

Leaders can use the external competitive threat to explain why change is necessary, but they must create urgency without generating panic.

This is a delicate balancing act.

As with many things in Japan, adjusting to change isn't necessarily the strongest suit of every team. People may prefer the familiar processes, products and methods that have worked until now.

But tough times demand tough changes.

The external competitor can help the leader make the case.

"We aren't changing this because management suddenly became bored with the existing system. We are changing because the market has changed, our competitors have changed and we need to become stronger."

People generally don't enjoy the idea of being beaten by a rival.

Use that competitive pride.

The key is ensuring the message generates determination rather than fear.

Do now: Connect proposed changes directly to the competitive reality and show the team how those changes improve their ability to win.

Why is the organisation's WHY critical during competitive pressure?

A strong WHY gives employees a reason to believe in what they are defending and provides a North Star when competitive pressure creates uncertainty.

Leaders shouldn't rely solely on fear of the competitor.

We also need to remind people why our own organisation deserves to win.

What are we doing for customers?

Why does it matter?

What do we believe we do better?

Why should customers continue choosing us?

This is an incredibly important component of culture building.

If employees genuinely believe our WHY is stronger than the rival's, they gain confidence in what they are doing.

Customers notice that confidence.

They also notice its absence.

Fearful salespeople, in particular, can be smelt by buyers. Customers sense desperation and start wondering whether the company is stable.

That can turn fear into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Do now: Keep returning the team to the WHY. Competitive confidence should come from believing in your own value, not merely disliking the rival.

How much bad news should leaders share with their teams?

Leaders need to communicate enough competitive danger to create urgency without spreading so much gloom that people lose confidence and give up. Increasing the intensity gradually is often safer than hitting everyone with a Big Bang of fear.

This is a tricky calculation.

The leader may know much more about the seriousness of the situation than everyone else.

Do we tell them everything?

Too much gloom can paralyse people.

Too little information means there is no urgency. Everyone continues operating exactly as before while the competitive threat grows stronger.

The better approach may be a gradual ramping up of the concern factor.

Explain the challenge.

Show the evidence.

Explain what needs to change.

Give people something practical they can do about it.

As their understanding increases, so can the intensity of the message.

Fear without action produces helplessness.

Urgency combined with direction produces movement.

Do now: Communicate competitive threats progressively and always connect the concern to concrete actions the team can take.

A Common Enemy Can Strengthen The Team

Leadership can be lonely.

When the company is under pressure, the leader may lie awake thinking about competitors, cash flow, customers, market share and the livelihoods of everyone who depends on the business.

There is a temptation to carry all of those fears alone.

But we have teams for a reason.

A powerful competitor doesn't have to be viewed solely as a destructive force sweeping everything before it.

The rival can become an aid to greater teamwork and commitment.

Use the threat carefully.

Don't manufacture fear.

Don't demonise competitors.

Don't push people into panic.

Instead, use the competitive reality to remind everyone that you are on the same side.

Move the enemy outside the organisation.

Strengthen the value proposition rather than automatically cutting prices.

Explain why change is necessary.

Keep returning to the WHY of the organisation.

Build urgency gradually and combine every warning with a clear course of action.

Most importantly, lead with conviction.

The team will be watching the leader very closely. If we communicate fear and desperation, they will absorb it. If we communicate determination, confidence and belief in our ability to succeed, that will spread too.

We don't have to do it all by ourselves.

Our people are there to fight shoulder to shoulder with us.

But the leader has to lead.

Our very essence, our ki, has to communicate the conviction that we are going to succeed.

Author Bio

Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie "One Carnegie Award" (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across leadership, communication, sales and presentation programmes, including Leadership Training for Results.

He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban "Hito o Ugokasu" Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー).

Greg also publishes daily business insights on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, and hosts six weekly podcasts. On YouTube, he produces The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan's Top Business Interviews, which are widely followed by executives seeking success strategies in Japan.

In Part One, we looked at Dr Emily Anhalt's research with 100 leaders and 100 psychologists. She identified seven factors that help measure how emotionally "fit" we are.

We covered the first three: learning our emotional triggers and biases, understanding the emotions of others and finding comfort in discomfort.

Now we come to the remaining four.

These move us from understanding ourselves toward something even more challenging: building meaningful connections, recovering from setbacks, asking others for help and actually implementing what we learn.

That last point may be the toughest of them all.

Why do leaders need a psychologically safe space outside work?

Leaders need relationships and environments where they can relax, lower their guard and simply be themselves.Constantly operating as "the boss" without somewhere psychologically safe to decompress can leave leaders increasingly isolated.

"Psychological safety" has become a familiar term in business, but leaders need it too.

Ideally, that safe space may come from family and close friends. Here is the rub: leaders are often so busy working that they don't invest enough time in developing those relationships.

I put my hand up for this one.

I am in permanent imbalance trying to get the balance right.

Work projects continually compete with family, friendships, hobbies and interests. For those of us working in Japan, there can be an additional complication because we may be thousands of kilometres away from the friends and colleagues we grew up with.

Isolation isn't a good long-term leadership strategy.

Do now: Deliberately invest time in family, friendships, hobbies and interests where you can stop being "the boss" and simply be yourself.

How can leaders bounce forward after failure and setbacks?

Emotionally fit leaders don't erase failure; they acknowledge what happened, extract what they can learn and refuse to let the past control their future. The objective isn't merely to bounce back but to bounce forward.

Being positive sounds easy.

We tell ourselves that failures aren't really failures. They are opportunities to grow and learn.

Except we often don't behave that way.

Instead, we beat ourselves up and keep replaying the video of the disaster in our minds. We remember what we said, what we should have done and how badly things turned out.

That mental replay starts interfering with the work sitting in front of us.

Our confidence shrinks. We take fewer risks. Our world of possibilities becomes smaller.

The memory may remain, but we don't have to continually feed it with worry.

That was then.

This is now.

Do now: When an old failure returns to your mind, acknowledge it, capture the lesson and consciously return your attention to what you can influence today.

How can leaders stop worrying about mistakes from the past?

Being unhappy about something that happened is different from repeatedly worrying about it. We may not control when an unpleasant memory appears, but we can work on whether we allow it to dominate our thinking.

This distinction is important.

We cannot magically remove painful memories. They have an irritating habit of popping up whether invited or not.

The question is what happens next.

Instead of climbing aboard the mental train and travelling all the way back into the disaster, note what happened and move on.

"Yes, that happened."

"Yes, I wish I had handled it differently."

"Yes, I learned something."

And then stop.

The circumstances have changed. You have changed. The world has moved on.

Leadership requires enough emotional capacity to deal with today's problems without continually dragging yesterday's problems along behind us.

Do now: Note the memory without feeding the worry. Extract the lesson, recognise that circumstances have changed and return your attention to the present.

Why should leaders express their needs and ask for support?

Modern leadership is too complex for the old heroic model in which the boss is expected to know everything, need nothing and solve every problem alone. Emotionally fit leaders recognise when they need support and are willing to ask for it.

I grew up in macho Australia.

The strong, silent type was the model. If you had needs, you sorted them out yourself. Feelings were kept safely out of sight.

Asking for help? Forget it.

The assumption was that rivals would despise you, bosses wouldn't trust you and your team wouldn't follow you if they detected vulnerability.

Business today is different.

Technology, speed and complexity have made the heroic boss a relic from another era. There is simply too much going on for one person to possess all the answers.

I tell my son not to be like Dad. Ask people for support and help. Don't imagine you have to do everything yourself like I did.

Do now: Identify one area where you are unnecessarily carrying the load alone and ask someone you trust for help, advice or support.

Should leaders show vulnerability and share their feelings?

Leaders can acknowledge that they are imperfect and still retain authority, but vulnerability requires judgement about what to share, how to share it and with whom.

Sharing feelings is tricky territory.

I don't think the answer is for the boss to suddenly unload every insecurity and emotional difficulty onto the team. Leaders still have responsibilities and their behaviour affects everyone around them.

We should be careful who we trust and how we express what we are feeling.

But there is nothing wrong with acknowledging that we are not perfect.

In fact, telling the team that we are still a work in progress can be healthy.

Leadership authority doesn't require pretending we have achieved some mythical state of perfection.

The team already knows we haven't.

Appropriate honesty can make the leader more human and strengthen trust.

Do now: Don't confuse leadership authority with pretending to be perfect. Use appropriate vulnerability to demonstrate self-awareness while maintaining your responsibility as the leader.

How should leaders respond to negative feedback?

Leaders should separate the useful information contained in feedback from the poor delivery, emotional language or invective surrounding it. Feedback can be painful, but even badly delivered criticism may contain something worth learning.

The problem is that very few people have actually been trained to give feedback properly.

So we are constantly being hammered by amateurs.

They may choose the wrong words, the wrong timing and the wrong tone. They may bundle useful observations together with exaggeration, emotion or personal criticism.

Our natural response is to reject the whole thing.

That can be a mistake.

Instead, parse it.

What part might be accurate?

What can I learn?

What should I change?

Then discard the rest and ignore the invective.

Emotional fitness means becoming capable of extracting value even when the package it arrives in isn't particularly attractive.

Do now: The next time you receive uncomfortable feedback, separate its content from its delivery and look deliberately for the useful 5% hiding inside.

How can leaders actually implement what they learn?

Leadership development only creates value when learning changes behaviour, so leaders need to concentrate on a small number of high-impact actions rather than trying to implement everything.

If only this were as easy as it sounds.

We are creatures of habit and we all love change.

The problem is we love change in other people.

We want the organisation to change, the boss to change, the clients to change and the team to change.

Meanwhile, we would prefer to stay exactly as we are.

I have accumulated thousands of pages of notes over the years. But how much of everything I have learned have I actually implemented in my work and life?

That is the uncomfortable question.

The answer isn't trying to do everything.

Use the Pareto Principle. Better still, use the Pareto Principle of the Pareto Principle.

Find the 4% of actions that could generate 64% of the results you are after.

Do now: Stop trying to implement every good idea. Identify the tiny number of actions capable of producing disproportionate improvement and start there.

Emotional Fitness Has To Become Daily Behaviour

The seven emotional fitness factors provide us with a useful framework, but frameworks don't change anything by themselves.

We do.

Across Parts One and Two, we have looked at seven areas:

Learn your emotional triggers and biases.

Understand the emotions of others.

Find comfort in discomfort.

Foster a safe space of connection.

Bounce forward from failure and setbacks.

Express needs, feelings and feedback.

Implement what you have learned into your daily life.

The temptation is to read a list like this, nod wisely and then return immediately to doing everything exactly as we were doing it before.

That is the trap.

We don't need to transform all seven areas tomorrow morning.

Start smaller.

Keep the list handy and look at it every day. Choose one area and consciously practise it.

Maybe today you use a cushion before reacting to someone who pushes your Hot Button.

Tomorrow you deliberately listen more carefully to someone else.

The next day you ask for help instead of trying to solve everything yourself.

Or perhaps you finally take one useful idea from the thousands of pages of notes you have accumulated and actually implement it.

If you have more bandwidth, identify the 20% of actions capable of producing 80% of the results you need.

But start somewhere.

Emotional fitness, like physical fitness, doesn't come from knowing what exercises exist.

It comes from doing the exercises.

Author Bio

Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie "One Carnegie Award" (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across leadership, communication, sales and presentation programmes, including Leadership Training for Results.

He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban "Hito o Ugokasu" Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー).

Greg also publishes daily business insights on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, and hosts six weekly podcasts. On YouTube, he produces The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan's Top Business Interviews, which are widely followed by executives seeking success strategies in Japan.

Dr Emily Anhalt is an American psychologist who developed the concept of a gym for mental health after researching 100 leaders and 100 psychologists who treated leaders. From that work, she identified seven factors for assessing how emotionally "fit" we are.

That concept should get every leader's attention.

Does anyone seriously believe leadership is going to become easier, slower and less stressful? I certainly don't.

Many of us grew up in the "harden up" era. Soldier on. Suck it up. Grit your teeth and bear it. That approach may have got us through previous decades, but today's leaders operate amid vastly greater technological change, business speed, global connectivity and organisational complexity.

We spend considerable time thinking about physical fitness. Perhaps we need to start taking our emotional fitness just as seriously.

In Part One, let's look at three areas: understanding our emotional triggers and biases, recognising the emotions of others, and finding comfort in discomfort.

Why do leaders need emotional fitness?

Leaders need emotional fitness because greater business complexity and pressure place constant demands on how they respond to stress, conflict and other people. Leadership isn't becoming less stressful, so relying purely on toughness and endurance is unlikely to be enough.

Previous generations often celebrated the leader who simply pushed through every difficulty. There is certainly value in resilience, but emotional fitness requires more than enduring pressure.

Leaders influence everyone around them.

When the boss becomes angry, defensive or frustrated, the impact spreads through the team. When the leader remains composed, listens and responds thoughtfully, that behaviour also influences everyone.

The objective isn't to eliminate emotion. That would be impossible and probably undesirable.

The objective is to become more conscious of our emotional responses and more skilful in determining what happens next.

Like physical fitness, this requires practice.

Do now: Start treating your emotional responses as a leadership capability that can be deliberately strengthened rather than simply accepting, "That's just the way I am."

How can leaders identify and manage their emotional triggers?

Leaders need to recognise the "Hot Buttons" that trigger emotional reactions and learn to create a small gap between the trigger and their response. That gap can be enough to prevent an impulsive reaction becoming an unnecessary conflict.

This is familiar territory for me because I teach a course called Disagree Agreeably. We examine the triggers that get the temper rising, blood pressure pulsing and body heat climbing rapidly.

My wife assures me my temper is getting shorter as I get older. She is probably correct. There never seems to be any shortage of things capable of irritating us.

The important point is that we may not be able to prevent the irritation.

What we can work on is our response.

Rather than allowing the emotional trigger to immediately produce an emotional reaction, insert what I call a cushion.

That gives the brain a chance to catch up with the mouth.

Do now: Identify your recurring Hot Buttons. Knowing what regularly sets you off gives you a better chance of controlling what happens when someone presses one.

How can leaders stop themselves reacting emotionally in difficult conversations?

A short, neutral "cushion" statement can act as a circuit breaker between an irritating comment and the leader's response. The purpose isn't to agree with the other person; it is to buy enough time to choose a considered response.

Suppose somebody says something that immediately gets your blood boiling.

Our natural tendency may be to fire straight back.

Instead, try saying something like:

"Thank you for raising this topic. It is an important one."

That takes me about four or five seconds to say.

Those few seconds can be enormously valuable. They give me time to overrule the impulse to launch forth with the first thing that pops into my head and instead find a more considered response to whatever nonsense my interlocutor has been sprouting.

The cushion neither diminishes the issue nor inflames it.

It simply creates space.

Do now: Prepare one or two neutral cushion statements in advance so you don't have to invent them when somebody has already pushed your Hot Button.

Why should leaders try harder to understand the emotions of others?

Leaders should remember that people's behaviour may be influenced by pressures and problems we know absolutely nothing about. A little more empathy can help us respond with greater patience rather than immediately judging someone against our expectations.

There is a saying I have always liked: "Remember everyone in life is carrying a heavy load."

I was reminded of this while recovering in hospital from a near-death experience with pneumonia after spending six days in the Intensive Care Unit.

It gave me plenty of time to reflect.

One conclusion was that I should become less judgmental and less intolerant of other people.

We see wealthy, famous and prominent people who appear to possess everything, yet their lives can still be filled with difficulties. Money and status don't insulate anyone from trouble.

Their heavy load may simply look different from ours.

Do now: When somebody's behaviour irritates you, remind yourself that they may be carrying a heavy load you cannot see.

What does empathy mean for leaders in everyday situations?

Leadership empathy means allowing for the possibility that there is more behind someone's behaviour than the behaviour we can immediately observe. It doesn't mean accepting poor performance or abandoning standards.

Leaders naturally have expectations.

We expect people to behave professionally, deliver their work, communicate appropriately and honour their commitments. When they don't, frustration can arrive very quickly.

But what if we don't know the whole story?

An employee may be dealing with family problems, financial pressure, relationship difficulties or other burdens they don't want to discuss at work. A colleague who seems unusually abrupt may have something serious happening elsewhere in their life.

We don't have to become amateur psychologists or pry into everyone's private affairs.

We can simply resist immediately assuming the worst.

Remembering that "everyone in life is carrying a heavy load" creates a small mental adjustment.

That adjustment may produce a much better leadership response.

Do now: Maintain your standards, but add curiosity and empathy before jumping to conclusions about why someone is behaving as they are.

How can leaders become more comfortable with discomfort?

Comfort with discomfort develops gradually by accepting short-term difficulty in pursuit of a larger goal. We don't suddenly become comfortable with difficult situations; we progressively strengthen our ability to deal with them.

Human beings are naturally wired to avoid discomfort. Just look at the enormous number of gadgets designed to make our lives easier.

Karate offers an interesting example.

Dojo around the world can struggle to attract students because training involves discomfort. Sitting on the sofa playing video games is certainly easier.

I started Karate training when I was 17. Initially, the biggest problem wasn't discomfort. It was confusion. I wasn't coordinated enough or skilled enough to do difficult things.

As I progressed through the ranks, I became capable of increasingly complex techniques.

That was when the discomfort factor really took off.

But something else happened.

I was getting faster, stronger and better.

The improvement became worth the discomfort.

Do now: Don't try to move from zero to one hundred. Gradually expose yourself to difficult situations and build your discomfort muscle over time.

Emotional Fitness Is A Leadership Muscle

Emotional fitness isn't about becoming emotionless.

It is about becoming better at recognising what is happening inside ourselves and understanding what may be happening inside other people.

First, learn your emotional triggers.

Know your Hot Buttons and create a cushion between stimulus and response. Those four or five seconds may be all you need to stop emotion hijacking the conversation.

Second, remember that everyone is carrying a heavy load.

You may never know what is happening in someone else's life. That doesn't mean abandoning standards, but it may mean approaching people with a little more empathy and a little less immediate judgement.

Third, become comfortable with discomfort.

Like Karate training, emotional fitness develops progressively. We accept difficulty because there is something worthwhile on the other side.

Leaders already understand the importance of physical fitness. We know muscles have to be exercised if they are going to become stronger.

Our emotional muscles are no different.

And given the speed, complexity and pressures surrounding modern leadership, we are going to need them.

In Part Two, we will continue exploring emotional fitness and look at bouncing forward from failure and setbacks, expressing needs, feelings and feedback, and implementing what we have learned into daily life.

Author Bio

Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie "One Carnegie Award" (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across leadership, communication, sales and presentation programmes, including Leadership Training for Results.

He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban "Hito o Ugokasu" Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー).

Greg also publishes daily business insights on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, and hosts six weekly podcasts. On YouTube, he produces The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan's Top Business Interviews, which are widely followed by executives seeking success strategies in Japan.

We are all exposed to leadership lessons throughout our lives, yet most of the time we don't even realise it.

As children, adults were the authority figures and we simply accepted that they were in charge. In sport, perhaps we became team captain or perhaps we didn't, but we weren't analysing what successful leadership actually meant. At university, we may have taken responsibility for a club or activity without consciously thinking about the intricacies of leading people.

Then we enter the workforce and everything changes.

Suddenly there are hierarchies, different levels of responsibility and designated leadership positions. Eventually we may be promoted into one of them.

The interesting question is: who actually taught us how to lead?

For many leaders, the answer is nobody.

Why are so many people promoted into leadership without being taught how to lead?

Organisations frequently promote people because they are successful at their existing jobs, then expect them to work out leadership for themselves. The responsibilities change dramatically, but structured leadership development doesn't necessarily arrive with the promotion.

We enter companies at junior levels and gradually accumulate experience and successes. Eventually we are trusted with a project, then perhaps a small team and later a whole section.

Suddenly we are responsible for other people's performance.

Yet we may never have received any leadership training.

We are somehow expected to know how to motivate people, communicate expectations, delegate work, handle mistakes, make decisions and develop team members simply because somebody changed our job title.

That is quite an assumption.

Being technically good at your job and being good at leading other people are completely different skill sets.

Do now: Before promoting someone into leadership, ask what specific preparation they have received for actually leading people.

Where do new leaders learn their leadership behaviours?

Most new leaders unconsciously assemble their leadership style from people they have observed throughout their lives. Parents, teachers, sports coaches, classmates and previous bosses all become part of an informal leadership education.

The problem is that we probably weren't consciously studying these people.

We simply absorbed their behaviour.

A boss who micromanaged everything may have taught us that leaders should control people closely. Another boss may have demonstrated trust and delegation. A sports coach may have taught us about discipline, while a teacher showed us encouragement.

Eventually we cobble these influences together into our own disparate, idiosyncratic form of leadership.

There may be some excellent components in there.

There may also be some terrible ones.

Most importantly, there is no guarantee that our collection of inherited leadership behaviours contains everything we actually need.

Do now: Examine where your assumptions about leadership came from and decide which behaviours deserve to be retained, changed or discarded.

When does a manager become a serious student of leadership?

The turning point comes when leaders realise that trial and error isn't enough and consciously decide to study leadership as a professional discipline. This creates a major dividing line between leaders.

Some simply keep going.

They rely on experience, instinct and whatever leadership behaviours they have accumulated. They make mistakes, adjust and try again. Their organisation may reinforce this approach by refusing to invest in leadership development and expecting managers to work everything out themselves.

Others eventually realise there is much more to leadership than they originally imagined.

They start searching.

They read books. They watch videos. They listen to podcasts. They study successful leaders and begin looking for structured approaches to the challenges they encounter.

That change in mindset is critical.

The leader stops thinking, "I should already know this," and starts asking, "What do I still need to learn?"

Do now: Treat leadership development as an ongoing professional responsibility rather than something you were supposed to magically acquire when you were promoted.

Can leaders teach themselves using books, podcasts and online content?

Today's leaders have extraordinary access to leadership knowledge, so there is little excuse for relying entirely on trial and error. Books, podcasts, videos, articles and online resources make leadership ideas more accessible than at any previous point.

I am part of that content creator army myself. I produce podcasts, articles, social media content and books on business, selling and leading in Japan.

The broader point is that aspiring leaders can now access enormous amounts of leadership information.

The challenge is no longer finding information.

It is selecting useful information and then actually applying it.

Reading twenty books on delegation doesn't automatically make you good at delegating. Listening to a podcast on coaching doesn't mean you can conduct an effective coaching conversation tomorrow morning.

Self-study is valuable, but knowledge has to be converted into behaviour.

Do now: Build leadership learning into your routine, but always ask how you will apply each useful idea to a real situation with your team.

Why do leaders need practical training as well as executive education?

Strategic executive education and practical leadership training solve different problems, and effective leaders need both perspectives. One helps you fly the plane at 30,000 feet; the other helps you deal with the mud and the blood of everyday leadership.

I have been fortunate to attend executive courses at Harvard, Stanford and INSEAD business schools. These were great experiences and valuable opportunities to examine business and leadership from a broad strategic perspective.

But leaders also need immediately implementable skills.

How do you encourage innovation?

How do you communicate effectively?

How do you plan?

How do you handle mistakes?

How do you delegate?

How do you make decisions?

How do you conduct performance reviews?

How do you coach and develop people?

These are not abstract leadership concepts. They are the nuts and bolts of the job.

Do now: Balance high-level strategic development with practical training that improves what you actually do with your people every day.

Why is practical leadership training so valuable?

Practical leadership training is powerful because participants apply broad structures to their own real-world challenges rather than merely analysing somebody else's case study.

University and business school case studies can be fascinating. They expose us to complex situations and force us to analyse how other organisations and leaders responded.

The difficulty is translating somebody else's case into your daily reality.

Practical leadership programmes can reverse the process. Instead of giving everyone the same case, they provide frameworks and structures and ask participants to apply them to their own situations.

Two leaders from the same company and industry may therefore produce completely different answers because each is dealing with a different leadership reality.

There is another benefit: your classmates.

Their successes, failures and experiences provide ideas you may never have considered. Leadership development becomes a shared learning process rather than an isolated intellectual exercise.

Do now: Choose leadership development that forces you to apply concepts immediately to the actual people and situations you are responsible for leading.

The Best Leaders Never Stop Being Leadership Students

Leadership isn't automatically bestowed on us when we receive a new title.

The promotion may give us authority. It may give us a larger salary, a bigger office or a more impressive business card.

None of those things guarantees we know how to lead.

Most of us begin with an improvised leadership model assembled from the people we have observed throughout our lives. We then add our own successes, mistakes and experiences.

That can take us some distance.

But modern business is too complex to rely indefinitely on trial and error.

At some point, every serious leader has to become a serious student of leadership.

Read the books. Listen to the podcasts. Watch the videos. Study other leaders. Learn from colleagues. Seek out teachers. Take practical courses. Examine your own behaviour and constantly ask what you could be doing better.

And don't restrict your development to theory.

Learn how to communicate, delegate, innovate, coach, plan, make decisions, conduct performance reviews, handle mistakes and develop people.

These are the daily realities of leadership.

The title "leader" may have been given to you by the organisation.

Actually becoming one is your responsibility.

When the leadership student is ready, the teacher appears.

Author Bio

Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie "One Carnegie Award" (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across leadership, communication, sales and presentation programmes, including Leadership Training for Results.

He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban "Hito o Ugokasu" Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー).

Greg also publishes daily business insights on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, and hosts six weekly podcasts. On YouTube, he produces The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan's Top Business Interviews, which are widely followed by executives seeking success strategies in Japan.

Covid changed the relationship between employees, offices and commuting, particularly in cities such as Tokyo. For many people, working from home eliminated hours spent standing in packed trains every day. That time could suddenly be spent sleeping, exercising, enjoying hobbies, being with the family or simply getting more work done.

The bigger leadership question is what happens when working from home stops being an emergency response and becomes a permanent part of working life.

Hybrid work brings obvious benefits, but it also removes many of the informal interactions leaders once took for granted. That means leaders need to deliberately create opportunities to spend real, face-to-face time with their people.

One surprisingly powerful answer may be very simple: have more meals with the team.

Why do leaders need more face-to-face time in a hybrid workplace?

Hybrid and remote work reduce the spontaneous personal interactions through which leaders often discover what is really happening with their people. Zoom, Teams and other online meetings are excellent for conducting business, but not every workplace issue fits comfortably into a scheduled video call.

When everyone worked in the office, leaders had numerous opportunities to notice things. A brief corridor conversation, a chat after a meeting or a spontaneous discussion could reveal concerns that would never warrant someone scheduling a formal meeting with the boss.

Hybrid work removes many of those moments.

That matters because employees may be dealing with difficult clients, strained relationships with colleagues, concerns about their boss or other sensitive workplace issues. If there isn't an easy opportunity to raise them, people may simply keep quiet and let the problem fester.

Do now: Don't assume that because nobody is raising problems on Zoom, there aren't any problems. Deliberately create opportunities for private face-to-face conversations.

Why can sharing a meal improve communication between leaders and employees?

A meal creates a more relaxed environment than a formal meeting and can make difficult conversations easier to begin. Lunch or dinner changes the atmosphere and gives the leader and employee time together without a computer screen dominating the interaction.

The objective isn't fine dining. The important ingredient is communication.

This is especially valuable when discussing tender subjects such as difficult customers, problems with colleagues or frustrations inside the organisation. Sitting opposite the boss in a meeting room and being expected to explain a sensitive issue can feel intimidating.

A restaurant creates a different dynamic. The conversation can move naturally between work and other topics. Silence doesn't have to be immediately filled. The employee has time to decide whether there is something they want to discuss.

The leader also gets something increasingly scarce in the hybrid workplace: uninterrupted one-to-one time.

Do now: Use occasional lunches and dinners as leadership opportunities rather than treating every employee conversation as another formal meeting.

Why don't important employee issues always surface on Zoom?

Employees naturally filter what they discuss in formal online meetings, so leaders can mistakenly believe they know more about what is happening inside their organisation than they actually do.

This is one of the troubling things about those chance encounters when someone suddenly tells you what has really been going on.

You find yourself thinking, "I wonder what else I am not across, which I need to know about?"

Online meetings generally have an agenda and a purpose. Everyone knows why they are there. Sensitive issues don't necessarily fit neatly between agenda items.

There is also a psychological difference between clicking "Join Meeting" for a scheduled discussion with the boss and gradually raising an issue during a relaxed conversation over lunch.

Leaders therefore need to think preventatively rather than reactively.

Don't wait until the employee requests the meeting because the situation has become unbearable.

Do now: Ask yourself what information your current communication system is unlikely to uncover, rather than assuming scheduled meetings are telling you everything.

How often should leaders have meals with their team members?

Meals with employees work best when they become a regular leadership cadence rather than occasional events triggered by problems. The objective is to systemise informal communication before issues become serious.

Birthdays can provide one opportunity. Taking someone to lunch on their birthday is a nice recognition element within the team culture and creates natural one-to-one time.

But once a year isn't enough.

Leaders should consider regularly rotating through their direct reports. There may also be important people outside the direct reporting line who would benefit from occasional one-to-one time.

This doesn't need to become an expensive corporate entertainment programme. You have to eat lunch anyway. The restaurant doesn't need Michelin stars, and the meeting doesn't necessarily need to take place near the office.

In a hybrid environment, a mutually convenient location may actually be easier for both people.

Do now: Create a simple rotation so every direct report receives regular informal face-to-face time rather than waiting for chance encounters.

How can leaders make employee lunches psychologically safe?

The lunch must feel like a genuine conversation, not an interrogation disguised by food. Leaders need to create an atmosphere where employees feel they can speak openly if they want to, without feeling pressured to reveal something.

Sometimes nothing magical will emerge.

That doesn't mean the lunch was wasted. Simply spending relaxed time together can strengthen trust, and trust may make a future conversation possible.

I once spent an hour sitting in silence in a small meeting room with a female employee in her early twenties. She was experiencing a problem involving her boss, who was more than 50 years old.

Eventually she told me, "I can't tell you the problem."

That was that.

I still don't know what the issue was. But I have often wondered whether getting out of the office and talking over a meal might have made it easier for her to open up.

Do now: Don't measure the success of the meal by how much information you extract. Measure it by whether you are strengthening the relationship and building trust.

Can regular face-to-face contact help leaders retain employees?

Strong personal relationships with leaders can become increasingly important for retention when talented employees have plenty of alternative employment opportunities. Recruiters are actively looking for people who might be persuaded to leave their current employer.

If the leader has little personal contact with team members, problems can grow unnoticed.

By the time the leader discovers the employee is unhappy, a recruiter may already be having the conversations the leader should have been having.

That doesn't mean lunch is some magical retention technique. Employees leave organisations for many reasons, including compensation, career development, management quality and better opportunities.

But regular personal contact gives leaders a better chance of understanding what is happening before the resignation letter arrives.

There is a simple competitive reality here. Someone may be prepared to spend time building a relationship with your best people.

It would be smart if that someone were you.

Do now: Treat regular personal contact as part of leadership and retention, rather than waiting for the annual engagement survey to discover how people feel.

Leadership in the Hybrid Workplace Requires Deliberate Human Contact

Hybrid work has changed many of the assumptions leaders previously made about communication.

When everyone was in the office, relationships could develop through dozens of small interactions. Leaders could observe behaviour, have spontaneous conversations and notice when something didn't seem right.

Those opportunities are much less reliable when people are working remotely.

Leaders therefore need to deliberately recreate some of the human contact that disappeared when the workforce left the office.

That doesn't mean dragging everyone back into the building five days a week just so the boss can see them.

It means finding intelligent ways to create meaningful face-to-face contact.

A regular lunch with direct reports is hardly a revolutionary management technology. It is simple, inexpensive and easy to organise.

The critical point is the purpose behind it.

Don't interrogate people. Don't turn lunch into another performance review. Don't arrive with a checklist of questions and start taking notes between courses.

Have a conversation.

Listen.

Build trust.

Give people the space to tell you what is happening — including the things they would never raise on Zoom.

In a hybrid workplace, your employees are going to have lunch with someone.

Better that it is occasionally you rather than the recruiter trying to lift them out of your shop.

Author Bio

Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie "One Carnegie Award" (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across leadership, communication, sales and presentation programmes, including Leadership Training for Results.

He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban "Hito o Ugokasu" Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー).

Greg also publishes daily business insights on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, and hosts six weekly podcasts. On YouTube, he produces The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan's Top Business Interviews, which are widely followed by executives seeking success strategies in Japan.

Leadership encompasses many required skills and mindsets, and it is always interesting to dissect the topic from fresh angles. One particularly important issue in Japan is the relationship between strategy, organisational culture and brand.

Japan has hordes of managers, but not so many leaders. Managers here are often brilliant at getting the operational side humming like a finely tuned engine. Errors are eliminated, defects avoided, deadlines met and processes followed.

Leadership requires all of that — plus some important additions. Leaders build the people, set the direction and create the environment in which strategy, culture and brand reinforce each other.

What is the difference between management and leadership in Japan?

Management keeps the machine running; leadership decides where the machine is going and develops the people who will get it there. Japanese organisations are particularly strong at operational management, consistency, quality control and execution.

The problem comes when excellent management is mistaken for leadership. Leaders need to explain not only what must be achieved and how to achieve it, but also why it matters. They develop people rather than merely supervising them.

This becomes increasingly important when employees are expected to contribute ideas, solve problems and respond quickly to customers. A boss who simply issues orders may achieve compliance. A leader who gives direction, explains the purpose and develops the team can create commitment.

Do now: Ask yourself whether your managers are merely controlling execution or whether they are also building people and setting direction.

How should leaders translate corporate strategy into action?

Corporate strategy should not stop at the Executive Floor. Each level of leadership needs to translate the overall strategy into a local strategy that makes sense to its own team and customers.

The CEO and Division Heads may establish the broad organisational direction, but that cannot be the end of the process. Section and team leaders should take that umbrella strategy and ask their people: "What does this mean for us?"

This is where many Japanese organisations leave considerable potential untapped. Those at the coal face are closest to customers. They detect the nuances, hints and shifts occurring in the marketplace every day.

Senior executives may have decades of experience, but they can also be decades removed from direct customer interaction. Their market muscle memory may no longer reflect what customers are saying today.

Do now: Break the corporate strategy down with your team and create a local version that directly connects their work and customer knowledge to the organisation's larger goals.

Why should employees be involved in creating local strategy?

The people closest to customers often possess information senior management simply cannot see, so involving them improves both strategy and execution. Strategy becomes stronger when frontline knowledge flows upward rather than instructions only flowing downward.

Instead of section heads receiving a strategy and merely distributing orders, imagine them gathering the team and collectively breaking down what the corporate direction means for their part of the business.

What are customers changing? What are competitors doing differently? Where are expectations moving? What opportunities are appearing?

This approach does something else as well: it gives employees ownership. There is an enormous difference between being told to execute somebody else's plan and helping to determine how your team will achieve the desired result.

The overall strategic direction remains intact, but the execution benefits from current market intelligence.

Do now: Consult the people closest to the action before deciding exactly how your section will execute the corporate strategy.

How does leadership behaviour shape organisational culture?

Culture is created by what leaders repeatedly do, tolerate, reward and encourage — not by slogans distributed from headquarters. If the culture is based on "do what you are told", creativity will inevitably be sacrificed for orthodoxy and supposedly defect-free efficiency.

Busy lower-level bosses often say they have no time to coach. Instead, they bark orders and micromanage results because they are determined to avoid mistakes appearing on their record.

Internal politics can make things even worse. In large organisations, senior patrons gather supporters and loyalty becomes a tax employees pay in exchange for promotion and protection. Suddenly the enemy isn't the commercial rival outside the company. It is another division whose boss happens to be your boss's competitor for the next promotion.

That turns enormous amounts of organisational energy inward.

Do now: Create a culture where ideas are actively sought, people are thanked for contributing and the real competitive enemy remains outside the enterprise.

What does leadership have to do with corporate and personal brand?

Brand is much more than the company logo or tagline; it is the accumulated experience of how people inside the organisation think, behave and work. Leadership therefore plays a direct role in determining whether the brand promise is credible.

A strong internal brand is reflected in professionalism, reliability, creativity and integrity. Employees should feel that putting forward ideas is part of the brand. Being listened to should be part of the brand too.

That creates a very different organisation from the old "all hands to the oars of the slave ship" model. Beating the drum harder and lashing the oar bearers may create activity, but it will not create committed people or a compelling organisational brand.

Professional personal brands matter as well. Employees build reputations through how reliably, creatively and professionally they perform their work.

Do now: Stop treating brand as a Marketing Department responsibility. Examine whether everyday leadership behaviour actually reinforces the brand you claim to represent.

How can leaders align personal values with organisational values?

Values cannot be embedded through a CEO email; middle-level leaders have to connect organisational values with what genuinely matters to individual team members. Alignment requires conversation rather than corporate broadcasting.

The leader first needs to understand the values of the people in the team. What matters to them? What type of professional do they want to become? What principles guide how they approach their work?

The next step is finding common ground between those personal values and the values the organisation claims to represent.

When rhetoric and reality match, employees can become proud of what their company stands for. They are also more likely to invest in improving their own professional brand because self-development is encouraged rather than merely demanded.

The slave ship is transformed into a volunteer corps of committed people trying to beat competitors in the marketplace.

Do now: Discuss values individually with team members and identify where personal ambitions, professional standards and organisational values genuinely intersect.

Bringing Strategy, Culture and Brand Together

Strategy, culture and brand should not operate as three disconnected corporate initiatives.

Strategy establishes where the organisation is going. Culture determines how people behave while getting there. Brand becomes the internal and external expression of what the organisation actually stands for.

Leadership is the mixing agent.

When leaders explain the WHY, involve people in translating enterprise strategy into local action, encourage ideas, coach their teams and align individual values with organisational values, the three elements start reinforcing each other.

So how does your organisation compare?

Do your people actually understand the strategy? Have they created a local extension of it based on their knowledge of customers? Does information genuinely flow from the top down and the bottom up? Are people encouraged to contribute ideas? Are they conscious of their own professional brands? And does the lived culture match the brand rhetoric?

If not, there is work to do.

So, how is the cocktail mixing process going down at your shop?

Author Bio

Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie "One Carnegie Award" (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across leadership, communication, sales and presentation programmes, including Leadership Training for Results.

He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban "Hito o Ugokasu" Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー).

Greg also publishes daily business insights on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, and hosts six weekly podcasts. On YouTube, he produces The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan's Top Business Interviews, which are widely followed by executives seeking success strategies in Japan.

A new leader can arrive looking and sounding like the organisation's long-awaited saviour. They are articulate, confident, well presented and comfortable in the media. They say all the right things, reflect the mood of the moment and promise a brighter future.

Then a crisis arrives.

That is when employees discover whether the leader's values are genuine principles or merely attractive public relations material. Leadership integrity is not established by speeches, slogans or podcast appearances. It is revealed when revenues fall, difficult decisions must be made and the leader has something personal to lose.

How does a crisis reveal a leader's true character?

A crisis exposes the distance between what a leader says and what they are genuinely prepared to do.

During stable periods, almost anyone can sound positive, caring and principled. The organisation is performing, customers are buying and the leader can talk confidently about people, purpose and long-term growth.

The COVID-19 pandemic changed that environment almost overnight. Workforces were disrupted, markets moved rapidly and revenue disappeared across industries. Similar pressures emerge during recessions, restructures, acquisitions and technological disruption.

A leader facing these conditions has difficult choices to make. Cost reductions may be unavoidable. Roles may disappear. Services may need to change. The integrity test is not whether the leader can prevent every painful decision. It is whether they explain those decisions honestly, accept responsibility and treat people with dignity.

Do now: Judge leadership character by behaviour under pressure, not by appearances during comfortable times.

Why do unrealistic promises destroy leadership credibility?

Employees stop trusting leaders when operational reality clearly contradicts executive promises.

A familiar example is the leader who announces substantial staffing reductions while promising that service quality, response times and output levels will remain exactly the same. This may reassure customers or investors temporarily, but it insults the intelligence of the people doing the work.

I witnessed this while working for the Australian Government. A Minister announced a major departmental budget reduction while assuring voters that services would continue normally. Staff immediately recognised the contradiction. His credibility collapsed and motivation inside the organisation dropped.

The same dynamic applies in private companies, government departments, startups and multinational corporations. Most organisations already operate with limited spare capacity. When experienced people leave, something changes: workloads increase, delivery slows, quality suffers or priorities must be reduced.

Leaders do not lose credibility because conditions become difficult. They lose it when they pretend that obvious consequences do not exist.

Do now: Explain what will change, what will be protected and what the organisation can no longer realistically deliver.

What happens when leadership rhetoric and reality diverge?

When words and actions repeatedly conflict, employees begin treating every leadership message with scepticism.

A leader may initially build trust through visibility, confident communication and appealing statements about organisational values. Under financial pressure, however, they may become highly legalistic, using contracts, policies and technical rules to justify behaviour that violates the spirit of earlier commitments.

Compliance with a contract does not automatically equal ethical leadership. Something can be legally defensible and still feel misleading, unfair or inconsistent with the trust previously established.

The problem becomes worse when leaders insist that nothing has changed. Employees compare announcements with their daily experience. They see colleagues disappearing, resources shrinking and expectations remaining untouched. When management attempts to disguise this reality, people feel both unhappy and insulted.

This gap between rhetoric and reality creates cynicism. Employees begin interpreting every new announcement as spin, even when later messages are accurate.

Do now: Before communicating, ask whether employees can see clear evidence that your actions match your stated principles.

Can a leader control damaging information by speaking to people individually?

Isolating employees and controlling conversations rarely contains a credibility crisis because people compare experiences.

A leader may attempt to minimise organisational damage by dealing with affected employees separately. Each person receives a slightly different explanation, and management hopes no one will assemble the complete picture.

That approach almost never works.

People talk to colleagues, former employees, customers, suppliers and professional contacts. In Japan, Australia, the United States or Europe, informal communication networks often move faster than official corporate communication. Bad news travels rapidly, particularly when employees believe information is being deliberately withheld.

Once inconsistencies emerge, every executive announcement is examined for hidden meaning. The leader may continue appearing in the media, issuing press releases and offering wise commentary about business or society. Inside the company, however, those words ring hollow.

The external brand and the internal leadership reputation have separated. No amount of polished communication can permanently conceal that gap.

Do now: Assume employees will compare information and communicate one consistent, honest account from the beginning.

Why is lost leadership trust so difficult to rebuild?

Once employees conclude that a leader lacks integrity, even truthful statements may no longer be believed.

Trust develops through repeated evidence that a leader's words, decisions and values are aligned. It can take years to build and only a handful of contradictory actions to destroy.

When credibility disappears, rumours fill the vacuum. Genuine facts mix with fear, exaggeration, fantasy and speculation. Previously overlooked behaviour is re-examined and minor concerns acquire greater significance. Employees begin to wonder what else is being concealed.

This is why public relations cannot repair a fundamentally internal leadership failure. Press releases, media interviews, town halls and corporate slogans may influence external perceptions temporarily, but employees evaluate what leaders actually do.

Even if the economy improves and revenue returns, the damage can remain. The organisation may recover financially while continuing to suffer from low engagement, unwanted turnover, weak collaboration and an urgent desire for leadership change.

Do now: Protect trust before it is lost; repairing credibility is far harder than preserving it through honest conduct.

How can leaders preserve integrity while making painful decisions?

Leaders preserve integrity by taking a long-term view, communicating transparently and sharing the burden of difficult decisions.

The central issue is often the leader's time horizon. Leaders focused only on immediate survival may burn, pillage and plunder the organisation to protect their own position. Like a drowning swimmer pushing down a rescuer, they sacrifice everyone around them to remain above water.

Transparency is usually the next victim. Ego encourages the leader to pretend everything is under control. Yet when reliable information disappears, rumours and supposition take over the narrative.

Honesty creates a different response. Employees may accept sacrifice when they understand the situation, believe the burden is fairly distributed and see leaders accepting personal responsibility. They can work together to protect customers, preserve critical capabilities and help the organisation survive.

A crisis can therefore strengthen rather than destroy leadership credibility. Humanity, humility and integrity become visible when they matter most.

Do now: Tell people what you know, acknowledge what you do not know and demonstrate that leaders will share the consequences.

Conclusion

Leadership integrity is not a branding exercise. It is the alignment of words, decisions and conduct, particularly when the organisation is under severe pressure.

A leader does not need to promise that nothing will change. That promise may be impossible to keep. The leader needs to describe reality honestly, make necessary decisions fairly and respect employees enough to tell them the truth.

Crisis can expose arrogance, short-term thinking and hypocrisy. It can also reveal courage, humility and humanity.

The choice lies in how the leader responds. Integrity can be thrown into the rubbish bin with all the goodwill accumulated over many years, or it can be burnished in the fire. The leader who protects it may emerge like a Phoenix: stronger, wiser and supported by people who now know exactly what that leader stands for.

Author Bio

Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie "One Carnegie Award" in 2018 and 2021 and received the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award in 2012. As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver leadership, communication, sales and presentation programmes globally, including Leadership Training for Results.

He has written several books, including the best-sellers Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery and Japan Presentations Mastery, as well as Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His Japanese-language works include Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう) and Gendaiban "Hito o Ugokasu" Rīdā(現代版「人を動かす」リーダー).

Greg publishes daily business insights on LinkedIn, Facebook and X and hosts six weekly podcasts. On YouTube, he produces The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery and Japan's Top Business Interviews for executives and professionals seeking practical strategies for succeeding in Japan.

Leadership can be lonely, particularly when the organisation is under pressure. Employees expect confidence, clients expect stability and family members naturally worry when they hear that the business is struggling.

So, who can the leader talk to?

There is no perfect answer. Leaders need trusted advisers, but they also need the ability to process pressure independently, control their messaging and convert anxiety into practical action.

Why Is Leadership So Lonely During A Business Crisis?

Leadership becomes lonely because everyone looks to the leader for reassurance precisely when the leader may be experiencing the greatest uncertainty.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, business leaders faced collapsing demand, government restrictions, staff anxiety, supply-chain problems and serious cash-flow pressures. Different industries were affected in different ways, but the leadership problem was universal: people wanted to know whether the organisation would survive.

When sales decline, problems multiply quickly. Revenue drops, but rent, salaries, supplier payments and other fixed costs continue. Employees notice the warning signs and begin imagining the worst.

The leader cannot ignore these concerns. At the same time, repeatedly broadcasting personal fear can weaken confidence throughout the organisation.

Do now: Recognise that leadership pressure is real, but separate your need for emotional release from your responsibility to provide direction.

Should Leaders Be Completely Transparent With Employees?

Leaders should be honest about business conditions, but honesty does not require sharing every private fear, worst-case scenario or untested concern.

When leaders conceal obvious problems, employees fill the information vacuum with rumours. They may assume the company's position is much worse than it actually is.

Complete emotional disclosure creates a different risk. Employees may interpret the leader's uncertainty as evidence that there is no plan.

The better approach is disciplined transparency. Explain what has happened, what the numbers show, which risks matter, what management is doing and what employees can control.

For example, a leader might say, "Revenue is below target, so we are reducing discretionary spending and protecting our priority client relationships." That is more useful than either pretending nothing is wrong or declaring that the company may collapse.

Employees need reality, direction and appropriate confidence.

Do now: Communicate the facts, the response plan and the next review point. Keep personal panic out of company-wide messaging.

Can A Leader Talk Openly With Clients?

Clients can become trusted friends, but they are still clients and will protect their own organisations first.

Strong commercial relationships are usually built on credibility, trust and personal connection. People prefer doing business with people they know and like.

However, telling a client that your organisation may be unable to pay salaries or continue operating can trigger an immediate risk-management response. The client may start searching for an alternative supplier, even when the personal relationship is excellent.

This is especially important in Japan, where reliability, continuity and long-term supplier relationships are highly valued. A buyer may sympathise with your difficulties while simultaneously concluding that depending on your company is too dangerous.

Leaders should be truthful when an operational problem directly affects the client. They should not use clients as an audience for unrestricted emotional unloading.

Do now: Tell clients what affects delivery, quality or continuity. Do not burden them with every internal fear behind the problem.

Should Leaders Share Their Business Stress With Their Partner?

A partner can provide emotional support, but unmanaged disclosure may transfer the leader's anxiety to the entire family.

After carrying pressure all day, leaders naturally want to unload when they return home. The difficulty is that a partner may hear a business concern as a threat to the mortgage, school fees, retirement plans or the family's long-term security.

This does not mean leaders should hide everything. Silence can damage trust and create emotional distance.

The better approach is to explain the situation with context. Clarify what is known, what remains uncertain, what actions are being taken and whether the family is facing an immediate financial threat.

There is an important difference between saying, "I am dealing with a difficult quarter," and spending every evening describing catastrophic possibilities with no structure or conclusion.

Do now: Share enough to preserve trust, but avoid repeatedly bringing raw, unresolved panic into the home.

Can Friends Or A Business Coach Help A Leader?

Friends and coaches can help, but their usefulness depends on trust, commercial experience, local knowledge and their ability to understand the leader's real situation.

Many senior leaders discover that they have few close friends. Building and maintaining a business can consume the time normally invested in personal relationships.

Friends may offer sympathy, but they often cannot provide informed commercial advice. They do not know the customers, employees, finances, competitive environment or internal politics.

A coach can provide perspective, questioning and accountability. However, a coach who has never led a business may struggle to appreciate the consequences of executive decisions.

Context also matters. Advice that works in the United States, Europe or Australia may not transfer neatly to Japan. Employment expectations, decision-making processes, customer relationships and communication norms can be very different.

Confidentiality is another issue. Leaders must consider how much competitively sensitive information they can safely disclose.

Do now: Choose advisers who combine discretion, relevant experience, cultural understanding and the courage to challenge your thinking.

How Can Leaders Manage Stress When They Have Nobody To Talk To?

Leaders can reduce pressure by converting unstructured worry into a written sequence of problems, priorities, options and actions.

Journalling, meditation and exercise can all help leaders regulate stress. Alcohol and drugs may offer temporary escape, but they usually create additional problems rather than resolving the original ones.

Writing is powerful because anxiety is often vague and repetitive. Once the concern is written down, it becomes something the leader can examine.

Use four questions:

1. What problems am I facing?
2. Which problem has the highest priority?
3. What could I do about it?
4. Which solution should I begin implementing immediately?

This method sounds almost too simple. That simplicity is its strength.

The process forces the leader to separate several overlapping worries, identify the issue that matters most and select a concrete next step. Action then replaces at least part of the helplessness.

Do now: Write down the problem, choose the priority and take one useful action before the day ends.

What Should Leaders Remember About Pressure At The Top?

Leadership does not require pretending that fear, doubt and stress do not exist. It requires managing those emotions so they do not control the organisation.

Employees need honesty and direction. Clients need confidence in continuity. Family members need appropriate context. Friends and coaches can help, but only when they have the necessary judgement, experience and discretion.

Ultimately, leaders need their own method for processing pressure. Writing down the problems, prioritising them, generating options and selecting an immediate action is a practical place to start.

You may not always have the perfect person to talk to. You can still create clarity, regain control and move forward.

Author Bio

Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie "One Carnegie Award" in 2018 and 2021 and received the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award in 2012. As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver leadership, communication, sales and presentation programmes globally, including Leadership Training for Results.

He has written several books, including the best-sellers Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery and Japan Presentations Mastery, as well as Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His books have also been published in Japanese, including Za Eigyō（ザ営業）, Purezen no Tatsujin（プレゼンの達人）, Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō（トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう）and Gendaiban "Hito o Ugokasu" Rīdā（現代版「人を動かす」リーダー）.

Greg publishes regular business insights on LinkedIn, Facebook and X and hosts six weekly podcasts. On YouTube, he produces The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery and Japan's Top Business Interviews for executives and professionals seeking practical strategies for succeeding in Japan.

Many organisations say they need better leadership, but what they often have is a collection of very busy managers.

Managers are expected to control costs, meet deadlines, maintain quality, solve problems and keep increasingly complex processes moving. Then, without providing much leadership training, companies complain that these same people are not developing their staff, communicating the strategy or inspiring stronger performance.

Management and leadership overlap, but they are not the same job. Organisations need people who can manage the processes, interpret the strategy and develop the people.

What is the difference between a manager and a leader?

Managers make sure the work gets done correctly, while leaders make sure people understand where the organisation is going and want to contribute to getting it there.

Managers naturally concentrate on processes, budgets, deadlines and quality. Modern work involves multiple interconnected tasks, so one late or poorly completed piece can disrupt an entire project. Someone must watch the details and make sure everything stays in tandem.

Leadership adds two major responsibilities: setting or interpreting the strategy and developing the people. Senior executives may determine the broad corporate strategy, but leaders further down the organisation must translate that strategy into meaningful action for their own division, department or team.

The problem is that companies often promote good technical performers into management and assume leadership will somehow appear automatically.

Do now: Clearly define which parts of a role involve managing processes and which parts require leading people.

Why do good managers sometimes struggle to become leaders?

Good managers often struggle with leadership because the abilities that earned them promotion are not necessarily the abilities they need after promotion.

A technically strong employee may be promoted because of expertise, reliability and attention to detail. These are valuable qualities, particularly in Japan's no-defect work culture, where managers are expected to prevent errors and avoid surprises.

However, leadership requires a different set of behaviours. Leaders must communicate direction, coach individuals, handle difficult conversations, build confidence and persuade people to support objectives beyond their own immediate responsibilities.

Too many companies provide little formal training, limited onboarding and almost no meaningful on-the-job coaching before expecting newly promoted managers to lead effectively. This became even more obvious during the pandemic, when remote work reduced opportunities to observe experienced leaders and learn informally.

Promotion changes the title immediately. It does not automatically change the person's capabilities.

Do now: Provide leadership training before or immediately after promotion rather than waiting for the new leader to struggle.

How should leaders connect corporate strategy with daily work?

Leaders must translate broad corporate strategy into practical priorities that employees can understand, remember and act upon.

Vision, Mission and Values statements are often beautifully framed and placed behind glass. Unfortunately, many become corporate dust catchers. Nobody remembers them, nobody discusses them and certainly nobody lives them.

The leader's job is to make those ideas real. Employees need to understand how the organisation's strategy connects with their daily responsibilities, customer interactions and decisions. They also need to know what the strategy means for their particular team.

This requires repetition. It is not enough to mention the strategy at an annual meeting and assume everyone is now aligned.

At Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training, we begin each morning with what we call the "Daily Dale". We review our Vision, Mission and Values, together with one Dale Carnegie human relations or stress management principle. Repetition helps the team remember the ideas so they can actually live them.

Do now: Turn strategic language into short, repeated conversations about what employees should do differently today.

How did Ritz-Carlton make its service principles part of the culture?

Ritz-Carlton made its service principles operational by discussing them constantly rather than leaving them in a manual.

I once attended a presentation in Osaka by Ricco De Blanc, who helped open the Ritz-Carlton hotels in Osaka and Tokyo. He explained the organisation's customer service principles and how they were embedded into daily operations.

I was so impressed that I later invited him to speak to my colleagues at Shinsei Retail Bank. I also convinced my boss to send me to the Ritz-Carlton training centre in Washington, D.C.

When I returned, I adapted what I had learned and created customer service principles for our retail banking business.

The secret sauce was consistency. At Ritz-Carlton locations around the world, each shift began by reviewing the same service principle for that day. The principles were not treated as decorative statements. They became a shared language for behaviour and decision-making.

Do now: Choose one cultural principle each day and ask the team how it applies to their customers and current work.

Why is employee coaching disappearing from the workplace?

Employee coaching is disappearing because managers are overloaded with operational work and mistake giving instructions for developing people.

Technology was supposed to make work easier, but in many cases it has simply increased the quantity and speed of work. Managers now spend their days moving between email, online meetings, reporting systems, deadlines and urgent requests.

One of the casualties is coaching.

Look closely at the calendars of many people in leadership positions and remove the meetings where they are simply giving commands, checking progress or correcting errors. The remaining time devoted to genuine coaching may be measured in nanoseconds.

Remote and hybrid work add another complication. Managers have fewer informal opportunities to notice changes in performance, attitude or confidence. Coaching must therefore become intentional rather than accidental.

Real coaching means asking questions, listening, helping people think and encouraging them to take greater ownership. It cannot be reduced to telling employees what to do more loudly or more frequently.

Do now: Schedule regular coaching conversations that are separate from progress checks and performance instructions.

Can leaders really motivate their employees?

Leaders cannot directly motivate other people, but they can create an environment in which people are more likely to motivate themselves.

The phrase "motivating others" is slightly misleading. We cannot reach inside another person and install motivation. People are motivated by different combinations of achievement, recognition, responsibility, security, growth, purpose and belonging.

The leader's responsibility is to discover what matters to each person and communicate accordingly. That takes time, curiosity and excellent interpersonal skills.

Leaders must also help employees see the connection between organisational objectives and their own goals. When employees understand why the work matters, how they contribute and how they can grow, they are more likely to take ownership.

This is particularly important in Japan's increasingly competitive talent market. Employees may tolerate a weak manager for a while, but talented people have more reason than ever to seek an environment where they feel respected, developed and valued.

Do now: Ask employees what kind of work, responsibility and recognition brings out their best performance.

What should companies expect from their middle leaders?

Middle leaders must manage the processes, interpret the strategy and build the people at the same time.

Process management remains essential. Deadlines, costs and quality do not disappear simply because someone has adopted a leadership mindset. However, operational control alone is not enough.

The middle leader must connect senior management's direction with frontline execution. This means explaining the strategy, gaining commitment, adjusting priorities and helping employees build the capabilities required to deliver.

Companies also need to give middle leaders enough time, authority and training to perform these responsibilities. It is unreasonable to overload managers with administrative work and then criticise them for failing to coach their teams.

The organisations that develop capable middle leaders will be better positioned to retain talent, implement strategy and adapt to change. Their competitors may have equally good products and systems, but stronger leadership will eventually create a major performance difference.

Do now: Assess middle leaders on people development and strategic alignment, not only on budgets, deadlines and error rates.

Conclusion

Companies do not need to choose between management and leadership. They need both.

Managers keep the machinery operating. Leaders make sure the machinery is heading in the right direction and that the people operating it are growing, contributing and committed.

The problem begins when organisations assume that management experience automatically produces leadership ability. It does not. Leadership requires deliberate development, repeated practice, coaching and organisational support.

Your managers may already be extremely busy controlling processes, budgets and quality. The question is whether you are also helping them become the leaders your people and your strategy require.

In the long term, talented employees will not simply leave companies. They will leave middle managers and stay with middle leaders. There is a world of difference between the two.

Author Bio

Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie "One Carnegie Award" in 2018 and 2021 and received the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award in 2012. As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across leadership, communication, sales and presentation programmes, including Leadership Training for Results.

He has written several books, including the bestsellers Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery and Japan Presentations Mastery, together with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His Japanese-language books include Za Eigyō（ザ営業）, Purezen no Tatsujin（プレゼンの達人）, Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō（トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう）and Gendaiban "Hito o Ugokasu" Rīdā（現代版「人を動かす」リーダー）.

Greg also publishes regular business insights on LinkedIn, Facebook and X and hosts six weekly podcasts. On YouTube, he produces The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery and Japan's Top Business Interviews for executives and professionals seeking practical strategies for succeeding in Japan.

There are tons of things leaders should be doing. The sheer volume of advice can become a mental blizzard—a complete leadership whiteout.

That is why it helps to isolate a few essential leadership practices and remind ourselves why they matter. These are not complicated theories. They are practical leadership disciplines that determine whether teams produce results, understand expectations, cooperate effectively and continue moving in the right direction.

Here are eleven leadership basics worth revisiting.

What should leaders focus on first?

Leaders should focus chiefly on the results to be achieved rather than simply on the activities being performed. Everything happening in the organisation should move the team towards a desired outcome.

That sounds obvious. However, analyse your diary and look closely at where your time is going. You may be shocked by how few appointments, meetings and activities are directly propelling important results.

Busy work is seductive because it creates the sensation of progress. Emails are answered, meetings are attended and reports are produced. Yet activity is not the same as achievement.

Leaders also need to plan and organise effectively around the desired result. They must coordinate everyone involved so that individual contributions combine into meaningful organisational progress.

Markets change, customer expectations move and circumstances can run over the top of even a good plan. Leaders must therefore keep asking whether the current plan is still relevant, whether the organisation is properly structured and whether the balance between individual responsibility and teamwork is right.

Do now: Review your calendar and identify which activities directly contribute to your organisation's most important results. Reduce, delegate or eliminate the rest.

How should leaders turn major objectives into action?

Major objectives should be divided into bite-sized pieces, communicated clearly and supported by deadlines, measurements and individual accountability.

Large organisational goals can sound inspiring but remain useless if people do not understand what they personally need to do. Leaders must translate strategic objectives into specific actions, time targets and measurable outcomes.

Every important objective needs an accountability system. Without measurement, deviation from the plan can remain invisible until it is too late to make an easy correction.

The post-pandemic workplace has made this more difficult. For many organisations, the orderly pursuit of targets was replaced by constant disruption, emergency responses and scrambling to survive. Even after the immediate crisis passed, hybrid work, shifting customer behaviour and economic uncertainty continued to complicate performance management.

Textbook answers are not always enough. Leaders must combine data, judgement and practical experience to decide which performance standards remain realistic.

Do now: Take one major organisational objective and break it into milestones, owners, deadlines and measurable indicators of progress.

How can leaders establish effective performance standards?

Leaders must make expectations explicit so that people know what successful performance looks like, why it matters and how it will be measured.

Vague expectations create frustration. Employees believe they are doing well, while managers quietly feel disappointed. Effective performance standards remove this ambiguity.

Standards should guide people towards profitable and productive action. They should be demanding enough to encourage growth but realistic enough to maintain credibility.

Leaders must also build a results-oriented attitude throughout the organisation. This means helping people develop self-reliance, confidence and ownership of their goals.

Remote and hybrid work have shifted visibility. Leaders can no longer judge contribution by who arrives early, stays late or appears busy in the office. Performance is increasingly represented by customer outcomes, project completion, financial measures and numbers on a spreadsheet.

Some people thrive with autonomy. Others struggle without direct supervision, informal contact and frequent teamwork. Leaders must recognise these differences rather than assuming one working style suits everyone.

Do now: Ask each team member to explain what is expected of them and how success is measured. Any inconsistent answers reveal a communication gap.

Can leaders really motivate their people?

Leaders cannot directly inject motivation into another person. They can, however, create an environment in which people are more likely to become self-motivated.

Try yelling, "Be motivated, be motivated, be motivated," at your team and see how far that gets you.

Leaders can motivate themselves, but they cannot control the internal drive of another person. Their real task is to understand what helps each individual perform at their best.

That may include recognition, autonomy, meaningful work, career growth, financial reward, mastery, belonging or the opportunity to contribute to something important. The correct combination varies from person to person.

This is where leadership becomes difficult. There is no universal motivational switch. The leader has to understand people individually and deliver the right environment one person at a time.

Leaders should also encourage creativity. Creativity can be learned, but many leaders have never studied how creative thinking works. If leaders do not know how to generate ideas, challenge assumptions or explore alternatives, they will struggle to develop those abilities in others.

Do now: Ask each team member what conditions help them do their best work. Do not assume their answer will be the same as yours.

How should leaders track progress and coordinate people?

Leaders must track progress consistently and coordinate everyone whose contribution affects the final result, both inside and outside the organisation.

Tracking progress sounds easy. The reality is that leaders are often lost in the weeds, pulled hither and thither and overwhelmed by constant urgencies.

Following up on planned results gets postponed because something more immediate demands attention. Yet when leaders stop tracking, deadlines slip, responsibilities blur and small problems grow into expensive ones.

Coordination has also become more demanding in remote and hybrid workplaces. When everyone was in the office, people could exchange information informally, notice emerging problems and resolve misunderstandings quickly.

When employees, clients, suppliers and partners are separated, leaders must expend more time and energy ensuring that the right people know what they need to know. They must also confirm that tasks are being completed when they need to be completed.

Communication cannot be left to chance. Coordination requires deliberate updates, clear decision rights and reliable follow-through.

Do now: Establish a simple review rhythm showing each priority, its owner, its current status, the next action and any obstacle requiring leadership intervention.

Why must leaders keep communicating purpose and teamwork?

Leaders must repeatedly connect everyday work to the organisation's continuing purpose and demonstrate through their decisions that teamwork is genuinely expected.

Leaders often pontificate from on high about purpose and imagine everyone is on board. They assume the message was received, understood and accepted.

It is always a shock to discover that not everyone got the message—or that they interpreted it differently.

Purpose must therefore be communicated repeatedly. Leaders must explain what the organisation is trying to achieve, why it matters and how each person's work contributes. They must also check for understanding rather than assuming agreement.

Leadership credibility is tested most severely when a high performer refuses to act as a team player.

Are you prepared to confront—or even fire—a top performer who persistently undermines teamwork?

This is where the rubber meets the road. If leaders praise collaboration but tolerate the corporate outlaw who does whatever they want, everyone learns how the organisation really operates. Behaviour that is tolerated becomes part of the culture.

Do now: Identify one behaviour that contradicts your stated values. Address it directly before it becomes the organisation's unofficial standard.

What is the most important leadership starting point?

The most important starting point is self-awareness.

Very few leaders can give themselves a perfect score across all eleven areas:

1. Focusing on results
2. Planning and organising effectively
3. Breaking objectives into manageable actions
4. Establishing clear performance standards
5. Building a results-oriented culture
6. Creating conditions for self-motivation
7. Developing creativity
8. Tracking progress
9. Coordinating people and resources
10. Communicating organisational purpose
11. Demonstrating leadership and teamwork

I certainly cannot give myself a perfect score. Reviewing this list is a painful reminder of my own failings and imperfections.

That is the point.

Busy work can mask what is vital. Leaders become tied up in meetings, messages, minor decisions and operational stuff. Eventually, they lose sight of the leadership responsibilities that matter most.

Let's get back to basics. We are not divine. We still have work to do on ourselves.

Author Bio

Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie One Carnegie Award in 2018 and 2021 and received the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award in 2012. As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver leadership, communication, sales and presentation programmes globally, including Leadership Training for Results.

He has written several books, including the bestsellers Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery and Japan Presentations Mastery, as well as Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His books have also been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō（ザ営業）, Purezen no Tatsujin（プレゼンの達人）, Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō（トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう）and Gendaiban "Hito o Ugokasu" Rīdā（現代版「人を動かす」リーダー）.

Greg publishes regular business insights on LinkedIn, Facebook and X and hosts six weekly podcasts. On YouTube, he produces The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery and Japan's Top Business Interviews for executives and professionals seeking practical strategies for succeeding in Japan.