The Leadership Japan Series

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...

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...

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...

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...

Leadership is not only about watching the P&L, balance sheet, cash flow, revenue and profit. Those numbers matter enormously, especially when conditions are difficult, but leaders can become so absorbed in survival that...

Leadership principles are rarely complicated. The difficulty is remembering to practise them consistently when targets are missed, markets become unstable, staff disappoint us and the pressure keeps building. In Part...

We collect leadership ideas from everywhere: books, training courses, articles, mentors, bosses, colleagues and the occasional painful lesson delivered by experience. The problem is that we rarely collect these ideas in...

Leadership success is usually measured through revenue, market share, promotions, productivity and team performance. Those indicators matter, but they do not tell us whether a leader is succeeding in life. A leader can...

Western and Japanese meetings often look similar on the calendar, but they operate on very different assumptions. Both may involve reporting, planning, problem-solving and innovation, yet the real work happens in...

Becoming a new leader is one of the most dangerous promotions in business. The person who was promoted for hard work, strong KPIs, early starts, late finishes and personal accountability suddenly becomes responsible for...

Business meetings have become one of the great productivity sinkholes of modern organisations. Mention the word "meeting" and people's eyes often roll because they expect too many attendees, too much waffle and too...

Innovation may look obvious from the leader's chair, but it often looks like extra work from the team's chair. Leaders may say, "We need to keep innovating," but employees hear, "Here comes another initiative on top of...

Most leaders think they are good communicators, but that confidence is often built on a dangerous assumption. They believe communication means telling people what they think, what they want, and what should happen next...

Leadership communication is not just about giving instructions, sending emails, or making polished speeches. The real test is whether the message is received, understood, accepted, and acted upon correctly by the team...

<p >Handling mistakes is one of the hardest leadership tests because everyone is watching. A missed deadline, poor-quality work, lost sale, compliance issue, or public error does not just affect the person involved; it...