H27年度前期山田道場WHAT'S GOING ON 『Cross-cultural Leadership』

Guest Speaker and facilitator: Parissa Haghirian, Professor, Liberal Arts, Sophia University

The 3rd round of the Yamada-Dojo facilitated by Prof. Parissa Haghirian, Sophia University was held on 13/July. The theme of the day was "cross-cultural leadership".
In the beginning of the Dojo, Prof. Haghirian explained the leadership style of each country for knowing the difference between Japan and the others; it would be often said that US is the Free Agent Star, UK is the Diplomat and well-educated, Israel and Africa are the Field Commander, and Japan is the Senior Statesman in corporate culture. Of course every country has individual rules and historical background, however, from now on, how will we be able to behave as a leader that derive a settlement among the people who have variety thought in this cross-cultural scene of business, education, and study?

Prof. Haghirian showed us the summary of how to make group formation in Japan and other countries. Japanese team is formed by trust each other strongly, but can not switch the direction quickly. Then they had produced delicate articles. In western countries, generally, a team is led by a person who have charismatic and loud insistence type of nature. That leader is demanded to certainly obtain the profit and the result. So, higher personal risk and responsibility are necessary in such "Leadership" in western countries. In reverse, high dedication for making very good relationship inside the company should be needed in Japan. The main reason is that Japanese people understand establishing consensus, among the people concerned, as a team should be fundamental to proceed the job in good manner so that all members within the team can engage in the job with high motivation; which is called "ganbaru" sprit. They put the first priority on getting good result with such "ganbaru" sprit rather than pursuing big profit.

Some people, especially in western society, say that such way of thinking may be unique in Japan and Japanese people are workaholic. However, this uniqueness may be one of the reasons why Japan succeeded after World War II.
But recently, the competition between Japan and other Asian countries has been intensified more and more, and many Japanese have been able to imagine that we must not stick at the way of the past. I suppose both Japanese and foreign people must have the feeling that accept the different point of the cross culture as the new point for us.

We enjoyed these recent 3 sessions facilitated by prof. Haghirian and would like to express our deep appreciation for her efforts.

(Reported by Hiroko Shimokawa, Architecture and Building Engineering)