Leadership's Necessary Cocktail Of Strategy, Culture and Brand

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.