The courage necessary for the management

This time, Mr. Inamori speaks as follows under the title of “The courage necessary for the management”. What Inamori said was referred to with brackets.

“Not only having the fighting spirit, but also having the courage is extremely important for top leaders. Courage is, in a sense, the strong determination that you should demonstrate when you are likely to compromise in an easy but wrong way. Giving up negotiation with banks and arranging finance with so-called non-banks at high interest rates is an example of the lack of courage. This makes the leader compromise. We may have to take a strong position and do the right things as human beings. Courage allows leaders to take right actions. But the courage there is different from the bravery of those who are rude and aggressive. True courage means what those who look cowardly acquire through the experiences, while holding on to their beliefs.”

To gradually learn that kind of courage, I feel we should keep in our mind the following two things.

1 Leave what obsesses you

2 Generate our energies

Let me explain one by one.

1 Leave what obsesses you

“Not everyone has this kind of courage. But as a top leader, you may have to be brave. Even a woman, who is neither strong nor bold, can threaten the potential enemy of her company. Because she feels responsible to protect her staff. Aggressive and physically strong people look courageous and can be arrogant. They are confidence in their skills but most of the cases, they end up unsuccessful in proceeding with their projects. This is simply because they are too aggressive to avoid unnecessary conflicts. Therefore, I didn’t hire too aggressive guys but bring timid guys. I have encouraged them to learn the necessary courage through management experiences.”

→In Japanese martial arts like Judo or Aikido, there is throwing called -Sutemi-. Holding your opponents, you should throw your own body. The concept is the suicide with the enemy. You definitely take your enemy’s life by scarifying our own life. This Sutemi is difficult to perform perfectly. If we are obsessed with something, it’s hard to perform well in this Sutemi. Because we don’t have enough courage to throw away everything we acquired. I think we must think whether our mind has been occupied with something unimportant or not. At the same time, we should also ask ourselves whether we are ready to leave what we have seen important in our life. I think when we think about this, we may start understanding what courage is.

2 Generate our energies

A leader can demonstrate the strongest commitment to the management when he thinks “I must protect this company and my family even if it costs my life.” He also demonstrates the tremendous fighting spirit and conviction of what he must do. For example, if you happened to take over the company from your parents, what makes you strong is this courage and conviction. I would like you all to be serious to protect the company that your parents created and the employees even at the cost of your life. Without such determination, the operation doesn’t go well and you may have to fire your staff. To prevent this, I think it is very important to maintain the commitment, even if you could risk your own life, to protect your company.”

→Mr. Inamori is talking about leaders’ determination, fullest energy, and the tremendous fighting spirit here. How can we generate such tremendous energy? I feel we should train how to deal with our own energy in our daily life. This means behaving and acting consciously of our own intention. In other words, we should always be aware of which direction our intention is turned to for every single action that we make. Below are the examples of questions we should ask ourselves.

Don’t you give your opponent harsh words to simply protect yourself, due to your own vanity and self-protection?
Are you caring and engaging with others?
Do you have deep love for your partner, family and employee?
Are you deceiving yourself? Are you truly honest about how you feel?

I think I should keep asking myself the above questions. I also think that by doing this, you can refine your own mindset and energy by conveying your sincerity to others. Those daily exercises would be a part of the training on how to generate, develop and control our energy. I also feel that such energy management looks also important to fundamentally develop the courage that Inamori said necessary for leaders.

In summary, I believe that courage is the ability to demonstrate the strongest determination to protect others and to give your whole heart and soul to others. I don’t think that I have completely acquired it yet. I have been training in my management practice. I would like to keep refining my own souls and spirits.