Leadership is a Skill, Not a Gift.

Have determination, and break down leadership into smaller components

Time flies, and September is already coming to an end. Once we get through this terribly hot summer, we reach the season of autumn personnel transfers.

Some people may be filled with excitement and anxiety with new challenges ahead, such as taking their first step from a player to a management role or transitioning to a managerial position in a domain where they have little experience.

Today, I would like to write about my thoughts regarding “how to hone leadership” which is a topic that is always on my mind.

There is something I would like to particularly emphasize to people who feel leadership to be their weakness and also to people who just blindly think leadership is not for them. Many management skills including leadership can actually be learned and acquired.

Leadership is often seen as something inherent, such as a “personality people are born with.” Obviously, it might be better to have this gift, but even if you do not have it as an inherent capability, I think there are many aspects of management that can be learned and acquired later in life by breaking the skill down into smaller components, making efforts to learn and gaining experience.

Leadership and management skills can be broken down into smaller components, similar to breaking down skills necessary to learn English into listening, reading, speaking, writing, and so on, and coming up with ways to develop the skills.?

The traditional approach of 'watch me and learn' can be hit and miss, depending on the manager and the chemistry between them and their team members, leading to unequal opportunities. However, if we can articulate management principles as explicitly as possible and organize them into a coherent program, I believe we can efficiently and rapidly develop talented junior team members.

Fortunately, Money Forward has been experiencing strong growth year-on-year, and the number of new businesses in our company is also rapidly increasing. Consequently, we find ourselves in a gratifying but pressing situation where we urgently need to develop leaders.

At Money Forward, we have created the “Leadership Forward Program (LFP)” an original program designed to cultivate the management skills and leadership potentials of our future leaders.?

(Since nothing can be truly learned and acquired unless you are proactively driven to learn, the program is operated on a voluntary participation basis. As a result, we have had highly motivated exceptional members participate in the program.)

In the LFP, the management team and I share our stories of success and failure and also present useful leadership frameworks.

For example, one of the frameworks presented in the LFP is the “six common characteristics of successful leaders.”

This is something I learned from Mr. Takashi Mitachi, (former Head of Boston Consulting Group Japan), who served as an Outside Director of Money Forward.

Six Common Characteristics of Successful Leaders

1. Vision: The ability to determine and communicate where the company is headed
2. Decision Making: The ability to make correct decisions with a high probability of success
3. Intelligence: IQ/EQ/SQ leading to strong decision-making
4. Integrity: Unwavering strength based on a strong sense of ethics
5. Courage: The ability to take necessary risks at the necessary times without being influenced
6. Drive to achieve: Having the power to continue moving forward toward goals

“Leadership,” tends to be seen as an ambiguous concept. However, if you break it down into elements like we just did above, you can get a pretty concrete idea of which element you lack and what you need to enhance.

For example, how can you refine your “decision making”? This is a question I once got from a LFP participant.

My answer to that was “Input large amounts of information required for making the correct decision, make the decision, and reflect on the decision you made afterward”.?

Methods to input information include but are not limited to listening to people and reading books. I think information and knowledge input in any way can improve the level of judgments you can make to a certain degree. Since I was in my twenties, I have been reading a variety of books written by great corporate managers as well as books on management to take in wisdom based on other people’s invaluable experiences and to learn frameworks to leverage in my decision-making. The volume and power of information are the foundation of decision-making. It's not just a natural-born “sense” that allows people to make good decisions. And this means studying and experience is important!

The “EQ” mentioned as the third point is the so-called “Emotional Intelligence Quotient,” which is a skill about understanding people, such as perceiving people’s emotions, and controlling one’s own emotions.

I am also still in the process of learning, but I always feel that a team won’t move simply because the leader says what is “correct”. It is more about how each member feels and how people can be motivated and feel positive. I think what actually moves people and makes them work hard in the end is the emotional aspect transcending rationality at least to a certain degree.

The most difficult of the six skills may be the sixth: the power to continuously drive yourself forward toward a goal. This could also be referred to as passion.

Strong motivation is the source of passion to keep going without giving up even in tough or tiring times.?

“Power” or “money” are of course valid motives, but when confronted with difficult challenges, I feel many people cannot achieve aspirational goals with just that. They end up giving up or running away. Even in challenging times, I believe it is essential to keep the flame of passion burning, and the source of that flame is "why you want to achieve it."

What may only begin as a small spark of passion will gradually grow into a larger flame when “flammable” people gather around you.

The founding members of Money Forward were all “flammable” peers, and it felt like our team’s flame got bigger and bigger as we worked together. It is so great when you have a team where members each contribute firewood and build a big fire.

In addition, I think the “ability to paint a vision”, said to be essential for future leaders, is a skill that can be honed in later life more than most people think.

I am occasionally told “You are a visionary leader.” and while that is very nice to hear, the ability to paint a vision is not something I have always had.

In trying my best to get the person in front of me to understand what I want to say in my own words tens or even hundreds of times, the future I aim for became clearer, and I think I became better at telling my stories to people.

There was another message for all the young leader candidates who participated in the LFP I wanted to make sure to convey. I want leaders to embrace any reality and even if others decide to avoid it, I want them to persevere till the end and overcome challenges.

Many people’s eyes are on people who become leaders, and they will ask themselves “Should I really follow this person?”, “Will I find meaning and learn something from them?” and “Should I believe in this person?”

Leaders are constantly subjected to such critical questions. And I always carry a sense of urgency that I must face that reality and not run away from it. We all only live once. I don’t think there is anyone who doesn’t ask themselves “Will I not regret following this leader?”

Look at the world, there are so many wonderful companies other than Money Forward and talented people can go anywhere.

So I need to continue to ask myself every day, “Am I really a leader who creates value for the people I work with?” (and this is not easy.)?

I mentioned many aspects of leadership can be learned later in life. While that is true, it is by no means easy. Some aspects will take time to acquire and there will be times of stagnation.

However, the level of growth and power of people who struggled to move forward when they finally make a breakthrough with strong determination is truly impressive. I myself have enjoyed enormous senses of satisfaction when I was able to achieve outstanding results as a leader.

People who focus on what is imminent, with determination, saying “Everything is my responsibility. I am determined to deliver results with my comrades,” are truly powerful.?

Money Forward has grown to have over 2,000 people working for the Group, and we have an increasing need for great leaders.

In such a situation, my role as a management executive is to create an environment enabling leaders with diverse strengths to leverage their unique characteristics to actively contribute to the company and also grow themselves.

While placing even more emphasis on our cherished MVVC (Mission/Vision/Values/Culture) ,? I would like to further increase the number of colleagues aiming for the same future based on our motto, "Money Forward. Move your life forward."???

We welcome those who are eager to seize opportunities for growth in leadership to join us!