Leaders, Not Just Managers Please

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 increasingly complex processes moving. Then, without providing much leadership training, companies complain that these same people are not developing their staff, communicating the strategy or inspiring stronger performance.

Management and leadership overlap, but they are not the same job. Organisations need people who can manage the processes, interpret the strategy and develop the people.

What is the difference between a manager and a leader?

Managers make sure the work gets done correctly, while leaders make sure people understand where the organisation is going and want to contribute to getting it there.

Managers naturally concentrate on processes, budgets, deadlines and quality. Modern work involves multiple interconnected tasks, so one late or poorly completed piece can disrupt an entire project. Someone must watch the details and make sure everything stays in tandem.

Leadership adds two major responsibilities: setting or interpreting the strategy and developing the people. Senior executives may determine the broad corporate strategy, but leaders further down the organisation must translate that strategy into meaningful action for their own division, department or team.

The problem is that companies often promote good technical performers into management and assume leadership will somehow appear automatically.

Do now: Clearly define which parts of a role involve managing processes and which parts require leading people.

Why do good managers sometimes struggle to become leaders?

Good managers often struggle with leadership because the abilities that earned them promotion are not necessarily the abilities they need after promotion.

A technically strong employee may be promoted because of expertise, reliability and attention to detail. These are valuable qualities, particularly in Japan’s no-defect work culture, where managers are expected to prevent errors and avoid surprises.

However, leadership requires a different set of behaviours. Leaders must communicate direction, coach individuals, handle difficult conversations, build confidence and persuade people to support objectives beyond their own immediate responsibilities.

Too many companies provide little formal training, limited onboarding and almost no meaningful on-the-job coaching before expecting newly promoted managers to lead effectively. This became even more obvious during the pandemic, when remote work reduced opportunities to observe experienced leaders and learn informally.

Promotion changes the title immediately. It does not automatically change the person’s capabilities.

Do now: Provide leadership training before or immediately after promotion rather than waiting for the new leader to struggle.

How should leaders connect corporate strategy with daily work?

Leaders must translate broad corporate strategy into practical priorities that employees can understand, remember and act upon.

Vision, Mission and Values statements are often beautifully framed and placed behind glass. Unfortunately, many become corporate dust catchers. Nobody remembers them, nobody discusses them and certainly nobody lives them.

The leader’s job is to make those ideas real. Employees need to understand how the organisation’s strategy connects with their daily responsibilities, customer interactions and decisions. They also need to know what the strategy means for their particular team.

This requires repetition. It is not enough to mention the strategy at an annual meeting and assume everyone is now aligned.

At Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training, we begin each morning with what we call the “Daily Dale”. We review our Vision, Mission and Values, together with one Dale Carnegie human relations or stress management principle. Repetition helps the team remember the ideas so they can actually live them.

Do now: Turn strategic language into short, repeated conversations about what employees should do differently today.

How did Ritz-Carlton make its service principles part of the culture?

Ritz-Carlton made its service principles operational by discussing them constantly rather than leaving them in a manual.

I once attended a presentation in Osaka by Ricco De Blanc, who helped open the Ritz-Carlton hotels in Osaka and Tokyo. He explained the organisation’s customer service principles and how they were embedded into daily operations.

I was so impressed that I later invited him to speak to my colleagues at Shinsei Retail Bank. I also convinced my boss to send me to the Ritz-Carlton training centre in Washington, D.C.

When I returned, I adapted what I had learned and created customer service principles for our retail banking business.

The secret sauce was consistency. At Ritz-Carlton locations around the world, each shift began by reviewing the same service principle for that day. The principles were not treated as decorative statements. They became a shared language for behaviour and decision-making.

Do now: Choose one cultural principle each day and ask the team how it applies to their customers and current work.

Why is employee coaching disappearing from the workplace?

Employee coaching is disappearing because managers are overloaded with operational work and mistake giving instructions for developing people.

Technology was supposed to make work easier, but in many cases it has simply increased the quantity and speed of work. Managers now spend their days moving between email, online meetings, reporting systems, deadlines and urgent requests.

One of the casualties is coaching.

Look closely at the calendars of many people in leadership positions and remove the meetings where they are simply giving commands, checking progress or correcting errors. The remaining time devoted to genuine coaching may be measured in nanoseconds.

Remote and hybrid work add another complication. Managers have fewer informal opportunities to notice changes in performance, attitude or confidence. Coaching must therefore become intentional rather than accidental.

Real coaching means asking questions, listening, helping people think and encouraging them to take greater ownership. It cannot be reduced to telling employees what to do more loudly or more frequently.

Do now: Schedule regular coaching conversations that are separate from progress checks and performance instructions.

Can leaders really motivate their employees?

Leaders cannot directly motivate other people, but they can create an environment in which people are more likely to motivate themselves.

The phrase “motivating others” is slightly misleading. We cannot reach inside another person and install motivation. People are motivated by different combinations of achievement, recognition, responsibility, security, growth, purpose and belonging.

The leader’s responsibility is to discover what matters to each person and communicate accordingly. That takes time, curiosity and excellent interpersonal skills.

Leaders must also help employees see the connection between organisational objectives and their own goals. When employees understand why the work matters, how they contribute and how they can grow, they are more likely to take ownership.

This is particularly important in Japan’s increasingly competitive talent market. Employees may tolerate a weak manager for a while, but talented people have more reason than ever to seek an environment where they feel respected, developed and valued.

Do now: Ask employees what kind of work, responsibility and recognition brings out their best performance.

What should companies expect from their middle leaders?

Middle leaders must manage the processes, interpret the strategy and build the people at the same time.

Process management remains essential. Deadlines, costs and quality do not disappear simply because someone has adopted a leadership mindset. However, operational control alone is not enough.

The middle leader must connect senior management’s direction with frontline execution. This means explaining the strategy, gaining commitment, adjusting priorities and helping employees build the capabilities required to deliver.

Companies also need to give middle leaders enough time, authority and training to perform these responsibilities. It is unreasonable to overload managers with administrative work and then criticise them for failing to coach their teams.

The organisations that develop capable middle leaders will be better positioned to retain talent, implement strategy and adapt to change. Their competitors may have equally good products and systems, but stronger leadership will eventually create a major performance difference.

Do now: Assess middle leaders on people development and strategic alignment, not only on budgets, deadlines and error rates.

Conclusion

Companies do not need to choose between management and leadership. They need both.

Managers keep the machinery operating. Leaders make sure the machinery is heading in the right direction and that the people operating it are growing, contributing and committed.

The problem begins when organisations assume that management experience automatically produces leadership ability. It does not. Leadership requires deliberate development, repeated practice, coaching and organisational support.

Your managers may already be extremely busy controlling processes, budgets and quality. The question is whether you are also helping them become the leaders your people and your strategy require.

In the long term, talented employees will not simply leave companies. They will leave middle managers and stay with middle leaders. There is a world of difference between the two.

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” in 2018 and 2021 and received the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award in 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 the bestsellers Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery and Japan Presentations Mastery, together with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His Japanese-language books include 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 regular business insights on LinkedIn, Facebook and X and hosts six weekly podcasts. On YouTube, he produces The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery and Japan’s Top Business Interviews for executives and professionals seeking practical strategies for succeeding in Japan.