Foreign manager or japanese manager

9 comments

1. I had a foreign manager before.

   It was the worst year of my life. Convinced me never to work under another foreigner ever again. Something about Japan + foreign boss = 10x the power harassment and abuse.

2. There are many personality variations among Japanese managers.

   There’s that on top of 100-odd countries/cultures a foreign manager could come from.

   I doubt that a sensical generalisation is even possible.

   Talk to your future manager before accepting a job offer 🙂

3. Japanese manager who is either a 帰国子女 or has lived / (preferably) worked overseas in a non-Japanese company (or in a Japanese company with many non-Japanese nationals).

   So far the best managers I have/had all fit the above.

4. It’s so entirely dependent on the person it’s not even funny. I’ve had both great and shit foreign and Japanese managers. It turns out while the way people skills manifest might change depending on the culture, actually HAVING people skills is a universal problem up to the individual.

5. Hard to generalise managers anywhere in the world. From my experience, the foreign managers in Japan who take the Japanese rules way too seriously are often the worst.

6. I have had 3 Japanese managers (JM) and 4 foreign managers (FM) in Japan over a long career. Honestly, it sort of depends on the person, structure, dynamics, but I can give you a couple of dynamics.

   * Strong FM living in JP – great because although we were from different “western” countries, our sense of communication and approach to business was extremely similar and we just fit really well together. Prioritized work-life balance but if things got really tough we did have to get results (i.e. very results driven).
   * FM in HK – had very little clue about JP and didn’t get along with the sales director, so put pressure on me PM. Tended to micro-manage. Thankfully this didn’t last too long.
   * JM with broad authority in Japan. Acted like a “shacho”. Don’t think he really knew what to do with me and surrounded himself with fairly weak yes-men. And they were all men. Mostly he left me alone. At one point he asked me to teach English inside the company.
   * JM – mid-level peer that got promoted. He basically left me alone. The role wasn’t really set up very well for him or our team. No micro-managing. No worries about vacations. Just not much. The team was disbanded by senior leaders a couple of years later.
   * JM – mid-level, arguably I reported to my junior. So, the first JM above I could infer wanted a Japanese team of guys. So, he put me in under another PM who in many objective measures had less of a track record. The guy was really nice. I think he was actually kind of uncomfortable with the whole thing and almost never asked me a thing. No problem with work life balance stuff.
   * FM in JP, some authority – this fellow is really good in some ways. He isn’t super experienced but excellent in terms of EQ and speaks Japanese well, so… He talks a good game about work-life, work culture, etc. Track record is a bit mixed but he is trying. No micro-managing. Biggest problem is he can’t really help me out as he doesn’t have the acumen yet.

   Funny thing about my industry is most of the above got redundant after a few years.

7. For my very large sample size of 1 (me):

   Foreign managers were hit or miss, about what you would expect from anyone in general. A couple good ones, others mostly meh, a couple pretty bad.

   All Japanese managers I’ve had were either mediocre or outright detrimental to the team, product, processes, and careers of everyone under them. Not that they were dumb, necessarily. They just lacked broader context having mostly only worked at the single company for their entire career, and knew nothing of global industry standard practices.

   If I had to choose between the two with no other information or context, I’d choose a foreign manager every time.

8. Both are fine. I had a very friendly but completely incompetent CTO from Morocco, while I currently have all Japanese managers who are all very competent, understanding, and friendly. The stereotype is probably the oppsite.

   It just depends on the person.

9. I (US born) was a director at my company for three years and tried to be a guide, teacher, and advocate for the employees under me, who have been Japanese and foreign.

   I’m not sure what you mean by not paying attention to work + career. I’m the final person to see my projects before they go to the client, so I have to pay very close attention to work quality, and will step in when an employee isn’t doing a good job.

   On the other hand, I’m generally not worried much about work style. That is, if the quality and speed of your output is good, I don’t care if you’re wearing a tie, keeping your desk neat, working from home, etc, while some (but not all) Japanese directors can be more focused on those details sometimes.

   I try to be easygoing personally, but that’s always been my personality. I’ve worked with foreign managers in the past who’ve been alcoholic rage machines and walking sexual harassment complaints.