Business130: Marketing
Leadership Case Study
ID:005298268
Daisuke Inoue
Nobunaga Oda and Steve Job
Nobunaga Oda is Japanese warrior who had lived in war period in 16 century in Japan. He had lived the most unstable period of Japanese history that military combats were repeated continuously all over Japan. Regardless of the class the one is belonging to, man with ability could be the owner of the country, and there was no rule that even the low class people could conquered the high class people, so the period was called Gekokujyo in Japanese. Having the vision of unifying Japan and bringing peace, he had fought many combats as Japanese feudal lord, Daimyo, from the area where Toyota headquarters is located now. He took over many countries and expanded his territory by wining the combat among federal lords. He nearly unified Japan. However, one of his followers named Mitsuhide Akechi betrayed him and assassinated while Oda was staying at the temple in Kyoto by burning it down in 1582. His dream had been inherited to his another follower named Hideyoshi Toyotomi and he had unified Japan. After his death, Japan became again the chaotic state and split between west and east. Finally after the decisive battle in 1600 between west Toyotomi and east Tokugawa, Tokugawa had seized the power and it managed to sustain peace for 300 years. Nobunaga had played significant role creating the vision of future of Japan, and the vision had influenced many people to take risk and make action. It was the age of uncertainty that no one knows about the future. All the people were living the day as if it is the last day because they were always surrounded by the death. People were seeking for something definite and waiting for the leader who brings them peace.
Nobunaga could become the leader of that age because he could utilize the most innovative tool at that time which is firearm and he was creative thinker who could see the vision in which others cannot see. He is the man who had changed the way of fighting combat in Japan from sword fighting. Since he was curious to know about the western countries, he had invited Christian missionaries and they brought idea of Christianity, globe, map and watch. Firearm had attracted him most and Nobunaga adopt the idea of using firearm in the combat before any other Daimyo uses. It took 1 minuet to load the gun and the soldiers will be killed while preparing to shoot, so he formed 3 lines that they could alternately shoot the gun. If he could not think of the idea, the gun was not effective weapon. Those only who figured out the effective way could receive the benefit. Even though his military size was smaller than the opponent, the use of gun and its extraordinary mobility made them possible to win. He was good at managing the warriors by giving them rank regardless of its class. He implemented the economic policy which deregulated and activated the transaction between people. It was the system which attracted people, thing, money and information and the wealth created the foundation culture such as tea ceremony to be cultivated.
Leader is created by the environment where the person is living in the certain place and time. No matter where and when person lives, every person grows up by incorporating the context which fit their character from the environment and play the role in the group or society. Leader is who has vision and who have ability to materialize onefs dream by influencing others. The attribute of the leader is that they have the ability to think about the future and solve the problem with creativity. As the person has stronger vision, the person has more desire to change than those who do not have any vision. The vision motivates them to make an action. Leader is supported by many people because he takes consideration the needs and want of the people. Leader is responsible for making the decision and result itself.
Defining history as the total collection of human personal stories, Steve Job is considered as not only American business leader, but also the global historical leader. His imagination is not limited within America. It is covering the entire earth. He thinks his mission as not only gaining the profit of the company, but also providing the hardware and software for people which empower people by helping them to release their inner creativity and it has power to change the way of the human view of the world and communication. As information is conveyed anywhere in the world instantaneously, more people share the same information at the same time. Human are making decision based on the information they recognize and receive from the environment, so the behavior of human would be set in the same time framework. World history in the past is unfolded based on the rule that first person who acquires the information would become a winner of the game. In other words, the person who knows some information will benefit and those who do not know can not access the wealth. Even the small difference of knowing and not knowing creates the tremendous difference in the end.
For example, discovery of the science, process of generating knowledge, in Europe was the necessary condition for the event of the industrial revolution to be happened which allowed Britain to produce products such as textile massively by importing the resources from the colonies in Africa, Asia and South America with extremely low price and exporting to the countries which does not have the capacity to manufacture the product with low cost. They had established the financial system and had dominated the world wealth in that period. European countries which found the method to colonize the inferior country could gain its wealth and the country especially China which does not know the method were continually exploited. The foundation of the wealth among European countries is based on the wealth exploited from their colony. Europe was advanced as capitalism country and its circumstance had created Marx. If he was not living in the capitalist country, the idea of socialism, creating equal society and exclude the exploitation, would not emerge. He was the intellectual leader who had lots of followers who attempted to build nation based on his theory.
Immigration of European to the U.S. had led the advancement of technology in America. America is the nation which it is built based on the rule of free competition and majority rule. It had created the environment which is most likely to stimulate the human desire such as American dream and elicits human potential. It motivates people to think and win the game of capitalism. To improve the productivity and win the competition, people fully utilizes the knowledge of science and technology. If there are resources, tools and knowledge of procedures, one can creates any object. It is possible to say that human take information outside into mind and produce the object by materializing the information like the cell uses the information of genes to produce the protein. In essence, information is language. If European had not transmitted information of the science and technology from European continent to American continent, then it had been impossible for American to produce the product and generate the wealth which made America to be most powerful nation only in 300 years.
Japan has the history that it closed all the ports and had prevented the information to come inside the nation until Matthew Perry from America demanded Tokugawa Shogunate to open the gates in 1853. Not being influenced by the foreign countries, Japan could cultivate its original culture during this period, that culture is total collection of the knowledge, but they noticed the gap of technology between European countries had widened. That is the reason why Japanese government had sent Europe many abroad students to learn and import knowledge. If there was a computer connected to Internet in Japan in 1868, then the person might learned the knowledge through Internet because the method of getting information, the style of learning and communication is different nowadays. It had established many universities to distribute knowledge and encourage learning. Knowledge was spread all over Japan due to the highest literacy rate and habit of reading books. Knowledge is the resource to create the wealth. Japanese society underwent change dramatically after 1868 and had attempted to catch Western countries. As a result, Japan which is relatively small size could win the war against Russia and China. However, Japan had been lost by America in World War II since it lacked the natural resources such as oil, steels and food. It realized that energy sources are vital for the economy to function.
The new information technology would change the rule of the game played in the society and it causes world to be chaotic. It is possible to make analogy between now and wartime period in Japan because people lived in the age of uncertainty. Whether it is business or politics, every people are living in history and leader is like the captain of the ship who decides where to go and explore unknown. The leader of the 21 century would be the person who has the vision that unifying the world through the new weapon Internet and computer, understand the need and want of the people on the global scale, and act locally.
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