Home Videos Compassion-Driven Leadership: A Japanese Perspective of Purposeful Leadership

Compassion-Driven Leadership: A Japanese Perspective of Purposeful Leadership

With

Tadahiro Wakasugi

June 30, 2025

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What is the secret to building a company that lasts for centuries? In Japan, home to forty one percent of the world’s companies over one hundred years old, the answer is surprisingly simple: compassion. But what does compassionate leadership look like, how do you practice it, and how can it benefit your organization?

These questions were explored by Tadahiro Wakasugi, a faculty member at GLOBIS University, during the GLOBIS USA seminar “Compassion-Driven Leadership: Japanese Perspective of Purposeful Leadership.”

During the seminar, Mr. Wakasugi taught attendees how compassion, far from being a weakness, can be a competitive strength that fosters sustainable success and organizational trust. He provided insights from Japan’s most enduring companies and explained how this philosophy can help leaders find and pursue their kokorozashi, or personal mission.

Below is an article adapted from the seminar’s transcript, edited for clarity.

Next Article

Tadahiro Wakasugi: I am excited to talk about a topic I care about deeply: compassion in organizations and the importance of kokorozashi, a sense of personal mission.

Why does compassion matter in the first place?

Let me give you some context about Japan. Japan is home to many companies that are over one hundred years old; in fact, it accounts for forty one percent of all such companies in the world. Why? We believe one of the key factors of a company’s longevity is compassion within an organization.

As you may know, Japan is a Buddhist country. And compassion is one of the teachings of Buddhism. So this concept, compassion, actually shaped Japanese business culture. And because of that, some companies were able to survive over generations.

Now, you might think, “What is compassion?” I think it’s very simple. Compassion involves three steps: understanding, empathy, and motivation.

Understanding: I understand you, I understand your context, I understand where you are coming from.

Empathy: I feel your pain. I feel what you are feeling.

Motivation: If someone is in pain, you want to support them.

This combination of understanding (head), empathy (heart), and motivation (hands) is what creates compassion.

Unfortunately, psychologists warn that compassion is fading quickly, and we are losing trust in society right now. Compassion has gone down. By 2009, the average person cared less about others than 75% of people did in 1979. This is causing a lot of societal, organizational, and also personal problems, in my view.

However, here is another thing: organizational leaders fear introducing compassion into their organization. Why? I’ve talked to many leaders, and many of them say “compassion is a weakness.” “You need to be tough.” “You need to be competitive in this environment.” “Compassion makes you soft in business.”

This is a misunderstanding. Today, what I’d like to show you is that compassion is not weakness. It can be a powerful strength. And if you lead with compassion, you’ll be able to build a more sustainable, more competitive business.

This leads to the core message I want to deliver, which is embodied in the Japanese saying, Jū yoku gō o seisu: “The soft is stronger than the strong.”

Now, why is this so important in today’s environment? This is a recent survey that came out from the 2025 Edelman Global Report: Six out of ten [people surveyed] hold grievances. Many people are frustrated and angry. Why? Because they feel that business and government don’t serve them. They feel business and government are hurting them. People are losing trust in business and government. This is the current environment that we are in now. In this kind of environment, what kind of people would be influential? A leader who understands people, or a leader who occupies a formal position of power?

Among people with high levels of grievance, sixty percent said compassion earns influence, whereas only forty eight percent chose formal positions of power. Of course, both are important, but what is even more important today is actually compassion. Influence is gained through compassion, not power.

How can we actually embody compassion in an organizational setting? Let’s learn from some Japanese companies.

We can bring compassion into an organization in three directions: Compassion for employees, compassion for customers, and compassion for society.

Cultivating Compassion for Employees

Wakasugi: Let’s begin with compassion for employees. I want to talk about this small company, Ina Food Industry. Their Chairman Hiroshi Tsukakoshi actually created a compassionate culture. It’s a small firm, but this company has been visited by global executives, including Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda. A lot of executives actually come to this company in the rural area of Japan to learn about its philosophy.

Here’s their secret: its philosophy of tree ring management.

The core of this philosophy is the happiness of the employees. And then you actually make your customers happy. You try to coexist with suppliers and you make the community happier, right? Tsukakoshi and his company want to grow steadily, like a tree.

What do they do to make employees happy? There are many practices, but let me actually introduce one of them. On day one at Ina Food Industry, Tsukakoshi facilitates an orientation session.

He gives you a hundred-year calendar and says, “Take a good look at this hundred-year calendar. Somewhere on it you will find the date of your death.” You need to think about your death on day one at Ina Food Industry. This company is promoting the happiness of its employees, by the way.

So what’s the purpose of this hundred-year calendar? It makes you think about what is really important in your life, to give a longer perspective.

This calendar is in every meeting room at Ina Food Industry. If you work there, you’re probably going to see this calendar four or five times a day, and every time you’ll be reminded that you’re going to die.

Tsukakoshi says it is a reminder of the time left in the world. Everyone will die eventually. So given that, how should we live this life? He wants people to seriously reflect on what it means to truly live.

Now, what can we learn from this case? I’m not saying you should put a one-hundred-year calendar in your meeting room, but we can use this kind of small, gentle reminder to support employee happiness. We don’t need huge systematic changes in organizations. We don’t need huge initiatives. There are small things that we can do every day. Use daily gentle reminders to support employee happiness.

Finding Compassion for Customers

Wakasugi: Now let’s come to the next topic: compassion for customers.

And here’s the company I would like to talk about: KonMari, founded by Marie Kondo, who is the creator of the popular KonMari method. They offer tidying consulting, education and lifestyle products.

Some of you may have watched Tidying Up with Marie Kondo. It was super popular all over the world.

Marie Kondo, who has loved tidying since she was five, had a turning point at seventeen when she recognized that the key to tidying is to focus on what to keep, not what to throw away.

But her method is very simple. Think about what to keep and the criteria is even more simple.

It’s about choosing joy. So pick up one item at a time. Hold it. And ask this question: “Does it spark joy?” If yes, keep it. Cherish it. If not, you thank the item and let it go.

She started to coach her friends. For example, a college friend working at a tech company. After getting Kondo’s advice, the friend found that the only books remaining in her room were on social welfare.

This reminded her of volunteer babysitting as a teen. She remembered the passion she had.

After her revelation, she quit her job, launched a childcare business, and she’s very happy right now. Thriving.

So what does it mean? Marie Kondo discovered that tidying is not just functional. It has a compassionate meaning. Tidying has the power to change lives. This is what she realized. She wrote this book, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up the Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing and became a bestselling author.

What is the meaning of your work? It’s a very important question to ask. Discover meaning in your work to connect with customers more compassionately. You may think, oh, how is it relevant to my job in my organization?

Let me give you another example.

A fundraising center. So this call center raised scholarship funds. The staff had a very tough job. You know, endless calls, endless rejections. Just reading a script can be very exhausting.

What did they do?

Staff were asked to read stories about how scholarship changed graduates’ lives.

For example, a story from a former student who studied engineering. He was raised by a single parent. He actually gave up on going to college, but this scholarship enabled him to study engineering, and now he’s working at a robotics company.

After the staff spent a few minutes reading these kinds of stories, they began to recognize the compassionate meaning of their work. Their fundraising totals more than doubled.

This is the power of recognizing the compassionate meaning of your work. I think every work has its own compassionate meaning. The key is for leaders to help their staff recognize that. That is compassionate leadership.

Extending Compassion to Society

Wakasugi: Now let’s turn to compassion for society.

I want to talk about the oldest company in the world, Kongō Gumi. It’s been in business for more than a thousand years. They build temples and preserve temples. In fact, they built the oldest temple in Japan, Shitennō-ji.

How have they survived so long? The answer is very simple to me. They think super long term.

We’re living in a short-term, competitive environment, but they think long term.

If you talk to temple carpenters, they say their work isn’t something that shows its true value right away. The value is something that people only recognize after two or three hundred years. That is the kind of scope they are thinking about. They are thinking about future generations. They’re not thinking about just quarterly output or results.

Now the question is how can you think long term? They’re doing a lot of things, but let me introduce one of their practices. The carpenters leave a wooden tag with their own name hidden somewhere inside the temple. Why? So in two or three hundred years, when the temple needs to be restored, someone’s going to look at it and see the tag. The carpenters always ask themselves, “How will I be remembered by future generations?”

Developing your Kokorozashi

Wakasugi: How can we develop compassionate leaders who care about employees, customers, and society?

Here is our suggestion: develop your kokorozashi. A kokorozashi is a sense of personal mission that unifies the passions and skills of a professional to create positive change in society. It connects personal passion with social good.

Remember Marie Kondo, who loved tidying from a time when she was a child and she actually converted it into a business helping millions of people going beyond just functional tidying.

What is your kokorozashi? What is your sense of mission and how do you want to contribute to this world?

Here is my message for you. Be compassionate with kokorozashi. Develop your sense of mission, how you want to contribute to society. That will give you energy. That will bring you more motivation.

With that motivation, you’ll be able to help your employees. You’ll be able to help your customers. You’ll be able to improve society. We believe this is a healthier way to cultivate and create a better society.