HBR: Social Intelligence and the Biology of Leadership

(What I am going to talk about is little bit off topic...) Comparing Japanese and westerners, I personally think that Japanese tend to be less aggressive and put themselves in ambiguous position. In a good way, those are part of Japanese culture that say something indirectly (imply meaning) and strongly care about how others think (something like reading air?), rather than say directly what you want to say. Conversely westerners more likely to be "straight talker". I strongly felt this difference when I went out Japan. I had to say directly if I want to claim my idea. If I express ambiguously, nobody understood and grasp my idea. The problem occurred when I came back to Japan, friends around me looked uncomfortable when I say something directly as I did in oversea. I was forgetting Japanese ambiguous culture, then I realized that I got used to westerner's way of expressing and feel uneasy when I talk to Japanese. However, since I now live in Japan, behaving like Japanese is sometimes necessary, otherwise I cannot get along with them.

Reading article from HBR, I kinda relieved that I am able to establish rapport if I under take hard work of changing behavior. Plus, I was very surprised that there is a person called Executive Coach who teach executives how to behave well as great leaders.  I cannot afford $2,200/h to develop my social intelligence, but recognizing its job is meaningful. It is very difficult to change behavior by myself, rather, I prefer friends alert me like "what you said was too much, you should say it more softly". Then, I will quickly realize my mistake and be able to practice social intelligence. As article mentioned, spending time with perfect model of person who has great behavior is really effective. He/she stimulate mirror neuron and provide great example to mimic. I would really like to observe models and acquire those behaviors and be a GREAT leader:)!