The 5 Eastern Leadership Secrets: What Westerners Should Be Aware

I was born and grew up in the East; Bangkok, Thailand. I spent 8 years studying in the West, California, USA. I started my career at Unocal Thailand, a multinational company with western style management. I later moved on to work with PTTEP, a Thai National Oil Company with a predominant Thai-styled culture and management. During these years I have had many Thai & Westerner bosses and also many Thai and Expatriate subordinates. I think I’m qualified to reflect on this topic.

In order to tell my story more effectively, I have chosen the great Mahatma Gandhi, one of India’s and the world’s great leaders, to represent the best of what Eastern Leadership has to offer. So, let’s start with his story.

Gandhi’s leadership style is very empowering, leading-by-example and visionary. He was truly empowering as he single-handedly inspired all Indian population to rise up to demand their own independence from the great British Empire through the use of non-violent civil disobedience. Gandhi was also a visionary leader as he gave Indians a sense of national pride and spirit along with a sense of self-respect in their own civilization. In this respect, he was considered a great statesman and the man of vision. By establishing himself as a “slave” of the people, he gained universal acceptance of the population through leading by example. In addition, he was also a truly transformational leader where he heavily relied on his self-confidence, self-respect, and pure stubbornness. Throughout his entire life, he employed non-cooperation, non-violence, and peaceful resistance techniques until India was deservedly granted independence form the British Empire.

There are so many great lessons we can all learn from Gandhi’s work and life and other great leaders from the Eastern world, in particular:

1. The Practice of Servant Leadership: Living the life of servicing and sacrificing oneself for the greater good of all people

Gandhi is truly the model of a “Servant Leader”. He dedicated his life to “serve”  others without seeking glory and fortune himself. To Gandhi, the spirit of service and sacrifice forms the basic foundation for great leadership. To perform our duty to services, Gandhi suggested that we must focus on our responsibilities and not our rights. He relied on the concept of “concentric circles”, where one starts with service to those nearest to him/her and keeps expanding until it covers the universe. To do this, one must be ready to sacrifice oneself. As he put it, “we can do nothing or get nothing without paying a price for it … in other words, without sacrifice.”

Take Away For Westerners:

For Western Leaders, the main take-away is that to lead effectively in the Eastern Hemisphere, one should do well with less ego. In the West, leaders are expected to have very visible role (i.e. “leading from the front”) along with great abilities, leadership, skills and visionary roles. The leaders from this school most often come with great ego. From my personal experience, Western leaders, to be more effective in Eastern settings, could do very well by reducing their ego level and thinking more in terms of giving out rather than receiving.

2. A more paternalistic leadership model where one “leads by love” and is not “results-driven”

I am not an expert in the Indian culture but, in Thailand, we have Kings as our “Fathers of the Nation”. Leaders in our culture are expected to behave like a benevolent head of the family. In Thailand, like it is in most of Asia, we usually live in an extended family where different generations of family members live together in the same household. The “leader” of the family is always greatly respected by every member of the family and, in turn, he is expected to show equal love and treatment to all family members regardless of their “contributions” to the family. Gandhi heavily relies on non-violence and love as the bed-rock of his leadership, he also associates other distinctly Eastern qualities like humility, compassion, forgiveness, and tolerance along with non-violence as well. He was a great example of a leader that “leads by love” and not “rules by fear”.

Take Away for Westerners:

The stark difference with Eastern and Western leadership style is where Easterners put great emphasis on the sense of belonging and comradery; where Westerners tend to expect results-driven outcome as utmost priority. As explained before, Easterners tend to long for a sense of security and safety offered by the leader of the family as their top priority. Westerners, on the other hand, expect employees to perform before any kinds of rewards are warranted. This is why performance management or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) system of rewards have often failed in the Eastern world. In the Eastern Hemisphere, people want to be taken care of first before they reciprocate by returning the favor to the company with their best performance. For Western leaders operating in the East, my advice is try to win “hearts and minds” before setting any kind of performance expectations for your employees. After all, in your family, you will never base your love for your children on their abilities or outputs, right? Believe me, when you have their hearts and minds, the results will naturally follow. Another Western concept of “negotiating” your own performance with your boss is also totally foreign in the Eastern family-based culture. Rewards, in the Eastern world, are something to be received, granted by the power-that-be and not something to be negotiated.

3. An inward “self-focus” rather than “target-focus” approach is widely practiced and emphasised

Gandhi was a strong believer in the principle of “your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values, and your values become your destiny”. In other words, true leadership has to do with who you are more than what you do: The inward self-focus principle. This approach and self-discipline required is well known among sportsmen like archers and golfers, to name a few. To them, the chance of hitting the bulls eye or sinking a putt becomes less and less if you just try to focus on the target itself rather than your internal process and inner self-discipline. This concept is known as the “targetless” target (i.e. you should focus on yourself and the process to achieve the results rather than the result themselves!)

Take Away for Westerners:

In the West, it’s a common practice to base the reward system on performance achievement. From my own experience in the Eastern world, the performance management system and KPIs, instead of motivating staff to higher accomplishment, have become a way for certain ill-intention bosses to punish people that have lower outputs and contributions or those people they don't like. This, in turn, leads to poor teamwork and moral among employees, the exact opposite of the intended results. My recommendation is to shift the focus of the leaders from results to personal development of subordinates as well as adopting the internal processes required to achieve these results and personal development program instead.

4. Leading by example towards empowerment while adhering to strict moral values and convictions

The power of Gandhi leadership comes from the way he led others by example while observing strict personal moral values & convictions without any exceptions. Gandhi once wrote a note on a piece of paper to a journalist who asked him, “what message do you have for me to take back to the people?” And he handed a note back which read “My life is my message.” There is no ambiguity that Gandhi chose to live his life as an example to others on how to bring about a great change in the society. This is, indeed, a very powerful way to lead. Yes, we all have this choice to either live our lives as victims of our situation or we can choose to make a difference. In addition, according to Gandhi before being allowed to lead others, one must have strong sense of conscience or moral imperative, courage, and conviction. At the end of this great struggle, the ultimate prize is freedom from colonial rule and, what Ken Blanchard would call, “The Land of Empowerment”, for all people of India.

Take Away for Westerners:

Westerners do have similar idea for upholding what you preach through one’s own action or “walk the talk”. The important lesson Westerners can learn from Gandhi is strong conviction, personal values, and moral values are the first basic requirements for any leaders. You cannot lead people to any destinations if you don’t have the ‘moral compass’ to guide you along the path of righteousness.

5. Follow the Eastern Way by leading with humility, empathy, compassion, kindness, and patience

Albert Einstein’s once wrote about Gandhi saying "A leader of his people, unsupported by an outward authority, and victorious fighter who always scorn on the use of force, a man of wisdom and humility who has confronted the brutality of Europe with dignity of the simple human being and at all times risen superior… " Gandhi lived his whole life based on these Eastern traits of humility, empathy, compassion, kindness, and patience. With only these characteristics and not a single weapon in his possession, he led the great nation of India to independence from the mighty empire. That’s the power of one man’s beliefs and determination.

Take Away for Westerners:

If you study all great leaders from the Eastern world, you’ll find that they possess these traits without exception. My advice to you, Westerners, to assimilate these elements in your own leadership style. It has been proven over many centuries to work very well and there is no reason why it shouldn’t work now.

Here you have it, the 5 distinctively Eastern Leadership practices for you to consider. I have personally used them very successfully in my own career over the years. For Westerners, I’m not saying you throw away your own beliefs or practices but rather supplementing your own style and approach with these ideas when working in the East or with Easterners. They really work very well, take it from me! Last word of advice; always remember the saying “when in Rome, do as Romans”. For you will be a better leader whose leadership skills are whole heartedly accepted and readily appreciated by all your followers. I sincerely hope that you’ve gained some useful insights from this  article.

Note: Please stay-tuned to my next article: “The Western Leadership Secrets: What Easterners Should Be Aware.” Until then, so long!