Starting the Journey 5the roots’. The phrase comes from the practice of cutting
around a tree a few weeks before you want to move it. The
cut roots start sprouting new growth, so when they move the
tree, new growth takes hold straight away. The cutting also
prepares the tree more gradually for the move than uproot-
ing it in one go. But if they find too many roots, that is, a host
of objections, Japanese leaders tend to withdraw and
continue discussions. They will not usually bring an issue to
a vote until they feel that most people will agree. The debate
is over before the meeting.
Whatever their style, something that all leaders share is in-
fluence. We may see influential people on television, in
films, in politics or at work, meet them socially or read about
them in the press. We may admire them and want to copy
them because they get things done, they stand for something
important, something we want to be part of. We bestow
‘leadership’ on them. So leadership does not exist as an in-
dependent quality; it only exists between people. It describes
a relationship. ‘Followers’ are the other half of leaders. They
go together.
Leadership has long been associated with authority – we
tend to concentrate on the leader, to think of them as in-
nately superior in some way, and take the followers for
granted. But formal authority is only one possible part of
leadership. Many leaders do not have it. In some cases, per-
haps ‘companionship’ better describes the relationship
between leader and followers.
As leadership connects people in this way, I do not think
it can be fully modelled from the outside by giving lists of
how leaders act, culled from the study of other leaders. It can
only be modelled from theinside, by each of us developing
the values, beliefs and qualities we need to realize and
achieve our purpose in life, to bring out our vision of what is
possible. Then others will join us. We will be leaders first to
ourselves and then to our companions.