Is there really a lack of female leadership in Japan?

No matter how many times it makes global headlines, I still find myself in conversations with clients all the time asking “is there really a lack of female leaders in Japan?” I was on another call the other day with a client and was asked this exact same question again. It occurred to me it is almost as if people don’t actually believe it is true! To clear the air; yes, it is undoubtedly and unfortunately very true. Having lived and worked in Japan for 10 years now and seeing it firsthand, I can attest to the validity of that statement. You can look no further than a quick google search to find piles of articles and evidence to support this, including two articles I’ve written over the years as well on gender inequality in Japan and 3 reasons why Japan is failing hard at D&I.

There is little that can be accomplished by continually looking back and over-analysing the multitude of reasons why this is the case. However, there is value in understanding the basics which are largely culturally related. In fact, this is the key reason why “Womenomics” failed despite being a Japanese government backed initiative; because even the Japanese government did not take its own country’s culture into consideration when creating the “202030” slogan of 30% of females in leadership positions by 2020. A target that was set with what seemed to be a realistic timeframe of 10+ years, but came up short by over 15% and Japan actually lowered its global ranking of gender equality from 80th to 121st out of 153 countries. As it turned out, this pressure to hit targets of women in leadership roles ironically had an adverse effect on the very goal it was trying to achieve.

However, it’s not all negative. There are also some positive developments worth noting. Over the course of the past decade, despite the shortcomings of the Womenonics initiative, there have been noteworthy achievements such as the first ever appointment of a female governor in Tokyo, who is no doubt known to many of us by now: Yuriko Koike. However, Governor Koike, like many other women in manager, director, VP and board member roles today have fought their entire careers with decks stacked very against their favor, and have arguably sacrificed much more in comparison with their male counterparts. Much of this comes down to the way Japanese culture in general perceives women, and their role in society. With womenomics increasing women in the workforce exponentially, most saw this as a win in the short term. However the reality was that most roles were menial, part-time, and administrative at best, as women still take the brunt of all household tasks and child rearing responsibilities. Not exactly giving these women a fighting chance to climb the corporate ladder. COVID-19 job losses in Japan hit women the hardest with an estimated 2/3rd of all cut jobs being filled by female employees.

This is by no means to be an exhaustive report on why there is a lack of female leadership in Japan. It is simply to let you know that without a shadow of a doubt that this is a major issue in Japan. Anyone looking outside-in to Japan and assuming there are female leaders hiding somewhere out of sight: I'm sorry but you are wrong. They do not exist. The ones you can see in plain sight are the valiant few mentioned above. The rest do not exist... yet. It is on all of us working with and working in Japan to deeply understand the cultural roots of this issue and how we can solve it together. And no, the answer is not by continually setting arbitrary targets to have X percentage of female leaders by Y date. The answer is to understand, empathize with, and give our full support to give women all the chances they deserve to excel and succeed in their careers, and in their personal lives. It does not have to be one or the other, which is what the cultural narrative is currently. McKinsey has written a fantastic article on just some of their recent findings on what organizations in Japan can do to help women step up into leadership positions in 2021 and beyond. If you are like one of my many clients who are struggling with this issue of “finding” strong female leaders, I suggest you start here. Strong leaders are not born that way, they are created by the cultures and organizations that help shape them. I hope we can all be a part of that change for a healthier and more successful future for female leaders in Japan.