In today’s most advanced business practice, the definition of “leadership” has evolved significantly beyond the pre-VUCA image of “a strong leader pulling everyone forward.”
Leadership is now understood as a process of connecting people in uncertain and complex environments, creating a psychologically safe and diversity-embracing space, and generating sustainable results through learning and adaptation. In other words, rather than seeing “leader = authority (a strong individual),” the more advanced view is to see “leadership = the act of designing the environment and the relationships.”
Behind this shift are evolving ideas centered on complexity, decentralization, inclusion, and psychological safety. The definition of a leader has also changed, moving from “the person who gives the answer” to “the facilitator who creates the conditions for achieving the vision.”
Put simply, in one phrase:
“Leadership is not the power to make people obey. It is the dynamic force that creates the kind of environment in which everyone can contribute their best and move toward the future together.”
To develop leadership effectively, it is useful to distinguish between “leadership by leaders” (what leaders themselves are expected to exercise) and “all-participation leadership” (what every team member is expected to exercise).
In addition, leadership by leaders itself continues to evolve. In particular, there is now a strong demand for inclusive leadership—the ability to accept diversity and make use of it.
This program develops the foundational knowledge and practical skills needed to exercise these forms of leadership.
- Leadership training (all-participation, regardless of title)
- Leadership by leaders training
- Inclusive leadership training
Leaders are expected to articulate a clear vision, share that vision with others, draw out people’s motivation and action, and guide the organization toward its goals. Leadership is not simply about issuing instructions. It is the driving force that raises each member’s intrinsic motivation and helps the whole team grow. Today’s leaders are expected to demonstrate leadership that can achieve both strong performance and talent development.
Leaders also need management capability. That is covered in our Leader Training program.
What Is Inclusive Leadership Training? | Turning Diversity into Results
Inclusive leadership is the ability to create an environment in which every member, with different values, cultures, and backgrounds, can contribute at their highest level.
It is not enough simply to “accept diversity.” Leaders are expected to make use of diversity and turn it into team competitiveness.
In today’s society, where diversity in gender, nationality, work style, and ways of thinking is advancing rapidly, leaders must be able to see differences positively, draw out individual strengths, and connect that to stronger organizational performance.
The leaders needed going forward are those who can turn difference into strength. Diversity is a major source of competitiveness and can also drive creativity and transformation.
Below is a comparison between leadership by leaders training and inclusive leadership training.
For a deeper explanation of the ideas that form the foundation of inclusive leadership, please see our page on psychological safety .
Below is a comparison table showing the difference between conventional leadership training and inclusive leadership training.
| Item | Leadership by Leaders Training |
New Program Inclusive Leadership Capability Development Training |
|---|---|---|
| Target Participants | Department heads, section heads, and management candidates | Executives, department heads, section heads, and management candidates |
| Purpose | Strengthen leadership behaviors that increase team value and drive achievement of team goals | Enable diverse members to contribute fully and deliver team results marked by creativity, innovation, and one-team alignment |
| Core Perspective | Motivate and guide members toward results | Respect diversity, draw out the power of all members, and turn strong synergy into results |
| Leader Image | A leader who presents a vision and directs and supports members | A leader who accepts differences and strengthens the team through dialogue |
| Skills Emphasized |
- Vision-building capability - Goal-setting and alignment capability - The ability to move people emotionally and motivate them - Coaching and delegation capability - Feedback capability - Storytelling capability |
- Diversity understanding capability - Dialogue-based communication capability that enables exchange without debate - Psychological safety promotion capability - The ability to recognize differences and manage bias - The ability to articulate thinking clearly - Receptivity |
| Main Training Content |
- Core leadership theory - Theory, exercises, and role-plays for building strong teams - Trust-building workshops - Subordinate development exercises - Feedback practice - Team vision design - Storytelling exercises and presentations |
- Core inclusion theory - Unconscious bias workshops - Case studies on leveraging diversity - Perspective-shifting exercises - Practical exercises for exchanging opposing views constructively - Team vision design - Psychological safety exercises and role-plays |
| Expected Outcomes |
- Higher overall team performance - More self-directed team building |
- Stronger organizational competitiveness through diversity - Greater creativity and innovation |
| Training Style | Workshop + self-assessment + group work + practical exercises + case studies | Workshop + self-reflection + group work + role-play |
Knowing Your Own Leadership Type as a Leader
When leaders understand their own leadership type, they can better understand their strengths and weaknesses and optimize their leadership style.
Leadership style in stable situations and leadership style in times of disruption are often different.
By understanding their leadership style, leaders can make the most of their strengths and identify ways to compensate for their weaknesses.
The 5D Profile Assessment includes a leadership assessment specifically designed for people in leadership and management roles. It also evaluates behavioral traits required for effective leadership.
What Is All-Participation Leadership Training? | Developing Influence Beyond Formal Title
1. Why Is This Training Needed?
We live in the VUCA era—an age of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. Social, economic, and technological change is intense, the unexpected has become routine, and past success patterns are no longer reliable.
Even inside organizations, the old assumptions that
- the manager always has all the answers, and
- people can simply wait for instructions before acting
are no longer realistic. That is because managers themselves are facing challenges they have never dealt with before and often do not have ready-made answers.
That is why:
- second-year employees,
- younger employees,
- veteran employees, and
- contract employees
all need the ability to understand and use their own strengths and to exercise leadership.
For example, there was a case where a team improved administrative procedures and significantly increased processing efficiency.
One administrative employee was struggling with low productivity because the daily process was complicated and prone to application errors and entry mistakes.
By drawing on her strengths in planning and risk management, she began exchanging ideas with colleagues and created a pre-checklist for application processing.
Another colleague, whose strength was explanation and communication, distributed the checklist to related departments and gave a simple explanation.
As a result, mistakes were eliminated, rework disappeared, and processing speed improved dramatically.
This has nothing to do with formal title. It is action that exerts influence that moves the organization forward.
2. What Kind of Training Is This?
This training develops the ability to exercise leadership proactively, starting from one’s own strengths.
- It is not traditional “leader development.”
- It helps participants discover and recognize the strengths they already have,
- apply those strengths to their work and team, and
- build up small but meaningful leadership actions over time.
The goal is for each person to take initiative, have a positive influence on others, and strengthen the organization from the front line.
3. What Outcomes Can Be Expected?
Through this training,
- each employee gains greater confidence in their own strengths,
- their ability to think independently and take action increases, and
- they become better able to exert positive influence within the team.
After the training,
- engagement across the organization improves,
- flexible problem-solving capability at the front line becomes stronger,
- and a more self-directed, proactive culture capable of responding to the unexpected begins to take shape.
This is not just skill development. It can strengthen the organization’s overall ability to respond to change.
4. Strengths-Based Leadership Development Training: Curriculum (2-Day Program)
[Day 1] Self-Understanding and Discovering Strengths
| Time | Content |
|---|---|
| 9:00-9:30 | Orientation: introductions, training purpose and goals, and how the program will proceed |
| 9:30-10:30 | What is leadership? Why is leadership needed? |
| 10:30-12:00 | What kind of leadership is required in the VUCA era? Learn the types of leadership and their meaning and significance |
| 13:00-14:30 | Self-understanding workshop 1 Exploring your strengths: participants who completed the assessment in advance use their assessment results, while those who have not completed it carry out a strengths inventory exercise |
| 14:30-16:00 | Self-understanding workshop 2 Understanding the background of your strengths: personality, thinking, and values |
| 16:00-17:30 | Thinking about where to use your strengths (pair work and case sharing) |
[Day 2] Turning Leadership into Concrete Action and Practice
| Time | Content |
|---|---|
| 9:00-10:30 | Designing your own leadership style |
| 10:30-12:00 | Small leadership action plan 1 (designing actions that can be taken in the workplace) |
| 13:00-14:30 | Case study exercises (demonstrating leadership in unexpected situations) |
| 14:30-16:00 | Small leadership action plan 2 (individual feedback) |
| 16:00-17:30 | Presentations and sharing / commitment statements for workplace implementation |
This training is also linked to our organizational development program for building strong teams.
[Conclusion]
This program is a next-generation leadership development course for all employees that aims to:
- respond to the VUCA era,
- regardless of title or seniority,
- enable everyone to use their strengths to exercise small but meaningful leadership, and
- raise the organization’s overall self-direction and ability to adapt to change.
This program is designed to help participants develop leadership, inclusive leadership, and all-participation leadership in forms that can be applied directly in real work.
How This Training Is Differentiated from Other Programs
All of our training programs, including leadership training, are built on self-understanding through the 5D Profile Assessment, so participants first gain a clear understanding of their strengths, weaknesses, and individual characteristics before moving into the training itself.
This creates a structure that supports not just theoretical understanding, but practical and individually optimized behavior change.
Even when participants have not taken the assessment in advance, we include a simplified self-analysis exercise within the program to deepen self-awareness and strengthen the practical use of the skills learned.
By the end of the training, participants do not leave with vague understanding alone. They leave with a concrete action plan that clarifies how they will use their strengths and what actions they will take.