"The very first thing that you have to do as a leader in Japan is to make yourself a team member."
"You have to show them that you're here because you want to lead Japan, not because you want to lead."
"Don't ask anyone to do anything you wouldn't do yourself."
"You have to get to a level where you can show both knowledge and humility."
"Once you show your people a path... they will follow you."
Doru Tasca is President and Representative Director of ZF Group in Japan, combining more than three decades of life in Japan with extensive leadership experience in the automotive industry.
Born and raised in Romania, Tasca came to Japan at eighteen after winning a Japanese government Monbusho scholarship. He spent his first year studying Japanese at Osaka University of Foreign Studies before completing his university education in Japan. That early immersion gave him not only fluency in Japanese but also a deep familiarity with the cultural assumptions underpinning Japanese business.
After initially teaching English, Tasca entered the automotive industry in 2005 with Japanese company Witech in Hiroshima, beginning in R&D before moving into sales and programme management. He subsequently joined Visteon and later Continental, where he worked extensively in automated and assisted driving technologies including cameras, radar and lidar.
Tasca joined ZF in 2020 as Key Account Executive for Toyota. His responsibilities expanded until he became Head of Sales for ZF Japan at the beginning of 2025 and subsequently President and Representative Director, while retaining his sales leadership responsibilities.
His career has been shaped by his ability to operate comfortably between Japanese and Western business cultures. Rather than treating Japan as a temporary overseas assignment, Tasca describes Japan as his home and believes effective foreign leadership requires understanding the language, culture, customers and people from the inside.
Narrative Summary
Leading successfully in Japan requires much more than importing global management practices and expecting local employees to adapt. For Doru Tasca, President and Representative Director of ZF Group Japan, effective leadership begins with becoming part of the team.
Tasca's perspective comes from an unusual career. Arriving from Romania at eighteen on a Japanese government scholarship, he learned Japanese, studied in Japan and eventually built his entire professional career there. His first automotive role was inside a traditional Japanese company, where he experienced Japanese corporate life from the bottom upwards before moving into multinational organisations including Visteon, Continental and ZF.
That background taught him an important lesson: Western leadership habits cannot simply be transplanted into Japan. Consensus building and nemawashi matter. Leaders must understand how decisions are developed and gain acceptance rather than relying solely on positional authority.
Credibility also comes from being willing to do the work. Tasca believes leaders initially need to get their hands dirty so they understand what their teams actually do. Delegation should come later and must be explained carefully. Employees need to understand that work is being delegated because the leader trusts them and wants them to grow, not because the boss simply wants to unload unwanted tasks.
This philosophy extends to decision-making. Tasca asks his management team to investigate problems, consult their teams, develop alternatives and return with a recommendation. If he accepts their recommendation, responsibility is shared. If he overrides it, he takes responsibility himself. This creates psychological safety around decisions while still encouraging ownership.
Trust is another recurring theme. Tasca sees reputation as one of the most valuable assets anyone possesses in Japanese business. Trust takes considerable time to build and can be destroyed remarkably quickly. Leaders therefore need to demonstrate reliability through behaviour. Tasca attends meetings alongside his people, joins them when customer problems occur and makes himself visible throughout the organisation. Employees must see that their leader works with them rather than merely issuing instructions.
He also emphasises accessibility. As president, he deliberately walks around the office and speaks with employees, even when the interaction lasts only thirty seconds. Japanese employees can be reluctant to approach senior leaders with problems, making it important for leaders themselves to reduce the psychological distance.
For foreign executives, Tasca's advice is particularly clear: learn Japanese. Language is not simply a communication tool. It signals commitment and allows leaders to understand nuances that disappear when Japanese employees are required to operate entirely in English.
Ultimately, Tasca defines leadership through example, humility and development. Leaders should never ask others to do something they would not do themselves. They must recognise that specialists around them will often know far more than they do and combine sufficient knowledge with the humility to listen.
Most importantly, leaders must show people a path forward. When employees understand how today's difficult assignment contributes to tomorrow's growth, leadership becomes more than authority. It gives people a reason to follow.
Q&A Summary
What makes leadership in Japan unique?
Leadership in Japan depends heavily on becoming accepted as part of the team rather than simply asserting hierarchical authority. Tasca argues that foreign leaders must demonstrate that they understand Japanese business behaviour, including consensus building and nemawashi.
This requires hands-on involvement. Employees need to see that their leader understands their work and is prepared to share the burden. Only after establishing that credibility can delegation become genuinely effective.
Japanese decision-making also places considerable importance on collective acceptance. Tasca asks managers to investigate issues with their teams, identify alternatives and recommend a solution. When he agrees, responsibility becomes shared. When he rejects their recommendation and chooses another direction, he deliberately assumes responsibility for that decision.
Why do global executives struggle?
Global executives can struggle when they arrive believing successful leadership practices elsewhere will automatically work in Japan. Tasca warns against behaving like a temporary expatriate who has come to collect several years of international experience before moving to another assignment.
Japanese employees observe whether a foreign executive is genuinely committed to Japan. Leaders who remain isolated from employees, customers, language and everyday Japanese society can struggle to build the credibility required to lead effectively.
Tasca's distinction is powerful: executives need to demonstrate that they came because they want to lead Japan, not simply because they want to be leaders.
Is Japan truly risk-averse?
The interview presents a more nuanced picture than simply describing Japanese organisations as risk-averse. Tasca's experience in the automotive sector shows companies managing uncertainty through relationships, consensus and long-term cooperation.
Japanese automotive competitors may cooperate when earthquakes or other disruptions threaten production. Customers also deliberately bring competing suppliers together, creating relationships that may eventually enable cooperation when supply-chain problems emerge.
Rather than seeing this purely as risk avoidance, it can be understood as strategic uncertainty management. Long-term relationships provide resilience when unexpected problems arise.
What leadership style actually works?
Tasca advocates visible, participative and accountable leadership.
Leaders need to work alongside employees, understand their jobs and demonstrate that delegation is designed to develop people rather than dump work onto them. They also need to listen to criticism. Tasca argues that a person who cannot accept constructive criticism has no business being a leader and is merely someone who possesses power.
Accessibility matters as well. Tasca makes daily rounds through the office and speaks with employees because people must feel comfortable approaching leadership with problems.
The resulting style combines knowledge with humility. Leaders do not need to be the greatest technical expert in the room. They need enough understanding to evaluate expert advice, make decisions and empower specialists to perform.
How can technology help?
Technology is central to ZF's business, but Tasca's leadership lessons emphasise that technology does not eliminate the human component of management.
ZF operates across advanced automotive technologies including automated driving, cameras, high-performance computing, braking, steering, suspension and transmissions. The company invests heavily in research and development and must persuade customers to adopt technologies that can initially be expensive.
Yet commercial success ultimately rests on trust. Customers need confidence that the supplier will deliver reliably over decades. Technology may create the opportunity, but relationships, reputation and execution determine whether customers choose that organisation when the next technology arrives.
Does language proficiency matter?
For Tasca, the answer is unequivocally yes.
His advice to a newly appointed foreign president is: learn Japanese immediately. Japanese employees may become more restricted when forced to communicate entirely in English, and important nuances can disappear.
At ZF Japan, Tasca is the only foreigner and normal staff meetings are conducted in Japanese. He believes speaking Japanese helps employees communicate naturally and demonstrates that the foreign leader is making a genuine effort to understand the country.
Language proficiency therefore contributes directly to trust, communication and leadership effectiveness.
What's the ultimate leadership lesson?
Tasca's leadership philosophy can be condensed into a simple principle: do not ask anyone to do something you would not do yourself.
Leadership also requires humility. There will always be people who possess deeper technical knowledge than the leader. The leader's role is to listen, understand enough to make sound decisions and trust capable people with responsibilities that help them develop.
Employees also need to see where they are going. Tasca believes leaders must show people a career path and explain how difficult assignments will help them grow.
When people can see that their leader shares the burden, listens, accepts responsibility and invests in their development, they will follow — including when circumstances become difficult.
Author Credentials
Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie "One Carnegie Award" (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results.
He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have also been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban "Hito o Ugokasu" Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー).
In addition to his books, Greg publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, offering practical insights on leadership, communication, and Japanese business culture. He is also the host of six weekly podcasts, including The Leadership Japan Series, The Sales Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan's Top Business Interviews. On YouTube, he produces three weekly shows — The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan's Top Business Interviews — which have become leading resources for executives seeking strategies for success in Japan.
