Leading with Spirit, Presence, and Authenticity: A Volume in the International Leadership Association Series, Building Leadership Bridges

Chapter ThreeEnspirited Leadership in Japan

Bob Stilger, Yuka Saionji

On a gray winter day in 2011, the biggest earthquake in centuries struck Japan’s Tohoku region, just off the northeast coast. Soon a devastating tsunami arrived with waters more than sixty feet high and traveling at nearly sixty miles an hour. The next day, the Fukushima Nuclear Energy Plant exploded. Nearly twenty thousand people perished, and a half million were without jobs or homes or both. In late 2013, 300,000 people are still living in temporary housing, and in many communities the local economy is still paralyzed. Yet beneath this tragedy, something new is being born.

Government has done the best it can, and its immediate efforts led to an early stabilization. Government ...