297 Bart Wakabayashi, Managing Director of State Street Bank and Trust Tokyo
"First and foremost, trying to remain human myself."
"It was very important for me to let them know we are working together."
"Trust is important. We trust each other, we recognise each other, we thank each other."
"I constantly tell my team this: I want them to complain up."
Bart Wakabayashi is Managing Director of State Street Bank and Trust's Tokyo branch, where the principal business is foreign exchange trading. He has spent more than 26 years with State Street and has built an unusually international career spanning Japan, Australia, Canada and Hong Kong.
Born in Japan to an American mother and a Japanese father who was born and raised in Canada, Wakabayashi grew up in Japan before attending college in California. After returning to Japan, he eventually entered finance and joined State Street. His career subsequently took him to Sydney, Toronto and Hong Kong before bringing him back to Japan.
That combination of Japanese upbringing, North American education and extensive international experience has shaped his approach to leadership. He describes himself as thinking very much like a Japanese person while simultaneously recognising aspects of Japanese business culture that can frustrate him. Rather than seeing this bicultural background as providing a simple advantage, he treats leadership as a continuing process of adapting, listening and building trust.
As one of the relatively few locally hired executives to become branch manager in State Street's history in Japan, Wakabayashi has also experienced the challenges surrounding career mobility for Japanese employees in multinational organisations. That experience informs his interest in creating opportunities for local employees, building open communication and establishing an environment where people feel able to raise problems before those problems become crises.
For Bart Wakabayashi, effective leadership in Japan begins not with authority but with trust.
As Managing Director of State Street Bank and Trust's Tokyo branch, Wakabayashi operates in an environment where trust has unusually tangible consequences. Foreign exchange trading is fast-moving, financial institutions are heavily regulated and mistakes cannot simply be ignored in the hope that they disappear. Yet his philosophy of leadership is strikingly human: remain accessible, communicate constantly, demonstrate ethical behaviour personally and create an environment where employees feel safe enough to tell the leader what is actually happening.
Wakabayashi's perspective reflects an unusual personal history. Born and raised in Japan to an American mother and a Japanese father born in Canada, educated partly in California and professionally experienced in Sydney, Toronto and Hong Kong, he has spent his life moving between cultures. He considers himself very Japanese in many aspects of his thinking, yet international experience has also given him alternative ways of interpreting hierarchy, communication and organisational behaviour.
That matters because hierarchy remains an important feature of Japanese working life. Wakabayashi remembers being acutely aware of senior-junior relationships while growing up in Japan. His father was a professional athlete, providing another environment in which hierarchy was clearly visible. Yet when Wakabayashi became a leader himself, he did not interpret leadership as an opportunity to impose authority from above.
His approach was partnership. Former colleagues might suddenly become direct reports after a promotion. The responsibilities changed, but the people did not. He therefore sought to make it clear that although somebody had to lead, results would come from people working together.
Trust, however, cannot simply be announced. It has to be accumulated through behaviour.
Wakabayashi consciously speaks to people every day. A simple good morning matters. He asks how people are doing, how their work is progressing and whether problems are emerging. These apparently minor interactions reduce the psychological distance between leader and employee. Over time, employees gain confidence that they can approach the leader when something goes wrong.
This is particularly important in Japan, where employees may hesitate to deliver bad news upward. Wakabayashi wants people to "complain up". Complaining, in his interpretation, is not necessarily negative. A complaint reveals something that is not working and can become the beginning of a solution.
He applies the same principle to mistakes. Leaders cannot demand openness while concealing their own errors. Wakabayashi believes in acknowledging his mistakes in real time and setting the example himself. Ethical behaviour should also be embedded in everyday conversation rather than isolated inside compulsory compliance training.
His approach to corporate culture follows the same logic. People need to see situations from the other person's perspective, ask how they themselves would want to be treated and involve employees in finding solutions. When an employee sees an idea incorporated into actual policy, it becomes powerful evidence that the organisation genuinely values their contribution.
For foreign executives arriving in Japan, Wakabayashi's advice is therefore less about mastering a catalogue of Japanese business rules than demonstrating curiosity, humility and commitment. Learn some Japanese. Greet people. Walk the floor carefully. Ask questions. Admit what is not understood. Recognise that employees working for a foreign company may have deliberately chosen an environment different from a traditional Japanese corporation.
Ultimately, Wakabayashi defines leadership as creating the conditions in which professionals can do their jobs. Give people trust, space and safety. Allow them to admit when they do not know what to do. Be available when a difficult decision must be made.
Leadership succeeds when people genuinely feel they want to follow.
Q&A Summary
What makes leadership in Japan unique?
Leadership in Japan operates within a strong cultural awareness of hierarchy, seniority and appropriate interpersonal behaviour. Wakabayashi grew up seeing these relationships in Japanese society, television, school and through his father's career as a professional athlete.
That familiarity did not mean business leadership was automatically easy. Japanese business communication introduced additional complexities, including keigo and expectations surrounding written communication. Wakabayashi therefore sees cultural understanding not as a completed skill but as an ongoing learning process.
Trust is particularly important. Employees carefully observe leaders and assess whether it is safe to raise issues. Everyday behaviour — greetings, accessibility, energy and genuine interest in employees' work — gradually establishes the credibility required for more difficult conversations.
Why do global executives struggle?
A foreign executive may arrive with leadership practices that have worked successfully elsewhere but discover that employees interpret those behaviours differently in Japan.
Management by walking around is one example. In another culture, a senior executive speaking directly with junior employees may appear completely normal. In a hierarchical Japanese organisation, the manager between those two levels may worry that the senior executive is checking on them or discussing their performance.
Wakabayashi therefore favours transparency. A leader can explain in advance that walking the floor and talking with employees is simply part of the leadership approach rather than an attempt to bypass managers.
Foreign executives should also recognise that Japanese employees working for multinational companies may have consciously chosen not to work in a traditional Japanese corporate environment. Reproducing exactly the hierarchy and restrictions they sought to escape may therefore be counterproductive.
Is Japan truly risk-averse?
The interview does not characterise Japanese leadership primarily through conventional theories of risk aversion or uncertainty avoidance. Instead, Wakabayashi focuses on the practical risks created when employees are reluctant to communicate problems upward.
In a regulated financial institution, delayed disclosure can transform a manageable mistake into a serious organisational problem. Wakabayashi therefore concentrates on creating enough trust for employees to report problems early.
The objective is not to eliminate mistakes. It is to create a culture in which mistakes, concerns and uncertainties become visible while leaders still have enough time to act.
What leadership style actually works?
Wakabayashi rejects the idea that there is one universal leadership style. His starting point is authenticity combined with awareness that becoming the leader changes the relationship with former peers.
He favours partnership rather than top-down control. Somebody must ultimately lead and make difficult decisions, but the organisation reaches better outcomes when employees believe they are working with the leader rather than merely obeying the leader.
His practical leadership behaviours are deliberately simple: speak to people, greet them, ask questions, listen to complaints, share information, acknowledge mistakes and demonstrate through actions that employees can safely raise problems.
Trust emerges from the accumulation of these behaviours.
How can technology help?
Technology is not a major theme of Wakabayashi's interview. His discussion of leadership concentrates overwhelmingly on human interaction, trust, organisational communication, ethics and relationships rather than digital transformation, artificial intelligence or decision-support technology.
His comments do, however, highlight the importance of information flow inside multinational organisations. Knowledge or solutions may already exist in Hong Kong, Thailand, Taipei or elsewhere in the global organisation. Leaders can add value by connecting people and ensuring information does not remain trapped inside organisational silos.
Does language proficiency matter?
Language matters, but Wakabayashi does not suggest that foreign leaders need perfect Japanese.
Even attempting a Japanese greeting can communicate respect and interest. A foreign executive who makes the effort to learn and use Japanese demonstrates a willingness to engage with the country rather than expecting Japan to adapt entirely to them.
Equally important is the willingness to ask questions. Foreign leaders can acknowledge that they do not understand a custom or are uncertain about appropriate behaviour. That humility can reduce distance because employees see that the leader values their knowledge.
Language therefore functions not merely as communication ability but as a visible signal of commitment.
What's the ultimate leadership lesson?
Wakabayashi's definition of leadership has become simpler with experience.
Leadership means making people comfortable enough to do their jobs. It means trusting that employees are professionals, believing that they care about their work and giving them enough psychological safety to say, "I don't know what to do. Please teach me."
The leader remains responsible for difficult decisions and for ensuring those decisions comply with ethical, regulatory and organisational standards.
But authority alone does not create followers.
The ultimate objective is an environment in which employees look at the leader and genuinely feel, "I really want to follow this person."
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.
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