What a 78-Year-Old With No Aviation Experience Taught Japan Airlines About Leadership

A few days ago, I came across the story of Kazuo Inamori and Japan Airlines. I had known about Inamori as the founder of Kyocera, but I wasn’t aware of his role in turning around Japan Airlines.

The story caught my attention for an unusual reason.

In 2010, Japan Airlines was bankrupt. It had accumulated liabilities of more than ¥2 trillion and was undergoing one of the largest corporate failures in Japanese history.

The person brought in to help turn it around was Kazuo Inamori.

He was 78 years old.

He had never run an airline.

And, as I read more about what happened next, I realised that perhaps his lack of aviation experience wasn’t as important as it might initially appear.

Because Inamori wasn’t really brought in to teach people how to run airplanes.

He was trying to change how they ran the organisation.