Leadership vs. Manipulation

So, this is not meant to be a culture-bashing post...really... :) But picture my eyebrow up and my mouth kind of open in a "Huh?!?" as I write this...

Last Wednesday morning in the "Gifts class," we were discussing the "exhorter" personality type, and I came into class knowing that I needed to pre-define the word "manipulation" just to make sure we were all on the same page. We brainstormed different images of manipulation, and then just on the fly (or helpful inspiration from Above), I also put the word "leadership" up on the board and asked them to compare leadership and manipulation. It led to a facinating discussion, because almost everyone in the classroom stopped, thought, stared at each other, and then said, "Aren't they the same thing?"

Japanese culture is known for its indirectness, and I'm only now starting to get the hang of all the whisperings and clandestine meetings that happen in the background of big decisions that are made here. When my students suggested that manipulation and leadership were the same things, I had to agree--in this culture, the two often look the same.

The reason why I'm typing this right now is because I've just come from a class where we were discussing having loud neighbors, and it reminded me of manipulation. I was teaching English phrases useful for dealing with conflict or complaints, and the loud neighbors was just one example we were using to generate discussion...and what discussion! I finally asked them what they would do in Japan if they had loud neighbors. My students said that if their neighbors were loud once, then they wouldn't complain, and if the neighbors were loud often, the whole neighborhood would get together and talk about what to do about it!

Personally, knowing that the whole neighborhood is talking about my loudness is much much meaner (in my mind) than being approached by one neighbor and told to shut up...in my mind, having everyone talking counts as manipulation and malicious gossip. However, my students would probably be equally frightened and disturbed if their neighbors knocked on their door and said outright, "Be quiet!"

Putting politics, relationships, honor, leadership, etc., into a "manipulation is ok" category in my mind helps things make a lot more sense here...however, as I said before, it's still making me raise an eyebrow.