DUBAI: A former airline CEO has been turning millennials on their head, skipping perks and living life in all its simplicities rather than high rolling it.
Haruka Nishimatsu, president and CEO of Japan Air around 2009, implied he was not just romanticizing it; rather, he was just going the down-to-earth route.
“If management is distant, up in the clouds, people just wait for orders,” Nishimatsu told CBS News through a translator. “I want my people to think for themselves.”
“I’d like to just find what is going on at the front line,” he said.
Nishimatsu’s unique corporate leadership style – walk the walk – has been earning his attention, indeed.
CBS News recently reported how it goes it a step beyond, telling employees not to be angry when they are having a bad day at work, rather blame the person in charge.
The news network reported that Nishimatsu’s salary for running the world’s 10th largest airline is not in the millions as many would expect; rather a paltry US$90,000 a year.
This, apparently because when corporate survival required that he cut employees’ salaries, which was the order of the day at the time, he did not exempt himself.
“My wife said, ‘What?'” CBS News quoted him as saying through a translator.
Nishimatsu explains that a CEO shares the economic pain and doesn’t motivate by how many millions he makes, but by convincing employees you’re all together in the same boat.
Nishimatsu was Japan Air CEO from June 2006 to April 2011. The airline started going through financial turbulence in 2006.
(Photo: Geemiz)
