The Fatal Leadership Mistakes of Japanese Warlord, Toyotomi Hideyoshi

Toyotomi Hideyoshi was a shrewd Japanese samurai and eventually rose to become Japan’s most prominent daimyō and chancellor of the realm (essentially the warlord of all of Japan) during the 16th century. He achieved what his predecessors could not in that he succeeded in unifying Japan under one rule when previously is was divided into multiple parts. His rise to prominent leadership in Japan was unprecedented as he went from being a commoner to the leader of Japan. And through this period, especially during the beginning of his career, he proved to be an excellent battle general, strategist, and leader. However, as he got older, as he became more authoritarian, and as he became clouded by power and the struggles within and outside of the country especially with those of the Korean Campaign in which Hideyoshi was unknowingly losing badly, he became a man of poor judgement and inconsistent leadership.

In Hideyoshi’s tale, there are quite a few things to learn about leadership, decision making, and the importance of a collected mind when organizing people (in his case even more important as his decisions directly affected the lives of the Japanese people). For those looking to learn more, I highly suggest reading the Wikipedia article about his story or watching the Age of Samurai documentary on Netflix.

The aspects of leadership in which Hideyoshi failed were as follows:

1. Not knowing what was happening in his organization due to fear policies he implemented himself.
2. Not having the proper temperament as a leader.
3. Not properly planning for the future of his dynasty and the power structure that would succeed him.

Let me expound on these with specific examples from Hideyoshi’s tales and what to take away from them. Or, at least, what I took away from them.

1. Not knowing what was happening in his organization due to fear policies he implemented himself.
2. Not having the proper temperament as a leader.

Hideyoshi was an extremely ruthless dictator of Japan. And during the years of the Korean Campaign in which he sought to expand his empire to Korea and later further into China (after he had already unified all of Japan under his rule), Hideyoshi became even more emboldened but deaf to organizational issues and issues that men on the actual front were facing. Hideyoshi, in essence, was totally disconnected from what was happening in Korea: on the battlefield and with his soldiers. His messengers, fearing that Hideyoshi would take their lives, would only give Hideyoshi the good news from the field and not the whole news in which the truth was that Japan was essentially losing the Korean Campaign and China and Korea had teamed up and were pushing the Japanese troops further and further out of Korea. Hideyoshi was totally disconnected as a commander and chief and his decrees and battle orders were based upon the fake news that he was receiving from Messengers that feared for their lives. He was a terrible Commander-In-Chief at this point, acting on completely false information. This sowed so much distrust by his questionable orders from the soldiers, generals on the grounds, and other daimyō’s who were receiving better information. If the messengers gave Hideyoshi the real truths of the battle, Hideyoshi’s actions may have been different and more tactical in dealing with the actual problem, of course, but that may also have meant that the Messengers who delivered the Truth’s would get their heads cut off due to Hideyoshi’s temperament. There are two main problems in Hideyoshi’s leadership characteristics here which ultimately led to his defeat in the Korean Campaign and total humiliation of Japan by China and Korea after the war’s end.

He was not running an organization based on transparency and truth.

He let his temperament cloud his judgement and sowed fear into those that were loyal to him who were not intending to do any harm (common amongst many dictators).

Had Hideyoshi prized truth and ran his organization based on transparency in which he sought the actualities of the Korean Campaign and the in-field battle slaughters his men were facing, his reactions and orders would have been much different. He was not given the right information. And without the right information, he could not take the right course of action leading to his eventual defeat in the War. As a leader of any organization, you are faced with decisions you must make which determine the fate of your organization. You cannot make those decisions on fake or half-true information. You need all bits of available information to make a decision and this is why one of the single most important thing a leader must do is promote transparency within the organization and to emphasize the necessity of truth in the form of verifiable facts. Only then can a leader make an educated decision.

Hideyoshi’s temperament was another reason for his downfall. As a dictator, yes, he must strike fear into those that he controls. But Hideyoshi took it to an extreme level in which he was killing the messenger who was the bearer of bad news. This caused other messengers to not tell Hideyoshi the truth in fear of their lives and thus caused Hideyoshi to become even more ill-informed. A leader must have a collected temperament. Discipline when necessary but understand that the reporters of bad news are not the reason the news is bad but that some organizational failure led the news to being bad.

3. Not properly planning for the future of his dynasty and power structure that would succeed him.

When Hideyoshi was becoming old, he had a huge problem in front of him, he did not have an heir. He was childless with his wife Nene. His multiple concubines were also unable to produce him a heir until one finally gave him a son. This son however died early in his first year of life. Finally, he was able to conceive another son, Toyotomi Hideyori, with Yono-Dono, niece of Oda Nobunaga, the daimyō before Hideyoshi. However, at this time Hideyoshi was already old and declining in mental and physical health rapidly. Perturbed by the losses at the Korean War, Hideyoshi died leaving his 5 year old son, Hideyori, to succeed his empire. Hideyoshi, years before his death, ordered 5 daimyo’s in Japan and elected them to the Council of Elders whose job was to oversee Hideyori’s education, growth, and life so that he could eventually be a successful leader to Japan. This was a very strategic move because if any one of the daimyo’s began to puppeteer the young Hideyori and assume total power for themselves, the other four would be there to check their power and influence. But this could have all been avoided had Hideyoshi planned for a successor far in advance instead of haphazardly searching for an heir in his last declining years. Hideyoshi showed his lack of planning in many regards but this was a fatal mistake. This caused a massive vacuum of power when Hideyoshi died and his son Hideyori was far too young to assume power. This caused a fight between the Council of Elders and led Japan into more internal conflicts and power struggles. Had Hideyoshi produced a son 10 years prior to Hideyori or affirmed a proper successor of reasonable intellect before his death, this could have all been avoided.

Another area in which a leader of an organization must be strong is planning. A leader must look into the future and be able to make wise decisions that produce fruits in 5–10 years rather than just looking at short term gains or results. Look at Jeff Bezos and his approach to executive leadership at Amazon. He has stated multiple times that the decisions he makes on a daily basis aren’t for the immediate year but for results that they would see in 2–3 years down the line. A visionary, a leader, must live in the future as much as they live in the present. If they cannot do this, they cannot sustain the survival of their organization. In this way, Hideyoshi failed and once he died, his clan and Japan paid the price for this mistake.

There is a lot to unpack from Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s history as the leading daimyō of Japan. His story is that of great odds in which he went from being a commoner to leading general to the “Great Unifier of Japan.” And while he accomplished many things in his lifetime, the later years of his life were classic cases of power clouding judgement. This decline in effective leadership led to his demise and from his mistakes, one could learn many things.