An Introductory Research on the Applicability of the Foster-Hicks Happiness Leadership Model to the Japanese Health Care Context: Results from a Workshop with Japanese Health Care Leaders

The Foster-Hicks Happiness Leadership Model has been developed as one of the leadership models based on positive psychology and has been used in health care settings in the United States. I held a workshop to introduce the idea of the Foster-Hicks Happiness Leadership Model with Japanese health care leaders who had worked in hospitals for 20 to 41 years in order to gather their opinions about the applicability of the model to the Japanese context. (1) The elements of ideal leadership presented by the Japanese health care leaders before I introduced the Foster-Hicks Model in the workshop were different from the Foster and Hicks' ones. The Japanese health care leaders chose the abilities of listening and nurturing as important for leaders in health care settings, while the abilities of stating and directing are designated as important elements in the Foster-Hicks Model. (2) When I introduced the Foster-Hicks Model to Japanese health care leaders in the workshop, they initially asked many questions and offered many opinions regarding it. The Japanese leaders said that it was better to be accountable and to have truth in one's mind rather than expressing it. However, as the discussion deepened, toward the end the participants said that the model was understandable enough for them and offered some helpful hints for revising it so that itt into a Japanese context: such as new concepts of internal accountability and external accountability. (3) For leadership training, discussion among the participants using the Foster-Hicks Model was educational and raised awareness of their ideal leadership model which, in fact, had already existed in their mind. Raising awareness of one's ideal leadership image (which has already existed in one's mind) would be a more powerful leadership training program than to simply learn a new model as a "good model."