Olivia Hunt asked:
The motto of all great innovators is ‘Persistent people are bent on perfection’. Soichiro Honda has built his success on ‘failures’. He believed ‘failures’ – the empirical ‘try-and-error’ method – are essential for achieving the true success. Persistence is the major characteristic feature of Honda and other great innovators and leaders. The ability to go through one failure after the other and to stay the same person with the same dreams and aspirations is the basic feature of leader and innovator. This is necessary for conducting large-scale revolutionary innovations. There are no ‘fast victories’ or ‘easy success’ in the world of large-scale innovations. It is necessary to point out that only purposeful and persistent personalities are able to go through the periods of constant crisis, which we experience on the way to any aim.
Soichiro Honda is Japanese industrialist, the founder of Honda Motor Corporation. He is recognized as one of the world’s most brilliant and successful mechanical engineering entrepreneurs since Henry Ford. A person needs to be an exemplary leader in order to become successful. Vision and recognition of an opportunity is the hallmark of Honda and other leaders. Honda had a clear aim – the factor that guided his corporation and brought it success: ‘The function of leadership, the number one responsibility of a leader, is to catalyze a clear and shared vision for the company and to secure commitment to and vigorous pursuit of that vision’ (Collins & Lazier 1993, pp. 61-75). Any great organization owes its existence and stability to the power of leader on people and his ability to inspire them. ‘Vision forms the basis of extraordinary human effort. Vision provides a context for strategic and tactical decisions. Shared vision creates cohesion, teamwork, and community. Vision lays the groundwork for the company to evolve past dependence on a few key individuals’. (Collins & Lazier 1993, pp. 61-75) The achievements of a corporation depend on its leader: his ability to team building, motivation and aspiration of people, on the basic philosophy and organizational culture of the company. It was Honda’s leadership and vision that made his corporation successful on a world scale.