LEADERSHIP: Developing Leadership
Isoroku Yamamoto was born on 4 April 1884 in Nagaoka, Japan. At twenty-one years old, while fighting in the Battle of Tsushima, Yamamoto was wounded, resulting in an infection in his left arm. The gambler in him refused to amputate. He eventually recovered without losing it. This gambling nature proved crucial to his plan to attack Pearl Harbor.
“I entered the navy with the great ambition of becoming a naval soldier and going to war, either I die from this festering wound - because I refuse to have my arm amputated - or I recover from it and continue being a soldier. I have a one-in-two chance, and I shall bet my life on it!” (qtd. in Agawa 243).
- Isoroku Yamamoto
From 1919 to 1921, Yamamoto attended Harvard University to learn English, where he developed a great respect for Abraham Lincoln. He also studied America’s petroleum resources, giving him insight into America's qualities. In 1924, Yamamoto received flight training in Kasumigaura. He was regarded as the rising star of the Imperial Japanese Navy in the 1930’s. On 28 August 1939, Yamamoto was appointed Chief of the Combined Fleet, head of Japan’s fighting army.
“A man of real purpose always puts his faith in himself. Sometimes he even refuses to trust the gods. Thus he falls into error from time to time. This was often true of Lincoln, but that does not detract from his greatness because a man is not a god. Making errors is part of the attractiveness of a human being; it inspires a feeling of warmth and arouses admiration and devotion. In this way Lincoln was a very human person. Without this quality, one cannot lead others. Only if people have this quality can they forgive each other’s mistakes and assist each other” (qtd. in Hoyt 58).
- Isoroku Yamamoto, feelings towards Abraham Lincoln
“I am now in Tampico on a tour of the oil fields. Some wells are said to produce about twenty thousand gallons of oil per day, and some have apparently been yielding continuously for thirteen years. The current price of forty gallons of crude oil is one yen, and the tax is one yen, which must seem incredible back home in our part of the country” (qtd. in Agawa 86).
- Isoroku Yamamoto's letter to his brother Kihachi