Learning Leadership from Urahara Kisuke
Bleach anime episode 206–210 has more knowledge than just an entertainment to offer.
Those episodes are about flashback, when Kisuke was not even a Lieutenant of one of Gotei 13 squads. Not only his skills were marvelous, Urahara Kisuke who was born genius could not resist the fate when his best friend, Yoruichi Shihoin, proposed Gotei 13 Commander to promote him as new Captain for 12th division.
The trial committee who will test Kisuke’s capability as the new leader, was led directly by the Gotei commander, captain Yamamoto. It was no surprise that Kisuke passed the trial and was promoted officially.
First day being a captain — now this is the interesting part — Kisuke was not accepted by his lieutenant, Hiyori Sarugaki. Hiyori, who still could not accept her motherly figure, previous captain who had left the squad, showed aggressiveness against Kisuke and did not show any respect at all.
Well if you see how Kisuke acted in his daily life, you would probably agree with Hiyori. Kisuke is nowhere near a talented, role figure of a captain. He does not have prestige nor influence in things he does. People would see Kisuke as an easy going person, lazy, careless and powerless. How Kisuke could become a captain was a big question mark to everybody in the squad.
However, being a captain was not an easy achievement. The candidate must have shown a great power in both fighting skills as well general knowledge. The candidate must also highly uphold values in humanity and soul society. The tests that Kisuke has passed easily. Then why Kisuke did not show all of this?
Kisuke’s humbleness is out of the world. He does not feel like showing his capabilities to everyone. He does not need to prove anything. Kisuke was just focusing in doing what is right for the soul society. At the end, Hiyori could not resist her anger and challenged Kisuke for a duel. Kisuke accepted the duel with condition, just use bare hand. Hiyori was smirking in underestimation. Bare hand fighting is what Hiyori good at.
Without further ado, when the battle started, Hiyori jumped out, trying to attack Kisuke with flying kick. It landed precisely on Kisuke’s face, and he fainted. Something weird was in Hiyori’s expression. She does not seem happy to prove that Kisuke is just a weak ̶b̶a̶s̶t̶a̶r̶d̶ person.
The other squad members did not notice, but it was very clear to Hiyori. Kisuke was giving in to her. In a very short flash, Kisuke evaded the attack, and quickly moved back to his original location so that Hiyori’s kick would hit him. Apparently Kisuke was doing this so that Hiyori does not feel embarassed in front of other team members.
What would you do if you were in Kisuke’s position?
This is very interesting, because I believe most of us would show in our first day of working as a leader, how capable we are. Being challenged by our team member we would have been agitated and do whatever we can to show our superiority to them.
Kisuke still wants to show how much he cares and how much he is capable for the team and soul society, but not in any way to degrade his team member who does not agree with him. One way to do so, Kisuke asked Hiyori to visit the prison in soul society. There he told Hiyori about his vision. Prison in soul society is unique. People imprisoned there are not the one who are proven guilty or already committed crime. But it is for people who showed signs that they are dangerous to the society.
Kisuke wanted to bring an extreme change. It is true, that most of inmates are actually dangerous people, but some of them can actually be educated and changed. While in the prison, Hiyori learned about how much Kisuke is skilled in battle, and how complex his vision is to achieve, how far Hiyori is actually out of his league.
In previous article I mentioned about nobody cares about what we can do, until we show them that we care. And this was pretty much was demonstrated in these episodes.
Cherries to pick
Contrary with what shown in Bleach, the managers and leaders are not people with best skills. It is very common that team members can have better, specific, technical skills. The leaders instead, must have broad knowledge and vision in how we are going forward. Being shown with bad attitude, Kisuke could have fired Hiyori out in instant with his juridiction, but he didn’t. Kisuke could have also beaten the crap out of Hiyori when she challenged him, but he didn’t. Kisuke showed Hiyori how the task is done. Kisuke showed her about forgiveness, humbleness and about giving chances for those who made mistakes.
I wish I could have been like Urahara Kisuke.
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thanks for reading 🍻
