At a recent business dinner, Carlos Ghosn, president of Nissan, finished his speech and invited questions. The first, from a Japanese man, was: "Mr Ghosn, have you ever considered running for prime minister of Japan?"
Mr Ghosn's fame is spreading. Nissan's president has long been feted by the international business press but he also has a loyal following in Japan. Recently he was voted by Japanese women as one of the top four men in the country they regard as a good potential father for their children.
As so often with an object of popular acclaim, the adulation is not shared by all those closest to the man. Some disaffected Nissan managers mutter that Mr Ghosn's management style is autocratic and somehow "un-Japanese". The truth is that he is at the vanguard of a change that is sweeping many of the country's big companies. His approach, or something like it, is more Japanese than many Japanese managers would like to think.
Mr Ghosn's answer to his critics is abrupt. He is president of the company, he says. And for a president, a bit of autocracy is not necessarily a bad thing. If what they call the Japanese way means running Nissan into the ground - as nearly happened before Renault bailed it out by taking a 36.8 per cent stake in 1999 - then, yes, his style is definitely un-Japanese. "We are not missionaries," he says. "We are not in the business of changing cultures but of maximising performance."
The trigger for the complaints was a recent management reshuffle that touched a raw nerve for some of the company's more senior employees. Merit, not age, was the criterion in the assessment, meaning that younger managers sometimes replaced their elder colleagues.
By western standards that would seem fair and uncontroversial. Yet promotion on merit is an idea that confronts much of what is sacred in Japanese corporate life.
Most Japanese companies determine seniority through length of service. This system has tended to produce a cadre of senior managers made up of elderly long-timers. Their management skills are often in short supply, just as their resistance to change has been fortified by years of looking after their own narrow interests.
Nissan is a case in point. In only 20 years, the company went from being one of the most powerful car companies in the world to a debt-ridden hulk in need of rescue.
Mr Ghosn is damning about what he found when he took over as president in 1999. "There was a lack of urgency, declining market share, unprofitability, debt and no long-term plan - and everyone was always finding excuses."
When Mr Ghosn joined Nissan, he kept the existing team in place but gave them clear targets and made them "very aware" that there would be consequences if they were not met. Those who missed their targets learnt in the recent reshuffle that Mr Ghosn was as good as his word.
Some of the people affected were company employees who had earned seniority by length of service and felt aggrieved that their commitment to the company ultimately counted for little.
Mr Ghosn says he is the inevitable avenue for this frustration. "You are always isolated when you are the president of a company. It is ultimately your decision. It would be a weakness to say I always like a consensus."
Institutional investors would not argue with this. Nissan reported a record net profit of 331 billion yen ( £1.87 billion sterling ) last year compared with a loss of 684 million yen previously, prompting Mr Ghosn to comment that the company had "moved from the emergency room to the recovery room".
Purchasing costs were cut by 11 per cent - adding 287 billion yen to operating profit - and the number of parts suppliers reduced by 30 per cent. The closure of three plants improved the capacity utilisation rate from 51.1 per cent to 74.1 per cent. Consolidated net automotive debt dropped below 1,000 billion yen for the first time in 15 years, to 953 billion yen, driven by the disposal of non-core assets and the sale of securities and property.
Contrasting with the whispered complaints of managers who suffered in the reshuffle are the views of those who benefited. Kiyoaki Sawada, the recently promoted deputy general manager in the finance department, joined the company in 1978, when Nissan was approaching its peak.
"In the old system everyone could be promoted, so there was no pressure. Everyone thought he would be promoted eventually. For many employees it was a good system but for those with good skills, it was no good," he says. "If I'd been replaced by a younger man in the past I would have been shocked. But now I don't think I would care, because clearly the person has better skills than mine."
Other Nissan managers who work closely with Mr Ghosn hardly paint him as a latter-day Napoleon. Yukio Kitahora, a senior vice-president, says he was never able to approach Nissan's previous management with ideas or observations but that such access is now routine.
In addition, Nissan's powerful union has backed his reforms - which have included the usually unpalatable closure of plants and the loss of 21,000 jobs. Union representatives say that this cost, though heavy, was better than seeing the company collapse with the loss of all its 148,000 jobs.
There has been a tendency with the new Nissan to see the changes as a fascinating clash of East versus West and Mr Ghosn as a foreign Lone Ranger unwinding the cradle-to-grave employment system that made Japan a postwar economic success.
This view galls Mr Ghosn, who says that profitability is profitability and that is the end of it.
But Nissan is not alone. Many Japanese companies, such as Toyota, Sony, Toshiba and Matsushita, are implementing similar reforms, though they have no controlling shareholders from overseas. Merit-based pay, stock options, the promotion of the young and the elevation of the talented - all are entering the handbook of Japanese management without Mr Ghosn's help.
Managers who get passed over in corporate reshuffles will always blame the boss: all the more so when he is a foreigner. But, as one Nissan staffer said, if managers had met their targets, they would still have their jobs.
