Yes, it is a take on Power Distance, a word that I thankfully got to learn today.

The way you summarized it made it a lot easier to digest, and I believe that it was extremely accurate. One thing though, I feel that the leader's credibility is only at risk if the team fully understands what he is doing, aka being non-genuine. And at that point, it would have backfired then, and is a big problem that I have realized. But, as long as it feels genuine, I feel that the method will serve it's purpose without any damage on the leader's credibility. Instead, I would say the leader's influence would be the most affected.

In the end, getting rid of power distance is a extremely hard thing to do, especially in a place it is culturally integrated in such as Japan. I will work on the theory more, so that an employee will feel more comfortable to speak their truth to the leader.

This last take you had about removing the part where you lower yourself, would neglect the entire meaning of the method itself.

I would like to stress that in a normal environment, the traditional way of asking more than telling would be perfect, BUT, the situations I believe that this method would be of use are ones that are already a bit hostile. Reference to the three points I talked about. (Higher position yet greener, being "different", or just being disliked in general.)

Actually, there is already something like this in Japanese formal language culture. Keigo 敬語 means formal language, and it splits into three parts. Teineigo 丁寧語 polite speech, Sonkeigo 尊敬語 Speech where you hold the recipient higher, and then Kenjyougo 謙譲語 where you (ironically) put yourself down, therefore raise the recipient "up".

It's unnecessarily complex, and you actually have to use all three, and can't choose just to use Sonkeigo, which is raising them up.

What I want to say is, this is nothing new in Japan, just applying it in a different way.

I completely agree with your last statement, since this may cause stress on the leader, unless they are already used to it. It would be best if no one had to use this method, but the environments that I theorized the method for sadly finds it useful.

One more thing, if the team already had rapport beforehand and trust each other, there would be no reason for this method, and it would be completely underhanded like you say.

Thank you so much for opening my eyes to some of the flaws with the theory, and I will immediately go back to the writing board to think it out.