Japanese managers tend to relish their role as "father" of the group. In fact, when I was working in Japan, our shima had a phone on every desk, but they could only be used for incoming calls or interoffice calls. The shima had only one outside line, which came through my boss's phone. Any calls from outside he picked up and then transferred to the appropriate person. It felt very much like being a 16 year old having one's father monitor one's calls.