My Leadership Story

One fine morning 3 years ago, while having our breakfast, I had a conversation with my father. He did ask me “you will graduate in few months away, what would you like to do after you have graduate? Would you like to work straight away or taking a break and go for holiday?” It takes a moment for me to answer his question. After a while, I told him I would like to find a job right after I finished my study as I don’t want to waste any of my time. Only then he suggested me to apply for Administrative and Diplomatic Officer post through Public Service Commission. So I did that. I went for exams, PTD Assessment Centre (PAC) and interview carried out my parents hope. Well I can say it is my father’s hope actually and I succeeded with first attempt. I am so happy that I have made it and with that here I am today working as Administrative and Diplomatic Officer just like what my father want. Two years experience working as Administrative and Diplomatic Officer, it gives me a huge exposure in leadership skills and leadership style.



Have you ever heard the phrase “Great Leader Are Made, Not Born”? I am very sure all of you do hear it before. Today, I am going to write about leadership stories that inspire me. Leader and leadership are two words that we often heard in our life. But what do these two words mean? Does anybody know? If not, let me tell you what does it means. Leader means ‘one who influences or leads others’. Meanwhile leadership refer as ‘a process of organizing a group of people to achieve a common goal’. As you can see there are so many leaders in the whole world who contribute to their nation with various kinds of contributions. I myself admire Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, former Malaysia Prime Minister as he is a great leader who gives a huge impact to me and other citizen of Malaysia.



People out there; let me tell you briefly about Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad. He was born on 20th December 1925 in Alor Setar, Kedah. He received his early education from Government English School in 1932. He later enrolled as medicine student at the King Edward VII College of Medicine in Singapore and graduated on 1953. He started his work as the doctor in Alor Setar and later on actively joined in political career until he was appointed as forth Prime Minister of Malaysia on 16th July 1981 until he is retired on 31st October 2003. We were so lucky to have Tun Dr. Mahathir as Prime Minister of Malaysia. Why? It is because in 22 years of his glory governance, he shows his powerful leadership in bringing Malaysia to the top of the world. He was also known as someone who is knowledgeable with great communication skills, outstanding, coherent with his firm stands, someone who thinks ahead and outside the box, full with vision and down to earth kind of person. He announced Vision 2020 on 1991 which aim Malaysia to become a fully develop country within 30 years time. The targets would require average approximately seven per cent economic growth of gross domestic product per annum. A lot of other countries come to Malaysia and do foreign direct investment as they see the potential that we have. Besides that, during Tun Dr. Mahathir governance, there were many major infrastructure projects that have been initiated by him such as Multimedia Super Corridor, the development of Putrajaya, Kuala Lumpur Twin Tower, Kuala Lumpur Tower, Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Sepang International Circuit for Formula One Grand Prix and so on. During the world economic recession on 1998, the value of Ringgit Malaysia plummeted due to currency speculation, lost of foreign investment, and the main stock exchange index fell by over 75 per cent. To overcome this problem and to minimize bad impact to Malaysia he decided to fix the ringgit to the US dollar and increased the government spending. Even though the decision taken has been criticize by a lot of countries and from IMF itself but obviously the act taken was right. Among Southeast Asian countries, Malaysia was the first country who recovered from the economic crisis. With all those achievements, he had show to the world that he is the right leader for Malaysia and Malaysian. His 22 years glory as Malaysia Prime Minister gives me an inspiration to become successful in my career. I have learned through his leadership that we must have confidence and optimism in whatever we do even people is underestimate us. We also should be a brave risk taker if we believe what has we done is on the right path. If we do not succeed in whatever we do, do not give up and stop trying. We need to try until success is in our grasp.



With all the characteristic of Tun Dr. Mahathir which I learned through my observation, I used it during my daily work life. I used to work with one of the agencies under Prime Minister Department before I came here as a participant of ‘Diploma Pengurusan Awam’ course for six solid months. In my organization that I used to work before, there is collaboration between the leader, higher management and supporting staff. The leader of my organization is someone who is open minded and accepts opinion from the staff meanwhile the staffs of my organization are also open for changes. So as what I see all the great ideas in my organization are come from the leader and the culture in the organization itself.



However, at times we can see that leaders also made mistakes in their decision making neither in the big issue nor in the small issue as they are also human being. I myself think there are few mistakes that leaders often do. One of it is due to lack of knowledge or information regarding certain issue. Sometimes leaders need to decide in advance on certain issue like crisis management but because of lack of knowledge or information, the decision that has been made turn to be a bad decision and give less benefit to the organization. Besides that, at times leaders do not stick to his or her decision that has been made by them. This situation maybe happened because leaders themselves do not confident with their own decision. Other than that, leaders sometimes made the decisions which not represent the importance of all people or staff.



Maybe we are far from being great leaders like Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, Sir Wilson Churchill, Nelson Mandela, Margaret Thatcher or any other great leaders but we can develop leadership skills from now on. To develop leadership skills, first we must know ourselves by determine what value and skills that we have. Later on we need to develop ourselves. There is various ways to develop ourselves. One is find a good mentor who has the competencies you wish to develop and have wide experience and knowledge. He or she will give you guidance and help you to build your confidence in your skills and abilities.



Besides that, we need to increase our professionalism. Great leaders are professionalism. Professionalism involves high standard of knowledge and skills, integrity, efficiency and no unnecessary hype. We need to work well with others. Be assertive, listen actively, consult effectively, be a team player, help others achieve and recognise success. We also must read a lot of leadership books and attend leadership courses to build up leadership skills in ourselves. Other than that, we also can read the biography of great leaders to boost up our spirit to become a great leader.



Once again, whoever your idol is or great leader you are adore of, let’s follow their footsteps and made legacy to our beautiful and lovely country, Malaysia.







Resources :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahathir_Mohamad

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leadership

Byham.W.C, Smith A.B. & Paese M.J. (2002). Grow Your Own Leaders. New Jersey : Prentice Hall

Smith S. (1997). Be Your Best. London : Quest Worldwide Education Ltd