Leadership – A personal view

Leadership was a big word that I learned during my childhood years. Remembering those old days when I was still schooling, I will always smile because I really enjoyed the learning process in becoming a leader. Furthermore, being the eldest brother in the family of six siblings, I was always being reminded by my father that I should be taking care of all my siblings at all times, “Whenever I’m not around, you become the leader and you must be responsible towards all your siblings” my father always said to me. Even until today his words are still playing in my mind and furthermore knowing that my father was an army officer, he was very strict when it comes to matters involving discipline and leadership. Well that’s how my entire siblings were brought up through discipline and leadership in the family.

As I grew up and went to school I learnt more about leadership. Ever since kindergarden until primary school, I had always been appointed as the class leader and that’s where I begin to learn how to become a leader. When I entered secondary school my leadership skill continued to grow as I was actively involved in many school activities, holding various positions from committee members to presidents for clubs and societies and also becoming school prefect. Those were the good old days for me and my friends which I treasure until today.

Years passed and I finally entered the university to further my education and there again I continued to learn about leadership in a much bigger scale, in this context is the leadership in campus. During my university years I polish more of my leadership skill when holding key positions for few clubs and societies beginning from becoming exco members until the presidents. One of my biggest achievements was holding the position as the President of Students Representative Council in my university. I considered myself has been growing in many ways through years of leadership training but that however does not satisfies me because I quickly realized that there’s more to learn ahead of me.

I remembered my initial ambition was becoming an army officer, following my father’s footsteps as I have seen the leadership qualities that he portrayed since I was a small boy. Looking back at my family history, my grandfather and great grandfather also served as army officers both during the World War II and during the communist era. Therefore the leadership spirit has been in me all this while and it shall be my pride to become an army officer because that will be a continuation of the family legacy, besides honouring their contribution towards serving the nation.

Apart from that I also had the ambition to become a police officer or a lawyer. Then on one fine day I received a letter calling me for an interview as Police Inspector at Pusat Latihan Polis Sarawak (PULASAR). I thought that I finally had the great opportunity to prove my credibility as a leader and building my career serving in the uniform body. However due to some unfortunate events, I was not qualified for the position. Frankly, at that time I had to admit that it was a very disappointing moment in my life, however at the same time I praised Allah for giving me the chance to experience the interview process.

Years have passed and as I moved on, I experienced more and more challenges in life especially during those days working in the private sector. However, finally I have decided to join the civil service and after going through a series of selection, I was accepted to join the Administrative and Diplomatic Officer (PTD) scheme in which had become my career until present.             

In reflecting my journey towards building up my career, I had always admired one highly talented leader who had inspired me all these years by how he served the country towards his most excellence. The leader whom I admired is Tun Hussein bin Dato' Onn, Malaysia’s 3^rd Prime Minister. He was born on February 12, 1922 in Johor Bahru, Johor and was the son of Dato’ Onn Jaafar and Datin Halimah Hussein. During his era of ruling the country from 1976 to 1981, he was popularly granted the soubriquet Bapa Perpaduan (Father of Unity).

A brief history about Tun Hussein, he was the founder of UMNO party and a Malayan freedom fighter. He was the brother in law of Tun Abdul Razak, his predecessor as Prime Minister. Tun Hussein received his early education in Telok Kurau Primary School, Singapore and at the English College, Johor. After leaving school, he joined the Johor Military Forces as a cadet in 1940 and was sent a year later to the Indian Military Academy in Dehradun, India. Upon completion of his training, he was absorbed into the Indian Army and served in the Middle East when the Second World War broke.^[3] After the war, his vast experience prompted the British to employ him as an instructor at the Malayan Police Recruiting and Training Centre in Rawalpindi.

Tun Hussein came back to Malaysia in 1945 and was appointed Commandant of the Johor Bahru Police Depot. The following year he joined the Malaya Civil Service as an assistant administrative officer in Segamat, Johor. He was later posted to the state of Selangor, becoming Klang and Kuala Selangor’s district officer.

Tun Hussein, who came from a family with deep nationalistic spirit and political roots, resigned from the civil service to go into politics. In 1949, he became the first youth chief of UMNO (United Malays National Organization), a party his father helped established. In 1950, he was elected the UMNO secretary general. Tun Hussein however left UMNO in 1951 to join his father in forming the Independence of Malaya Party (IMP). With IMP losing momentum, Tun Hussein went to London to study law at Lincoln's Inn, qualifying as a Barrister-at-Law. He came back as a certified lawyer and practiced in Kuala Lumpur.

Tun Hussein returned to politics in 1968 after being persuaded by the then Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak to rejoin UMNO. He stood and won the general elections in 1969 and was appointed as the education minister. Tun Hussein’s meteoric rise continued when on August 13, 1973 he succeeded the late Tun Dr Ismail as the Deputy Prime Minister. On January 15, 1976 he was appointed as Prime Minister of Malaysia after the death of Tun Razak.

Tun Hussein was renowned for stressing on the issue of unity through policies aimed at rectifying economic imbalances between the communities. For instance, April 20, 1981 saw the National Unit Trust Scheme being launched. He also gave serious consideration to the concept of Rukun Tetangga (a neighbourhood watch scheme) and the fight against the drug menace.

He underwent a coronary bypass in early 1981. On July 17 the same year, he retired from active politics and relinquished his prime minister post due to health concerns. He was succeeded by Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad.

After his retirement as Prime Minister he continued to contribute to welfare organizations. He was instrumental in the setting up of the Tun Hussein Onn Eye Hospital. He was also an advisor to Petronas the country’s oil company and Chairman of Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS).

During the 1987 UMNO leadership crisis, Tun Hussein fell out with Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, supporting Team B along with Tunku Abdul Rahman. Tun Hussein along with the Tunku, henceforth, became a strident critic of the Mahathir administration and died without having rejoined UMNO.

He died on the 29 May 1990 in Seaton Medical Center, San Francisco, at the age of 68. He had two sons and four daughters. He is buried in Makam Pahlawan (Heroes Mausoleum) near Masjid Negara, Kuala Lumpur. Tun Hussein Onn was looked upon as being very sincere in his struggle for racial unity and had a reputation of being firm against anyone that tried to create racial unrest in the country and it was due to this, that he was known as Bapa Perpaduan or 'Father of Unity'.

At present, I feel proud for having the opportunity to serve as one of the officer under Tun Hussein’s son, Dato’ Seri Hishammuddin bin Tun Hussein, who is the present Home Minister of Malaysia.

Leadership can be defined as one's ability to get others to willingly follow. Great ideas can generate ideally within an organization when we have great leaders who guides the organization towards the right path. Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO of General Electric Co., said, "Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision and relentlessly drive it to completion." Therefore in generating great ideas, a leader must be able to communicate his or her vision in terms that cause followers to buy into it. He or she must communicate clearly and passionately, as passion is contagious. A good leader must also have the discipline to work toward his or her vision single-mindedly, as well as to direct his or her actions and those of the team toward the goal. 

A great leader must possess certain characteristics which benchmark him towards achieving the target that has been set earlier. Having said that, a leader must possess one of the major value that is integrity in which is the integration of outward actions and inner values. A leader with great ideas must have the trust of followers and therefore must also display integrity in all his actions and will become more approachable by followers.

Great ideas will become ineffective if a leader themselves has no dedication towards the responsibilities given to him. What is demanded by dedication is a leader spending whatever time or energy is necessary to accomplish the task at hand. Once a leader has set an excellent example, leaders can show followers that success can only be achieved through full dedication.

Often great ideas fail when leaders are not open towards rooms for improvement. Openness means being able to listen to new ideas, even if they do not conform to the usual way of thinking. Good leaders must be able to suspend judgment while listening to others' ideas, as well as accept new ways of doing things that someone else thought of. In this manner it will build mutual respect and trust between leaders and followers, and it also keeps the team well supplied with new ideas that can further its vision.

Creativity is the ability to think differently, to think out of the box. Creativity gives leaders the ability to see things that others have not seen and thus lead followers in new directions. Apart from all that a leader must practise fairness at all times, means dealing with others consistently and justly. A leader must check all the facts and hear everyone out before passing judgment. A leader must avoid leaping to conclusions based on incomplete evidence. Always remember that a leader will be rewarded with loyalty and dedication only when people feel they that are being treated fairly.

Despite all the criteria mentioned, above all human touch is undeniably important. Effective leader with good sense of humour will be able to relieve tension and boredom, as well as to defuse hostility. They will know how to use humour to energize followers as it is also a form of power that provides some control over the work environment.

Therefore when discussing about leadership, often leaders make mistakes which jeopardize the opportunity to achieve excellence. Oscar Wilde once said “Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes”. It’s true that mistakes will make opportunity to learn better. However it’s much better not to make mistakes in the first place.

Leaders commonly make the same mistakes all the time, which is lack of feedback. When a leader has detected weaknesses in their workers, he must not delay and take immediate action to improve the weakness. This is because if the weakness continues, the organization will suffer great impact.

Leaders also make a mistake when not making time for their team. It means that when leaders are too busy with their own work, they indirectly neglect their team whereas the team needs the leader to be with them to give support and guidance at all time. When this happens the team can easily be off track and fail to achieve their objectives.

Leaders already know they had to make time for their team so that a strong bonding can be accomplished between them. However, being too friendly will result in people tempted to take advantage of the relationship especially when leaders have to make tough decisions. Therefore a good leader must be able to differentiate and balance between being a friend and a leader in the organization.

The most crucial mistakes done by leaders is fail to define goals. The team will not be able to be productive when they don’t know what they are working for. Even worse they can’t prioritize their workload effectively and might result in tasks being completed in the wrong manner and resulted as disaster to the organization.

Delegating the tasks properly is another common mistakes made by leaders and this has certainly cause huge problems as leaders fail to develop their people to take the pressure off them.

Often people questioned on how to become a better leader in their workplace. In one leadership study being conducted by a psychologist and leadership expert Ronald E. Riggio said that "Research clearly shows that transformational leaders - leaders who are positive, inspiring, and who empower and develop followers - are better leaders." Therefore what are the characteristics of a better leader? Well some of the characteristics is to learn more about your leadership style. The first step for leaders is to understand their own leadership style. Once the leadership style has been identified, leaders can further identify and improve the weaknesses in their leadership style.

In an organization, a leader must be able to encourage their followers to express their creativity. Effective leaders should offer new challenges with ample support to achieve these goals. One way to foster creativity is to offer challenges to group members, making sure that the goals are within the grasp of their abilities. The purpose for this exercise is to get people to stretch their limits, but to not become discouraged by barriers to success.

Leaders in organization also serve as a role model to show good behaviours and characteristics that will encourage their followers. Therefore whenever a leader shows a good example the group members are expected to follow the same example. Thus in order to become a better leader, one must know the qualities they would like to see in their group members and show the right example so that the group members also will be influenced to follow the same.

Leaders must also be passionate towards getting the group members to finish a task. It is important for leaders to express their passion towards their group members and their contributions because that shows that they are concern about the group’s performance.

            Effective leaders must also know how to listen and communicate effectively with their group members. They must know how to express their sincere care and concern for the group members because by doing so they will ensure the group member feel that their contribution is being appreciated by their leaders.

In encouraging the group member to achieve excellence in their tasks, leaders must have a positive attitude. Most of the time members are discourage when the leaders display negative behaviour towards the members effort. Therefore it is important for leaders to stay positive at all times to encourage their group members.

            Apart from all the encouragements, leaders must exercise giving rewards and recognition towards their group members because this technique has been proven to be an effective way to motivate followers to feel appreciated and happy. Besides that it can also encourage the group members to perform better in their works. Susan M. Heathfield, the author of “About.com's Guide to Human Resources” stated that leaders can help their group members feel happier by offering help, next by removing the barriers to success and lastly by rewarding strong efforts to the group members.

Finally a leader must always remember that leadership is not always about a one-way communication. Instead a leader must always emphasis on receiving feedback and inspiration from their group members in effort to encourage thinking out of the box and trying new things. Use the past as a guidance and always look forward to anticipate better ideas from time to time.       

            Personally, leadership has been a very wide and interesting subject matter. In fact I have always believed that leadership has been a life-long learning process to me, be it during my education years or working years at present. Thus in developing myself as a leader I tried to apply few basic guidelines such as being enthusiastic in the task given to me or my team, continue to motivate and always look for broader perspectives in accomplishing tasks. Becoming a good listener for my team so that problems can be solved effectively and so to achieve better understanding.

Most importantly is always be fair and not favour towards people, know when to praise and criticize the group member in order to maximise their potentials. Having said that, it’s a long road to go and many winding turns and therefore I believe there shall be much more challenges to face in the future. A small step that I take today will determine the bigger success for me to become a great leader in the future, InsyaAllah. 

Mohamad Amirrul Rashid bin Zainudin

Sidang B – DPA 1 / 2012