YBHG. DATUK ARPAH BINTI ABDUL RAZAK
(SECRETARY GENERAL OF MINISTRY OF
HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT)
A
leader is a person who leads or commands a group of people, especially the head
of a country or an organization. A leader also can be defined as a person or
thing that holds a dominant or superior position within its field, and is able
to exercise a high degree of control or influence over others. We often heard the
comment, “he or she is a born leader.” But, in my opinion, good leaders are
made not born. If we have the desire and willpower, we can become an effective
leader. Good leaders develop through a never ending process of self-study,
education, training and experience (Jago, 1982). Hence, everyone have their own admired leader,
same like me. It is because in order to be a good leader we have to be a good
follower. We can pick a leader that we respect most as our ‘mentor’ and follow
in his or her footstep.
Of
course, as I have worked as Administrative
and Diplomatic Officer (PTD Officer), I have pleasure of being
exposed to many great and professional leaders. However, the person who I
admire and respect most is YBhg.
Datuk Arpah Binti Abdul Razak, our current Secretary General of Ministry of Housing and Local
Government.
Briefly, YBhg. Datuk Arpah Binti
Abdul Razak began her career in the Administrative and Diplomatic Service in
1979 and has been in the public sector for more than 30 years. She has vast
experience in local government administration due to her various postings as an
administrative officer in Penang Municipal Council in 1978, Deputy President of
Subang Jaya Municipal Council in 2000 and Corporate Director of Putrajaya
Holding.
In essence, she began her career in
the Ministry of Housing and Local Government in 2006 as Director General of the
Department of Local Government. Subsequently, she was appointed as Deputy
Secretary General of Policy Planning and on 3 April 2012 she was appointed as
Secretary General of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, replaced the
former Secretary General, Datuk Ahmad Bin Kabit. As her education background, she
obtained her Master of Science in Urban and Regional Planning from the
University of Southern California, USA and a Bachelor of Science in Urban
Studies from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). Currently, Datuk Arpah Abdul
Razak also is the Chairman of Perbadanan
Pengurusan Sisa Pepejal dan Pembersihan Awam (PPSPPA) and also a member of
PEMUDAH.
Honestly, why I choose her as my
‘mentor’? Simply because she is the first woman appointed as Secretary
General of Ministry of Housing and Local Government.
She
had determination to be great, very informative, humble, beautiful, gentle,
very soft spoken but coherent person.
Beside that, YBhg. Datuk Arpah Binti Abdul Razak
also a very professional leader. Although I rarely direct work to her, but I am
still remember a time when she had a session with the staff of Ministry of
Housing and Local Government once she had appointed as the Secretary General.
For me she is a very humble person because at that time she just accompanied by
her assistant and not with the other top ministry’s leaders. It was because she
want to face to face and to hear directly from the below staffs about their
problems at the workplace and their opinions on the ministry without other
intervention or influences. At that time, she was a very good listener and all
staff freely expressed their opinions as well as problems. Thus, it is important
to maintain trust between a leader and his or her workers.
Moreover,
YBhg. Datuk Arpah Binti Abdul Razak
also very concern about the staff’s welfare which for me the characteristic should
have in every good leader. To be good leaders, they need to be in touch with
their people at all times. The leaders must be honest and open with the team
members. Leaders also need soul to connect on a personal level with their
people. In my opinion, management today is an act of push and pull. So, what
leaders or managers should do is to practice courtesy, socialize with peoples.
In addition to that, YBhg. Datuk
Arpah Binti Abdul Razak also a very confident person and I hope one day I will
be like her. Undoubtedly, a good leader is confident. In order to lead and set
direction a leader needs to appear confident as a person and in the leadership
role. Such a person inspires confidence in others and draws out the trust and
best efforts of the team to complete the task well. A leader who conveys
confidence towards the proposed objective inspires the best effort from the
team members. Honestly, all the qualities are the answer why I respect
most and admire in her, and I wish one day to have these qualities and follow
in her footstep.
To
sum up, YBhg. Datuk Arpah Binti Abdul
Razak is one of the great leaders in this country. When we think of leaders, we
may think of people such as Tun Dr. Mahathir, Tun Ahmad Sarji, Tunku Abdul
Rahman and so on.But like us, these people started out as a students, workers
and citizens who possessed ideas how aspect of daily life could be improved on
a larger scale. Through diligence and experience, they improved upon their
opinions and feedback and constantly looking for the best way to accomplish
goals for a group. Thus, we all have the potential to be leaders, such as in
communities, at work, in organization and so on. To be a good leader, we must possess
an effective leadership. But what is the definition of effective leadership?
Leadership
has been described as “a process of social influence in which one person can
enlist the aid and support the others in the accomplishment of a common task.”
(www.wikipedia.cpm) While Scott Campbell and Ellen Samiec (2005)
in their book, 5-D Leadership defined
effective leadership as a process of
achieving desired results through people’s willing participation. Thus, the
heart of this definition is the phrase “through people’s willing
participation.” Assuredly, leadership is about achieving results.
In
other hand, Stephen E-Kohn and Vincent D.O’Connell (2005) pointed out the six habits
of highly effective leaders;
1-
expanding self-awareness
2-
practising emphaty
3-
maintaining proper boundaries
4-
critisizing artfully
5-
flexing to different people styles
6-
following “Golden Rule” Principles
Expanding Self- awareness
Awareness
is a priority because it drives what we are in a position to affect and
control, versus those issues or realities about which we are unaware, which tend
to exert control over us. This is true of conditions within our external
environment, but it is particularly relevant to our “inner territory” - our
emotions, personality, values and beliefs.
Practising Emphaty
The term empathy derives from the
Greek word empatheia, or feeling
into; the ability to perceive the subjective experience of another person. It
is also defined simply as “the capacity to understand and respond effectively
to the unique experience of another.” Given this definition, it is evident that
emphaty includes three main components: understanding, responding effectively
and a focus on the unique circumstances of people and situations.
In order to be an empathic leader,
we have to be a good listener. Listening skills are the core of empathy.
Effective managers listen, and they priories listening. They remove the clutter in their mind and
provide their staff with the emotional presence and “psychological air” to show
that they value what they are hearing, that they are willing to take the time
to find out what the staff’s input is. Effective leaders read situations well,
based on their interest in getting inside the other person’s frame of reference, to see what this person sees, so they can understand the
situation better.
Maintaining Proper Boundaries
To sum, leaders need to exercise
judgement and self-control in their roles as leaders of people, especially in the
context of how they develop interpersonal relationships with their staff. In
order to maintain a position whereby they can consistently exert their
authority, leaders need to make judgements about interpersonal behavior that is
role-congruent. There are some behaviours that are never appropriate: for
examples secretive romances with a direct report, sexual communication,
culturally hatefully communication, indebtedness to a direct report and highly
immoral behavior that forces subordinated into a role of coconspirator.
Critisizing Artfully
Critisizing employees’s performance
can be difficult and uncomfortable, but it is an inevitable aspect of managing
others. The mistakes I witness leaders making more today and it recur again and
again;
1- Leaders
compromise their authority through bad judgements, inappropriate behavior, or
ineffective limit- setting with respect to their interpersonal relationships at
work.
2- Leaders
alienate people through their frustrated reactions to sub-par performance. Their
critism is intolerant and hurtful. They deliver bad news or critical opinions
in a way that undermines rather than reinforces subordinates’s morale and team
spirit.
Hence,
critism is “artfully” when leaders ;
1- Balance
the importance of the message being delivered, (that the performance needs
improvement) with the importance of delivering it in a way that does not
undermine feedback but rather encourages its acceptance and creates motivation
for the desired performance improvement.
2- Resist
rash, impulsive, demeaning attacks. An artful approach is thoughtful, not reactive,
showing the self- control to avoid “shooting from the lip.”
Effective people managers utilize the
“Sandwich Technique,” the core aptitude of seasoned diplomacy and tact. Critism
is communicated by:
1- Always
starting with a positive statement
2- Layering
the “bad news” or critism after the positive statement.
3- Always
completing the interaction with an affirming statement, ideally that blends the
initial positive statement with an expression of confidence that performance
will be corrected and things will move forward from this point on.
Other techniques include:
4- Getting
the facts straight
5- choosing
the best timing
6- Avoiding
criticizing in public
7- Probing
with open-ended questions
8- Controlling
the settings
9- Condemming
the deed, not the doer
10- Using
your sparingly
11- Selecting
key issues and restricting yourself to them
Flexing to Different People
Styles
Highly effective leaders analyze
people’s interpersonal communication styles as a way to develop a strategy for
building supervisory relationships with these individualis.
Following “Golden Rule”
Principles
Briefly, the “Golden Rule” here
primarily applies to religion, to spiritual sponsored by one’s chosen faith.
The four core values stand out of the principles are;
1- Treat
people with respect
2- Show
fairness
3- Display
honesty, both in wprds and deeds
4- Embrace
diversity
CONCLUSION
In a nutshell, to be a good leader,
he or she should possess certain qualities. YBhg.
Datuk Arpah Binti Abdul Razak is the one who have certain characteristics and
qualities as a good leader. As a PTD M41, my journey is still far. Hopefully,
one day I will follow in her footsteps. Who knows one day I will become a
Secretary General like her? However, to become like her, firstly, I must
discover my own leadership strengths. Then, I need to develop and improved my
leadership skills. To conclude, role models or mentors should be used to model
our behavior and to strive to be a better person, worker and etc.
LIST OF REFERENCES
Jago,A.G. Leadership: Perspectives In
Theory and Research. Management Science,1982.
Stephen E.Kohn and Vincent D.O’Connell. 6
Habits Of Highly Effective Bosses. Franklin Lakes: Career Press, 2005.
Ferguson. Leadership Skills. New
York: Career Skills Library, 2004.
Scott Camphell and Ellen Samiec. 5-D
Leadership; Key Dimensions For Leading In The Real World. USA : Davies Black Publishing,
2005.
William A. Cohen. The Art of The
Leader.New Jersey: Prentice Hall Business and Professional Division,1990.
WM
SIDANG D
DPA 1/2012
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