Leadership
can take place in large and small organizations, in private and public
settings, in business and non-business area, in political and non-political
fields and in military and non-military systems. Before we can analyze what
makes an effective leader, we need to understand the meaning of leadership.
Leadership can be interpreted differently to different people. Lim and Daft
define leadership as an influence relationship between leaders and followers
who want a transformation and output that can reveal their share purpose. To
really understand the leadership term, you should know the major theories,
leadership styles and the traits and characteristics that the leader possess.
Democratic leader, behavioral theory, great-man theories, servant leader are
the examples of the major theories in leadership. Besides, leaders also have
many styles in executing their role such as autocratic, participatory, democratic,
laissez-faire (hands off) and many more. These leadership styles are depends on
the situation in managing the task in the organization.
Tan
Sri Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary is the chosen leader that I want to share in this
blog project. Before this, we just heard his name without knowing his background.
I eager to write about him because he just an ordinary person that doing
extraordinary things. He is also the richest Malay in this country and very
much respected businessman and philanthropy. I will share with you about the
life of Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary and highlighted about his contribution
to serve the nation. The
success enjoyed by Syed Mokhtar today was not gained through an easy
shortcuts. Hard work, self confidence and faith that everything comes from
Allah has made him a bumiputera conglomerate icon for everyone to aspire to.
THE LIFE OF SYED MOKHTAR AL-BUKHARY
Syed
Mokhtar Al-Bukhary was born in Alor Setar, Kedah in 1951 at middle class
family. His family hailed from Hadhramaut, Yemen. Before deciding to live in
Kedah, his father traveled as far as Central Asia to trade. Then, his father
went to Thailand, before finally deciding to live in Alor Setar, Kedah in the
mid 1940’s. This business leader has seven siblings and he is the third child.
Shortage of money led his family to send him to live with his uncle, Syed Omar
in Johor Bahru, to study there. Syed Mokhtar lived in Johor Bharu and continued
his studies there until form two, before returning to Kedah to study up to
form five at Saint Micheal’s School.
A
unique fact, which can actually be viewed as his first direct involvement in
business, is that he used to help his father with his business’ accounting.
This took place during recession period, when his father went to his school and
ask him to go through his accounting book and take care of it. This valuable
experience is one of the solid foundations Syed Mokhtar acquired before he
involved in the real world of business.
After
school, Syed Mokhtar would help his father take care of livestock at a
quarantine centre close to the railway station in Alor Setar. He never
attended university but he was also smart to use the experience he had gained from
helping his father, as reference in his own business. Aside from his father’s
business, Syed Mokhtar also helped his mother cultivate vegetables to be sold
at a market on Jalan Telok Wan Jah. In fact, this seventh wealthiest man in
Malaysia had even sold roti canai in that same market.
He’s a mysterious man. It is because he does not like to show off the luxurious
life. For your information, he is easy to get along with other people. He is
not the type of people which love to collect luxury car. He has an old model of
Proton Perdana and another one is 20 year’s old Mercedes which he used to use
it from time to time.
STARTING A BUSINESS
In
the mid 1970s, his father’s cattle business ran into trouble following the
outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. The outbreak spread throughout southern
Thailand, Kedah and Perlis. As a result, nearly all their livestock perished.
However, this downturn in event actually had a silver lining. Since then, Syed
Mokhtar took over his father’s business and decided never again to become
involved in the cattle business. Instead, he decided to go into the business
of selling meat. As a start, at the age of 19, Syed Mokhtar scoured markets
around Alor Setar to buy unsold meat from the vendors there. The meat would then
be re-sold to bumiputera traders in the surrounding area.
Although
these were unsold meat, they were packaged carefully and nicely, and kept on
ice to maintain freshness. Thus, using his experience in handling good quality
products, Syed Mokhtar business received encouraging response from the public.
This success made him even more driven to expand the business.
Soon
after, Syed Mokhtar moved on to the transportation business. After successfully
acquiring a license for four Class A lorries in 1972, Syed Mokhtar secured a
loan in the amount of RM110, 000 from the Majlis Amanah Rakyat (MARA) to buy
two Mercedes Benz lorries. At first, he wanted to buy four lorries, but the
plan did not come to light because of technical problems, leaving him with two
remaining permits. A Chinese trader approached him to buy those permits, but
Syed Mokhtar refused the offer and decided to return the permits to MARA. He
then established a transportation company named Syarikat Pengangkutan Sentosa,
and appointed a Chinese clerk to be the manager. Interestingly, the company
still exists until today. From a small business that offered transport service
to haul rice, it now owns more than 40 lorries for various transport
purposes.
EXPANDING BUSINESS
After
establishing Syarikat Shah, he created Syarikat Bukhary, which is involved in
the rice and sugar business. And just like Syarikat Pengangkutan Sentosa,
Bukhary still exists and has expanded until now, with an annual revenue of
around RM250 million.
The
company then expanded into Bukhary (KL) Sdn. Bhd. in 1977. The company won
many government contracts which were offered to bumiputera entrepreneurs at
the time, and based its operations in a four-storey shop lot on Jalan Pahang.
He then created Susu Mas Sdn. Bhd (Susu Mas) in 1979 to facilitate his
business of supplying to the government. Like Bukhary, Susu Mas was also a
joint-venture company, this time with New Zealand Milk Products. He held 51
percent share in the company. The Susu Mas product was marketed under the
brand Fernleaf. However, following the economic crisis which hit the country
at the end of 1980’s, he decided to sell his business interest in that company.
AMTEK, CROCODILE AND LOUIS
The
1980’s and 1990’s, saw him getting involved in the clothing and manufacturing
industry. His star continued to shine bright and he won a contract to produce
military uniform for the Ministry of Defense. Through this contract, his
company was required to supply the Armed Forces (ATM) with more than 100,000 pairs
of boots and 330,000 sets of army uniforms. This success moved him to decide
to create two clothing company, Amtek Holdings (Amtek) which manufactured
shoes, while Oriental Garments Uniform Dividion (Oriental) produced boots.
Oriental is another one of his joint-venture companies. This time with
Oriental Garments in Pulau Pinang.
Most
recently, Amtek Shoes, a subsidiary of Amtek, produces shoes for the use of the
ATM and clothing under the brand Lee Cooper and Louis. The reality is, Syed
Mokhtar’s business empire has expanded so wide, it doesn’t just involve meat,
rice, sugar, clothing items, shiping and it also includes some of the country’s
heavy industries.
CONTRIBUTION TOWARDS MUSLIM
EDUCATION IN MALAYSIA
Although
he enjoys his success as the nation’s number one bumiputera conglomerate
figure, he has not forgotten his responsibility to help his Muslim brethrens.
For this purpose, the Yayasan al_Bukhary was established in March 1996 to help
the poor, particularly in the area of education. Until today, Yayasan
al-Bukhary has spent more than RM300 million for religious, cultural and
educational activities. The foundation not only provides aid to people of this
country, but also countries that are members in the Organisation of Islamic
Conference (OIC). Among the biggest projects ever conducted was the
construction of the Kompleks al-Bukhary costing RM400 million in Kedah. The
complex is a centre complete with facilities including a mosque, medical
centre, community centre, housing for orphans, a special academy of the
elderly and an institution of higher education.
This
foundation also created the International Islamic Arts Museum in Kuala Lumpur,
at a cost of RM100 million. This four-storey building is the first museum in
Asia Pacific that showcases Islamic works of art. Yayasan al-Bukhary also
built 16 mosques all over the world.
OTHER CONTRIBUTIONS
Prior
to 2000, Yayasan Al-Bukhary donated about RM7.75 million to Oxford Centre for
Islamic Studies, a world-renowned centre of Islamic studies. And starting from
November 2007, Yayasan Al-Bukhary will sponsor 28 more students to study at
the International Islamic University Malaysia. Yayaan Al-Bukhary is also
involved with the Al-Bukhary International University’s construction project
in Kedah, which costs RM500 million. It will cater to 3,000 students of whom
70 percent are foreign students fully sponsored by the foundation by 2009. Last
6 September, Yayasan Al-Bukhary donated AS$1 million to the Lebanese
Humanitarian Fund in order to lessen the burden suffered by people of that
country, who are victims of Israel’s atrocity. Besides that, this foundation
also helps non-Islamic based organisations. For example, around RM1 million was
donated by the foundation for the Langkawi Project, an effort spearheaded by
the MCA, in the area of education, particularly in providing scholarships to
financially needy students from rural areas.
THE GREAT IDEAS IN THE ORGANIZATION
The great ideas in my
organization come from the organizational culture. According to Lim and Daft
culture is defined as the set of key values, assumptions, understandings and
norms that is shared by members of the organization and taught to the new
members as correct. When any problems occurred in the organization, we will try
to think and act for the best solutions.
Culture gives employees a sense of
organizational identity and generates commitment to particular values and ways
of doing things. Culture serves for two important functions in organizations
which are internal integration and external adaption. Internal integration
helps members to develop a collective identity and know how to work together
effectively. For example, if there is any work given by the management that need
to be settled or submitted on the certain date given, we will try to manage and
finished it early or on time. Organizations are putting increased emphasis on
developing strong cultures that encourage teamwork, collaboration and mutual
trust. It links the employee with another employee in the organization.
However, cultures for
the external adaption determines how the organization meets goals and deals
with outsiders. Culture can encourage employee commitment to the core purpose
of the organizations, its specific goals and ways to accomplish the goals. For
example, when my organization arrange a chandat sotong program with the other
organization to have a close relationship with them. Program conducted by the
teams have meet the objectives because of the strong culture build in the
organization.
MISTAKE THAT LEADERS MAKE
There
are some mistakes that leaders make. They always said that mistake is one of
the ways to learn, however it is better that the leaders avoiding the mistake
at first. It is because the simple mistake might make your followers or
outsiders interpret the organization wrongly. The mistake that always been made
by the leader are:
- Failing
to define goal
When
the followers do not have the clear goal in the organization, they will not become
productive. They do not know what they are doing and cannot identify the
priority of their workload. Therefore, it is important to clearly define your
organization’s goal to the followers and make them understand their duty and
task.
- Misunderstanding
motivation
Some
of the leaders misunderstanding the ways to give motivations to their
subordinate. They always think that their subordinates are working for the
monetary reward only. People seeking for the work and life balance. So, the
leaders should look at also for the non-monetary rewards like recognition
awards, medical expenses, continuous education,
- Customers
feedback
It
is important to know about the customer feedback. Organization can be improved
base on the customer feedback. However, some leader avoid the customer feedback
because they feel that it only wasting their time to entertain customer that
are not giving them a huge benefits or profits.
- Not
delegating
Leaders
will make mistake if they do not delegate their tasks appropriately. They do not
trust people to do their job. So, they will become stress because of the
workload burden. They should have trust towards their employee and monitor
their task whether it is rightly performed or not.
A FEW RESOURCES TO BECOME BETTER LEADER
There
are two books I suggest for the person who want to gain insight in becoming a
better leader. The first one is the book with the title of The leadership
experience in Asia. This book will give you the explanation about the
leadership theory and ways that the leader can apply to lead their followers
such as how to communicate with people, understand what are the followers want,
how to motivate the followers, what is the leadership power and influence and many more. The title
of the second book is Total leadership: Be a better leader, have a richer life.
This book is designed for anyone in the organization and in any career stage. The
author write this book based on the research and the practical knowledge. It
provides to you an insight how to become a better leader by using the total
leadership which are the leader should act with authenticity by defining what
is important, act with integrity by respecting the whole person and act with
creativity by experimenting get done. Moreover, it also explain about the
leadership vision, how the people in the organization learn and change, the
expectations of the stakeholders and so on. I hope these two books will give
you an idea in becoming a better leader.
WAYS TO ENSURE A PERSON GROWING AND
DEVELOP AS A LEADER
When
we know the ways to be a better leader, it will develop your leadership skills.
There are a few ways to ensure a person to grow and develop as a better leader.
The first one is learn from the experience. The experience that we face can be
good or bad. It is important to learn from the past experience because I will
become more careful on doing things. The experience that I get from doing
things is very precious. It is because the experience that will get is not the
same like reading a theory in the book. It really happened in your life.
Therefore, I will learn from the experience that I have to become a better
leader.
Besides that, I will provide the
direction for my followers in achieving the organizational goals. Inspiring
teams means painting the clear pictures of what the success means. Although, it
takes time and energy to learn what motivate each persons but that is the true
leader do.
Last but not least, the important
thing in becoming a true leader is acquire more knowledge through reading and
make research about something that I do not know. It will give me an idea of
doing things and shares that ideas with the teams members.
REFERENCES
Lim, G.S. & Draft, R.L. (2009). The Leadership Experience in Asia.
Singapore: Thomson.
McCrimmon, M. (2008). How to define
leadership and management. Retrieved October 29, 2012, from: http://www.
leadersdirect.net
Friedman, S.D. (2008). Total Leadership: Be a better Leader, Have a Richer Life. United
States of America: Harverd business press.
Conger,
J.A. (1989). Leadership: The Art of
Empowering others (3), p.17-24. Retrieved October 30, 2012, from
http://www.jstor.org/stable/4164863
Galford, R.M & Maruca, R.F. (2006). Your
Leadership Legacy: Why Looking toward the future will make you a better leader
today. United States of America: Harverd Business School.
From:
Abd Aziz Bin Ahmad
Sidang D
Diploma Pengurusan Awam (DPA) bil.1/2012
2 comments:
Nice written.
I really enjoy the blog article.Much thanks again.
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