Book summary: The Leader, The Teacher, You

Wise Musings

Today is not more difficult than the past; it is simply different. Life moves on with all its ebbs and flows, and the

key to happiness and success lies with those who are able to live with the ambiguous and the unexpected, as well as with uncomfortable and continuous change.

Do not compare yourself with others. Simply be the best that you can be, and do the best you can.

If you are already the best that you can be, and you are alreadyn doing your best, then no one has the right to ask you for more. But if you are not putting in your best, then you should be angry with yourself.???????????

Working with others

After many years of working with people, I have uncovered a host of universal characteristics about people.

People have a deep sense of pride and want to do a good job. People want to be appreciated and want their work to be acknowledged. People want to taste success, and when they do, they automatically become more motivated and more self-confident, which in turn engenders initiative and innovation.

The challenge for leaders is how to create situations where people are not afraid to try, where people can savour success to build up their self-confidence, and where people can safely learn from their mistakes.

More fundamentally, I have learned that most people want to be led; what they seek are good leaders who work with both their head and heart, and who will help their people discover themselves.

Working with Lee Kuan Yew

People often ask me what it was like to serve Mr Lee Kuan Yew, as he was known to be very tough and demanding of high standards of work. They always react with surprise when I tell them that the three years as his Principal Private Secretary were the freest three years of my working life!

Mr Lee taught me that building a nation is not the same as building a city: a city is made of plans and concrete structures, but a nation is made of people united to work together for a bright future for all.

Mr Lee also taught me that a leader not only needs to have clarity of views and single-mindedness of purpose, but also requires a capacity for clear communication, where complex problems are conveyed in a way that can be understood by the man-in-the-street.

I well remember my first meeting with Mr Lee as his Principal Private Secretary. He told me that in the course of my work, I would be dealing with foreigners, and advised,

“Always look the foreigner in his eyes. Never look down. You are dealing with him as a representative of Singapore. Conduct yourself as his equal.”

As I look back, I plainly see that in this wise instruction lies the reason for what has made Singapore so much of what it is — well-regarded by the world, respected, self-aware, pushing always against the boundaries of possibilities.

Working with Dr Goh Keng Swee

From Dr Goh Keng Swee, I learnt the art of getting things done in situations of ambiguity and uncertainty. I learnt the importance to have the courage to try new things and the discernment to cut losses when things do not work out. I learnt to think clearly and never to camouflage ambiguity and uncertainty with words. I learnt the need to set goals that are a stretch but achievable with effort and imagination.

I learnt how to harness the energies of people to a high and worthy cause. I learnt the need to be open to good ideas from anywhere, and to have an indomitable spirit to be masters of our own destiny.

Above all, I learnt from Dr Goh that “the only way to avoid making mistakes is not to do anything, and that, in the final analysis, will be the ultimate mistake.”

?Mr Lee and Dr Goh also impressed on me the need for Singaporeans to have a relentless drive for excellence, and desire to be the best that we can be in everything we do; for Singapore, unlike for so many other countries, survival and success are two sides of the same coin.

There are countries that are independent but not sovereign, and countries that are sovereign but not independent. Singapore must seek to be friends with all who would be friends with Singapore, but never forget that no one owes us a living and that no one else is responsible for our security.

The drive to be exceptional in the way we think is not an option; it is destiny for Singapore.

Career advice

If I were to offer just one piece of advice to anyone newly starting work, it would simply be, “Be the best you can be.”

This requires three actions:

? Doing the best you can in whatever you do

? Making it a priority to realise your potential

? Working well with others to accomplish more than working just on your own

“Doing the best you can in whatever you do” means to be never satisfied until you have put your all into any assignment. There needs to be the “intellectual restlessness” — a continual questioning as to whether things could be done in a better way, and whether you could do better things with your time and energy.

There needs also to be a “constructive dissatisfaction” — an unwillingness to be satisfied until the best possible has been done, but an unwillingness that manifests itself in a constructive rather than destructive, sceptical, complaining, or cynical way.

Separate the matter of pay from the willingness to do more. If you are not prepared to do more, you will miss the chance to establish your credentials to be entrusted with more.

And if you do more but do not get the promotion or recognition in due time, you always have a choice to go somewhere else where your skill and experience will be given adequate recognition.

“Working well with others to accomplish more than working just on your own” means recognising there are very few things in work and life that you can do all on your own; it is thus important to develop networks and nurture relationships.

Do not chase the rewards! Chase the opportunities. Rewards are what you get for today, while opportunities determine what you get for the future because opportunities govern what you can get to do tomorrow.

Roles of Politcal Leadership and the Civil Service

The question has often been asked, “What are the respective roles of the political leadership and the civil service?”

The political leadership decides policy, while the civil service has to deliver the policy the best way possible.

While the civil service helps in the development of the policy, its primary input must be with an eye on how well the policy can be executed and how sustainable it is.

Defining the policy outcomes has to be a political prerogative and responsibility. It is for the political leadership to assess what policy outcomes would serve the needs and aspirations of the citizens best; it is not for the civil service to decide between the many different ideas and desires of the electorate.

This principle is expressed succinctly in the statement: The civil service is impartial but not neutral.

In other words, when delivering its service, the civil service has to be impartial with respect to race, religion, socioeconomic status, and so on; but the civil service cannot be neutral with respect to executing the policy as the civil service is the government’s instrument for public policy.

HOW “CULTURE” DIFFERS FROM “VALUES”

“Culture” is how things are today in the company.

To change the culture of an organisation is to change the behaviour of everyone; this can never be achieved overnight, and in many instances, the staff who refuse to change will simply have to be removed.

“Values” are the attributes the organisation believes it should imbibe to make its future and assure its continued success.

The gap between the culture and the values of an organisation represents the amount of work that has to be done to get the organisation onto its winning path

The point simply is that, values, morals, and ethics are basically “caught” from family and school rather than “taught” in formal lessons and tests.

If we become a society where what is legal is right and what is illegal is wrong, then we would have reduced morality to the law, and thereby the whole moral fibre of society would be damaged.

When I speak of “values-driven education” for our children in school, I am thinking of what it is in their beliefs, perspectives, attitudes, and fundamental motivations that would empower them best for their lives in future. I would list these as:

? Values of Identity

? Values of Community

? Values of Discovery

We often lament a lack of innovative spirit among Singaporeans, and accept too easily the analysis of outside commentators who say that this situation has arisen because Singaporean children are brought up to conform and are too scared to question.

I think the reason Singaporean kids simply go along is because they have been taught to be smart and efficient, and they think the smart and efficient thing to do is to go with the herd, and keep to the tried and tested path. We have to change this.

As I contemplate the future for Singapore, I think our greatest threat to continuing success and national well-being is the lack of entrepreneurs, innovators, researchers, and leaders.

Entrepreneurs build businesses that would never exist without them; innovators do things differently from how they have always been done; researchers discover things never known before; and leaders make things happen that would otherwise not happen on their own.

Singaporeans cannot afford to rest on the achievements of the past. Singapore must build its business competitiveness on the values of integrity, quality, reliability, imagination, responsiveness, and an unending drive for excellence.

We are no longer a low cost base. The battle must be fought on a different plane.

What a great leader is

The test of great leadership is not only that good things happen and many things get done while the leader is around; the true test is the legacy that a leader leaves for the sustained and continual success, progress, and development of the organisation.

In short, a leader’s most critical contributions are what still remains when the leader is no longer around.

This is not to say that successful performance while the leader is in charge is not important: ongoing success is always important, but great?success is to be judged by what endures in the thinking, values, and beliefs of the organisation and its staff, even if the practices have to change with time and circumstances.

The ultimate goal for any leader is to “lead from within.”

This means that the leader has so successfully implanted and generated values, capability, capacity, confidence, attitudes, and ways of thinking and competence that the leader has developed the next generation of leaders that would be best able to lead the organisation for the future.

Ending poem

Allow me to share with you a poem simply called Youth by Samuel Ullman. This was the favourite poem of Konosuke Matsushita, the founder of Matsushita Electric Corporation. I hope the poem will inspire you, just as it has been an encouragement in my life. It goes:

“Youth is not a time of life;

it is a state of mind;

it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees;

it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination,

a vigour of the emotions;

it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.

Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over

timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease.

This often exists in a man of sixty more than a boy of twenty.

Nobody grows old merely by a number of years.

We grow old by deserting our ideals.”