Developing ASEAN leaders for an entire Nation

Timor-Leste's Futuru Lider Ba ASEAN (FLBA) programme

Picture: The first cohort of 100 future leaders of Timor-Leste in the FLBA programme. In the foreground next to me are Vice Minister for ASEAN Affairs Milena Rangel, National Advisor Yeni Pereira and Advisor for Communication Natalino Soares Ornai Guterres.

Note: Futuru Lider Ba ASEAN means “Future Leaders for ASEAN” in the Tetun, the national language of Timor-Leste.

A unique leadership project

Leadership programmes are common in all types of organisations. In ASEAN, many leadership programmes already exist: you have youth leader networks, civil service leadership programmes, and hundreds of corporate programmes. However, none exist that bring together the next generation of leaders from all sectors on a national scale to become ASEAN leaders.

Why Timor-Leste created a national programme to develop the next generation of leader comes out of a strategic need. The country is preparing for ASEAN accession and the country's young leaders have very little exposure to ASEAN. Developing leaders who are ASEAN-capable and ASEAN-ready is therefore of immediate national interest. I was fortunate to be assigned by the government to design and pilot an original leadership development process in a national scale to meet this need.

In this article I will describe the purpose, selection and design of the Futuru Lider Ba ASEAN programme.

Defining a national purpose within ASEAN

Design starts with purpose. For Timor-Leste the immediate purpose is to develop young and future leaders who understand ASEAN and can work with ASEAN institutions in all sectors. But even more important is the long-term purpose of building leadership for the country’s future development.

The time horizon for ASEAN Membership is 2025 or 2026. The long-term horizon is around 2050, when today's young leaders will be in their fifties and sixties in top-level roles.

Breaking down the purpose into targeted 6 leadership goals for this project. These are:

1. Develop ASEAN-capable and ASEAN-ready leaders who understand and can work with ASEAN.
2. Accelerate Timor-Leste’s development pipeline of next generation leaders in ASEAN.
3. Provide ASEAN exposure and networking with leaders and future leaders from all ASEAN Member States.
4. Develop a mindset to take the lead and promote Timor-Leste’s strengths and potential in ASEAN countries.
5. Develop ethical leadership to ensure responsible economic growth, social progress, and sustainability for Timor-Leste’s future.
6. Ensure career mobility opportunities for cross-sector leadership and entrepreneurship in Timor-Leste.

Selecting future leaders

There is no recipe or profile for a future leader – it’s a question of potential and motivation as well as capabilities.

Our selection process followed rigorous diversity and inclusion criteria. First, we made sure that participants come from all sectors - this is the main difference with existing leadership programmes which develop leaders within a sector. These sectors are:

·?????? Public Sector Organisations and Institutions

·?????? Private Sector Institutions and Businesses

·?????? Startup company leaders and Entrepreneurs

·?????? Civil Society Organisations and Social entrepreneurs

·?????? Education (teachers, university professor, researchers, students)

·?????? Advisors / Experts and Timorese Managers in International Aid organisations

How we got the candidates was by first asking leaders from institutions come to a meeting where we discussed the purpose and selection criteria of the programme. Then we asked them to choose their best future leaders as candidates and sponsor them. We then followed up with an individual interview of each candidate.

By adopting the age group 23-37 we deliberately mixed potential leaders (students and early career individuals) in their mid-twenties with developing leaders in their mid-thirties.

We knew that such a programme must have critical mass. Even for a small island nation of 1.3 million population we decided on 100 participants per cohort. That makes a big programme to manage but is actually small compared to the need for national leaders across sectors.?

Looking at the sector breakdown in the chart, you will note that in Timor-Leste young leaders are more likely to be entrepreneurs (in light blue) than managers in companies (in orange) because there are just not enough private sector companies. A weak private sector is a major challenge, but also a big opportunity for company creation.

In our inclusion criteria we started with gender (there are 56% women in the first cohort) and we also included diverse backgrounds. In Timor-Leste that means our future leaders come from poor families as well as families with the means to prepare their children for leadership. To achieve such inclusion, we made programme free of charge, paid by the government’s national human development fund. The importance of not having financial barriers is shown by the fact that many participants didn’t have a passport and were making their first trip out of the country.

Designing the leadership development process

Leadership development takes time. Throughout the programme, participants build their capability and readiness to lead through a variety of learning experiences such as personal development, immersion in ASEAN countries and action learning projects on national development as well as workshops with experts. To prepare national leaders, my view is that you need at least a year.

At the national level, leadership capabilities must be aligned with the strategic capabilities that the country needs. In the case of Timor-Leste we defined three critical areas targeted for the year 2050. These are:

1. Responsible economic growth: this means that the development strategy includes areas such as managing inequality and supporting transition from rural work to formal jobs while building the economy's private sector.
2. Full sustainability: this means that Timor-Leste's extraordinary coral reefs and need to be preserved from pollution and plastic waste (these coral reefs are the most biodiverse on the planet) as tourism grows. Sustainability also includes a developed workforce, effective and responsible governance, flourishing art and culture and preservation of Timor-Leste's advanced degree of freedom and democracy (ranked highest among ASEAN countries).
3. Human Development: this means more than human resources or human capital which are only measured by economic indicators. Development includes decent work, self-determination, quality of life, social relationships and lifelong learning. In other words, it spans ASEAN's economic and socio-economic pillar and answers the question: what kind of society do we want?

In conclusion, the benefit of Timor-Leste’s leadership programme is not only for the home country. These leaders will benefit all ASEAN countries by actively contributing Timor-Leste’s strengths and potential as a full ASEAN Member State.