Learning to lead the Home Team way

Justin attended the?Home Team Academy's Home Team Senior Command and Staff Course in 2021. This five-week course equips Home Team and Whole-of-Government leaders with the knowledge and skills they need to remain future-ready in an increasingly complex and dynamic operating environment and fosters closer working relationships between agencies.

For me, the Home Team Academy’s Home Team Senior Command and Staff Course reinforced my view that leadership is best learnt through the experience of other leaders.

As a senior course for the Home Team and our Whole of Government partners, I was fortunate to have as my coursemates not just participants from other Home Team Departments, but also from the Singapore Armed Forces, the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau, Singapore Food Agency, Singapore Customs, and the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore.

From how to successfully lead on the international front in disaster management to working through difficult human resource situations, our conversations ran the entire gamut of leadership situations. Besides the sharing sessions, the Home Team Academy course also brought together distinguished speakers from INSEAD, the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy Executive Education,?and the?S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. It was wonderful to gain so many insights from these experts.

One exercise we did that really resonated with me was where we had to go through a gallery of leadership quotes and choose one that we found the most meaningful. I chose, “Earn your leadership every day”, a quote by the famous basketball player Michael Jordan.

It was the shortest quote of the lot – just five words – but it was immensely powerful for me. These five words are a reminder to me that leadership is a privilege, and that I must do my best by the people that I lead. It also reminds me to plan and prioritise my actions every day, every week, every month, for my time in a leadership position is finite, and that I must consciously make a difference while I am still able to do so.

?It is also a helpful yard stick for me to evaluate my actions. As each day ends, I ask myself: have I earned my leadership today?

Another thing that had a big impact on me was what one of the speakers said about where you place your centre of gravity on activities every day. He said that during the work week, his centre of gravity would be on work, but when the weekend came around, his centre of gravity would shift to his family. His attention and energies over the weekend would be focused on his family.

It was refreshing and empowering to hear this coming from a senior leader, and I have been practising this same division of time since, and it has made a huge difference in my work and personal life.

I also learned a lot from the Crisis Leadership module run by the Home Team Behavioural Sciences Centre. One key area we covered was the importance of communications during a crisis. In the immediate aftermath of an incident, there will be confusion and uncertainty over what is going on. It falls on the leader to identify the different audiences, from those involved in the incident to the general public, and to address their need for information. To be able to do so in a crisis, one must practice in peacetime and train the communications’ muscle whenever the opportunity arises.

I am really glad I attended this course, and even though it coincided with the start of COVID, my sub-group of four coursemates still maintained close ties. They are a fun and diverse group from whom I really learnt a great deal, and we have become close friends.?Now that restrictions have been eased, our entire course is planning to have a reunion in October. I am looking forward to more sharing and to the camaraderie!?