SPAD ACADEMY
INAUGURAL LEADERSHIP
LECTURE SERIES
Speech
By Tan Sri Syed Hamid
Albar
14 March 2016
Dewan Perdana, SME
Corp, Platinum Sentral
Assalamualaikum WBT
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,
First of all, let me
express my thanks to SPAD Academy for inviting me here this morning to share my
thoughts on Leadership and Building a High Performing Team. I must confess that
when I received this invitation, I became slightly nostalgic. I started
thinking how I had first experienced leadership being shown – my childhood
home. Interestingly enough, many years later I read an article in the Harvard
Business Review where the management icon Jack Welch stated, “My mother was the
greatest leadership teacher I ever had”. So both Jack Welch and I learnt our leadership
lessons the same way – in our respective childhood homes. I, however was
luckier than Mr. Welch. While he had only one teacher; his mother, I had two;
my mother and my father.
You know how most
management books will tell you that the optimum span of control is 5? Well, my
mother had to manage 12 children and 1 husband and she was amazing at it. Many
a time, my father was away on his political work and my mother would
single-handedly handle everything. She was an expert at delegating household tasks
to us children all according to our capabilities. She was a financing wiz who
knew how to manage finances and credit so that we children never wanted for the
essentials. She was a resource optimizer who could prioritize her time and her
resources. When I think back on it, I still don’t know how she managed it. But
I learnt from her all these things.
From my father, I
learnt that leadership and authority must be tempered with compassion and
mercy. My father was a highly disciplined man. He expected the best from
himself and the best from others. Yet, he also knew the need to be
compassionate. He knew how difficult it was for my mother to manage all the
household bills on our very limited resources and how much my mother sacrificed
her own needs for the family. So when my father held higher positions, he made
sure that he rewarded her within his limits. So I can safely say that I do not
believe in the blowtorch management style that “Neutron Jack” as Jack Welch was
also known, practiced.
Well there is one other
difference between Jack Welch and me. Mr. Welch spent his entire career in one
firm, GE. I would like to think that I was more adventurous. I managed to fit
in careers in three different fields i.e. legal, banking and politics. In each
of these fields I again managed to fit in very different roles. In the legal
field, I served as Sessions Court President as well as a legal advisor to a
bank, Bank Bumiputra. In the banking field I did commercial banking before
becoming CEO of Bank Bumiputra Investment banking subsidiary and in politics, I
was Cabinet Minister in four (4) different Ministries i.e. PM’s Department (in
charge of Law), Defence, Home Affairs and Foreign Affairs.
I would say that the
leadership challenges that I faced as Cabinet Minister were the most
challenging and interesting. If you ever thought that politics is a bed of
roses, let me remind you of what Winston Churchill said when he compared
politics and war. Churchill, who knew a thing or two about both war and politics,
said “In war you can be killed only once but in politics many times”. I must
have done something right – I survived.
My thoughts of
leadership therefore have been shaped by my experiences over the course of more
than 40 years of hands-on public service in these very different fields. Although
they are different, nevertheless I find that the principles of outstanding
leadership and building high performance teams remain the same.
The Concept of Leadership
Building a
high-performance team is a function of leadership. So what is leadership? Is
leadership different from management? Some think so. They use a cute phrase to
make this distinction clear - leadership is about doing the right thing while management
about doing things right. To these people, management is about
ensuring effectiveness and efficiency through planning, organizing, budgeting
resources, etc. while leadership is about thinking strategically and setting
the direction, aligning stakeholders, inspiring people and guiding change.
I do not hold this
view. In the real world things are not so sharply defined. I find it difficult
to imagine how a manager can achieve results without setting a team’s direction
or inspiring the team to move in that direction. Similarly, I believe people
would find it extremely frustrating to work for a leader who creates an
inspiring vision but is clueless, no direction and out of touch with the
details involved in implementing this vision.
Of course the higher
one’s position is in the organizational hierarchy, the greater the focus is on
strategy. Similarly, junior staff would focus more on the mechanics of
implementation. But all of you regardless of your job titles have the
responsibility to both do things rightly and do the right thing. Leaders at all
levels should have both; a long-term vision and a short-term plan, inspire
change and promote stability, empower employees and hold them accountable,
think creatively and focus on the bottom line, all at the same time. This is
how you as leaders can add more value to your organization.
My favourite analogy
for a leader is the magnet. The stronger and
better a magnet, the more iron filings that it attracts and the greater the
distance that it can induce them to move. Similarly a strong and good leader will attract more people to follow him and will
be able to take more people with him as he moves towards uncharted
territory. So, how do we become stronger leaders, better magnets in
our organization? Let me give my thoughts on some of the key factors.
The Context of Leadership – Malaysia’s Plural Society
Malaysia is blessed
because we have a plural society. We are probably the most plural society in
Asia. Why do I say that this is a blessing? Because it is this very diversity that
has enabled us to build on subtly different experiences of the different groups
in our society. It enables us to avoid the danger of group think. It provides
us a latent potential to understand other countries and societies that we can
convert to our advantage. As leaders, we should consider how we can leverage on
this fact to improve our performance in all fields. However, to do that we need
the requisite skills to build and to manage diverse teams.
Perhaps the best
example of a leader who intuitively understood and practiced this is Allahyarham
Tunku Abdul Rahman. He was the first person in the country to build what would
now be called a diverse, inclusive team, but in that simpler era was simply
called the Alliance. How did he do this so successfully? By balancing and managing the interests of each of the groups so
that the whole is greater than the sum of the constituent parts. He set a
powerful example that has been followed by all our Prime Ministers.
So we as leaders in our organization have a good
role model to follow. As our environment changes, we, too should be open to new
ideas and new influences. Being open to new ideas and influences,
however, does not mean being swept away by them. In fact it is a fear of being
swept away that causes many people, many leaders to close their minds behind
what they feel are the old certainties. But society is never static and as the
environment changes, we cannot always do things the way they were done
before. So paradoxically to be open to
new influences, we have to have the self-confidence to know our own self-worth,
our own values and our own strengths. Mahatma Gandhi expressed this best when
he said “Let all my windows be open. Let all cultures blow in. But let not
culture blow me off my feet”.
Some people discount the importance of diversity.
Akio Morita, the founder of Sony once said that people are 95% the same and
only 5% different. My take on this is simple - if you ignore the 5% difference,
then you will only get 95% success. If you want 100% success, then you need to
consider the 5% that is different.
Developing Professional Expertise
How do we develop self-confidence? By
knowing that we are good at what we do. A leader regardless
of his profession has to be an expert at something. What does it mean to be an
expert? It means that someone who has achieved the highest level of performance
in his field for his level. Note that I said highest level of performance, not
highest level of knowledge. Knowledge is only useful if it is translated to
performance. Leaders who have developed the requisite expertise are able to
select and implement more appropriate strategies, respond faster, and adjust
their actions more quickly when situation change.
How does someone become an expert in a particular
field? It comes from concentrated effort and deliberate practice at sharpening
your skills in your field. Some people say “in-born talent” is necessary. I however
think that having “in-born talent” is vastly overrated and cannot produce
outstanding performance without practice. Let me illustrate this by picking an
example from the field of sport. Look at Datuk Nicol David who has consistently
been ranked No. 1 female squash player in the world.
Many of you may know that she won her first World
Junior title at the age of 16. Yet how many know that she started professional
coaching at the age of 8 or that she trains for 2-4 hours every day? This is the
level of commitment that is needed to be an expert, a leader. In her website,
Datuk Nicol David states “We develop specific skills to take us to the
next level, into being a better squash player”.
Similarly each of us has to develop specific
skills to take us into the next level of becoming a
better professional, a better leader. We have to engage in highly disciplined
practice consistently over time to become an expert and thus a better leader.
While most people stop practising once the practice becomes too difficult or is
no longer enjoyable, true leaders continue at it because they are determined to
succeed, not because it is easy or enjoyable.
Now, leaving the squash court aside and coming back
to the workplace, how can we learn leadership expertise in the context of our
everyday work? We can develop them through optimal levels of challenging
assignments. If the work assignment is too easy, people do not get the
challenge they need to develop new skills. If the assignment is too difficult,
then people become overwhelmed by the challenge. They become anxious and
uncertain about how to proceed and this detracts from them learning new skills.
Here, supervisors play a key role. The first role is obvious - supervisors
need to give assignments with the right level of complexity for their direct
reports to learn new skills. The second is not obvious but equally important – supervisors
need to give honest feedback to their direct reports so that ambiguity is
reduced and they can identify what works and what does not.
Having the Right Personal Motivation at Work
What are the things that motivate us when we work?
I don’t mean fulfilling the organization’s goals but rather what we want to
achieve as we go about this. Some people have a “looking good” motivation which
means that they focus primarily on looking successful in the eyes of others.
This is not all bad because such people do want to achieve a successful result.
After all achieving success is the easiest way to look good in the eyes of
others. However, in their efforts to always look good in the eyes of others,
they often stick with the tried-and-true strategies, take fewer risks and avoid
anything that might lead to negative feedback. Thus they often forego
opportunities to take challenging assignments and forego opportunities to learn
new skills. In their efforts to look good, they may also try to outperform
rather help their colleagues which of course detracts from efforts to build a
high performance team.
Others have a “learning opportunity” personal motivation.
Here they are less pre-occupied with their self-image and more focused on
learning new skills while doing their work assignments. Consequently this group
are more open to take on challenging assignments and more willing to persist in
the face of difficulty.
They are thus are more likely to achieve success
not just now but also in the future, not just for themselves, but also for
their organizations. I therefore believe that one of the key factors to build
high performance teams is to inculcate the “learning opportunity” motivation within
team members and not the “looking good” motivation.
Sense of Responsibility
Responsibility refers to the quality of being
goal-oriented, dependable, self-disciplined and organized. Responsible leaders
are committed to coming through for others and completing the job for which
they are accountable. They are internally motivated to fulfil their
responsibilities to the best of their abilities.
How many of you still remember the opening ceremony
of the Beijing Olympics in 2008? Do you remember the Chinese team being led into
the stadium by two people, basketball star Yao Ming and a small boy, a nine-year
old boy named Lin Hao? Lin Hao was one of the survivors of the Sichuan
earthquake. After he escaped his collapsed school building, he went back
through the rubble and rescued some of his classmates from the collapsed
building. He then led the group of small children in singing songs because he
felt that it would keep their spirits up while waiting for help. When asked why
he put himself in danger to save his classmates, Lin Hao explained that he did
this because he was a school monitor and he believed that taking care of the
other students was his personal responsibility. He might be nine (9) years old
but he certainly has leadership qualities.
Social Skills and Emotional Intelligence
Wisma Putra has always emphasised the importance of
having good social skills in our diplomatic corps as this is an essential skill
for a good diplomat. I believe that this is an important skill for other
organizations as well. Leaders in organizations need to understand that
managing relationships at work is at least as important as managing the technical
aspects of their work when you want to build high-performance teams. There is a
need to pro-actively manage your relationship with your bosses, direct reports,
peers and clients. In this way leaders can build the social capital needed to
be successful. Social capital is as important as financial capital and human
capital to ensure success in business. This is Social capital comes in very
handy when you need to manage conflicts, influence others and motivate others
to get things done. Good social skills help leaders accumulate more social
capital.
Closely related to social skills is emotional
intelligence. I must confess that I was surprised that management theorists
only recognized the importance of emotional intelligence relatively lately,
i.e. only in the 1980’s with the development of the theories of multiple
intelligences. After all the ability to identify, understand, and empathise
with others has always been the forte of successful diplomats since time
immemorial. The success of ASEAN is a
testimony to the high degree of emotional intelligence displayed by ASEAN
leaders and diplomats in forging consensus on difficult issues. Successful
leaders in other fields would do well to learn their techniques.
One powerful technique is to develop positive
emotions. People who experience and express positive emotions are more likely
to bring out the best in themselves. Positive feelings such as joy, hope, love,
compassion, generosity, optimism, etc. serve many purposes. When we feel
positive emotions, we tend to think more broadly and creatively, seek out new
experiences and information, behave more flexibly and have more confidence in
our own abilities. Positive emotions therefore help us develop mutual respect
and build trust more easily.
At the same time, with positive emotions, we can
more easily see the situation from the other persons’ point of view and this
will enable us to make more thoughtful decisions. So all of you as budding
leaders, please do develop your skills in improving your emotional intelligence
and building positive emotions. Not only will you be more successful in your
work, but as an added bonus, you will enjoy better health as well.
Another key to having high emotional quotient, high
EQ, is to have a sense of compassion and mercy. This does not mean condoning wrong-doing
or shirking work. However it does mean recognizing that everyone wants to be
treated with respect, with dignity and with understanding. Treating people with
compassion and mercy is needed to ensure that justice is done to the person.
Leaders have the special responsibility to remember this because we are in the
position to exercise power. If leaders exercise power without the element of
justice, then we don’t get high performance teams, we get oppression.
Intelligence Coupled With Common Sense
Many of us know people who did very well academically
in school and yet did not achieve expected levels of success in their career.
This is because school tests only one kind of intelligence, analytical
intelligence. This is the ability to think critically, analyse information and
solve problems, what many call “book smarts”. While analytical intelligence is
important, however, it is not sufficient. There are at least two other types of
intelligence necessary for success.
The first is creative intelligence which is
the ability to generate ideas. People with good
creative intelligence often have the same information that other people have,
but they are more likely to tinker with that information. They are able to see
beyond the obvious, and explore multiple options that enable them to use that
information in unique and innovative ways.
The second is practical intelligence. People
with practical intelligence have a knack for turning the knowledge
that they gain into results that are relevant for a particular
situation. Practical knowledge is based primarily on “tacit knowledge” which is
a fancy way of saying “common sense”. It is most useful when solving real
everyday problems that are not well-defined, have not been faced before and do
not have an obvious right answer.
In fact, whenever I think of intellectualism and
common sense, I remember a joke about Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson going
camping. It is night time, and both of them crawl into their tent. Suddenly in
the middle of the night, Sherlock Holmes wakes Watson up and says:
“Watson, look up at the sky. What you see?”
Watson replies “I see millions of stars”
Holmes asks “What do you deduce from that?”
Watson replies, “Well, if there are millions of
stars, and if even a few of those have planets, it’s quite likely there are
some planets like Earth out there. And if there are a few planets like Earth
out there, there might also be life." Holmes is silent for a while and then
he says “Watson, you idiot, it means that somebody stole our tent.”
An effective leader should have not just analytical intelligence but also creative intelligence
and practical intelligence, not just “book
smarts” but also “street smarts”.
Of course being human, we may not always be equally gifted with high levels of
all three kinds of intelligence. The solution then is to ensure that our teams
consist of a diverse group of people, some who are good at analytical
intelligence, others at creative intelligence and yet others at practical
intelligence. Then we will have a high-performing team. It is important that
leaders do not build teams which are replicas of themselves. It may be more
comfortable for a leader to do so, to surround himself with people to think
alike and approach problems in the same way, but the result would be a
one-dimensional team, not a high-performing team. How
can we avoid this trap of creating teams that replicate of
ourselves? The answer is to have self-awareness.
Developing Self Awareness
Developing self-awareness is not an easy or natural
thing to do but we must consciously do so because it is an extremely important
skill for leaders. Leaders who know their goals, values and styles, their
strengths and weaknesses are more likely to thrive in their work. Leaders who
understand their biases – and we all have them – are more likely to manage
their biases by seeking out information from people with different
perspectives. This is what I meant when I said that leaders with
self-awareness can avoid the trap of building one-dimensional teams
and instead build high-performance teams. Consequently they are more able to
develop a broader perspective, and thus make better decisions.
Equally important, leaders with self-awareness also
understand that context significantly affects their own and others behaviour.
Most people attribute their own and others’ behaviour to innate personality
characteristics. For example, we say that someone is a sociable person, an
analytical person, or a compassionate person. However the reality is that many
of our behaviours are significantly influenced by the contexts in which we find
ourselves. Some contexts bring out the best in us, while others bring out the
worst in us. Self-aware leaders are better equipped to generate the optimum
contexts to bring out the best in their teams.
Finally leaders with good self-awareness are more
aware of their limitations and their limits. Remember that at the
beginning of my talk, I used the magnet analogy for a leader. What happens when
a magnet moves too far from the iron filings or too fast? The iron filings no
longer follow the magnet as they fall outside the magnetic field generated by
the magnet. The same thing happens to leaders who are not aware of their limits
and move too far from their level of competence. They can no longer get their
teams to follow them and their effectiveness drops. Self-awareness of our strengths
and limits can help us avoid this situation.
Conclusion
Well, ladies and gentlemen,
The world is changing very fast these days. Our
responses must therefore be equally fast if we want to survive in this new
highly competitive world. Yet, despite the changes, some things remain
constant. Just as a magnet will always point north no matter where we are,
similarly good leadership will always be the key to develop high-performance
teams no matter what field or business that we are in. I wish you every success
in your future careers.
Thank you.
