Hi All,
This is one of my favourite topics for all to enjoy reading..... From my last message, I mentioned that this topic is very interesting and there are may theories and issues on what makes a leader and more so a good leader.
I recommended the book as a first reading on 7 notable businesspeople on leadership their styles and behaviours "Kramer, JA 2003, What the best CEOs know, McGraw-Hill, New York.
Sam Walton, Herb Kelleher, Dell, and Gertsner provided some insights into leadership!
To start off the discussions, I want to quote you some issues on leadership. Hesselbein and Cohen (1999) stated that "Leadership is a matter of how to be, not how to do. Leaders succeed through the efforts of their people. Leaders build bridges."
Drucker (1999, p156) on the future of leaders and leadership ‘In tomorrow’s organisation, there will be no non-leaders."
Patrcik and Mak, your thoughts please!?!? Do you see Malaysian business leaders showin these characteristics??
regards,
david chong
3 comments:
Hi David,
The two quotes in your earlier blog post highlighted two important aspects of organisational leadership:
The first is that leadership involves accomplishing organisational goals by directing the efforts of other people (Hesselbein and Cohen 1999). How is that achieved? Hesselbein and Cohen (1999) suggest that leaders accomplish organisational goals through people through their personal integrity ("how to be, not how to do") and relationship management skills ("leaders build bridges").
Many Malaysian business leaders can be said to exhibit this leadership trait. So the issue is more about the degree rather than the existence of this leadership trait.
The second aspect of leadership pointed out by Drucker (1999, p156) is that everyone in the organisation, not just the executive suite, should demonstrate leadership traits.
In this respect, many Malaysian employees fall short. Although I know of no comprehensive study of the leadership traits of Malaysian employees (or even if such a study is possible), anecdotal evidence suggest that the Malaysian workforce still needs to be developed further along the leadership continuum.
some interesting talks organised by Khazanah, Joseph E Stiglitz is one of the speaker, guess hard to get the seat for it. more details.
http://www.kgl.com.my/default.php
Hi George,
Well analysed and comments!! Currently I am lecturing organisational behaviour and leadership is one of the 8 dimensions.
Just to add what we all understand about leadership, I for one feel that this subject is not well udnerstood and eve isunderstood by many senior and decision makers in Malaysian companies!! From my experiences and interactions with senior businesspeople worldwide, there seemed to be 2 main groups. One is where there is high or substantial knowledge of leadership (theoretical and practical); on the other hand, there is the poor understanding of simple issues relating to leadership. Most tend to confuse with management (POLC) and leadership.
Anyone can provide some ideas on what are the attributes of leaders (decision making, ambition); and their characteristics (e.g. self confidence, honesty)
For your information, there are 5 main forms of leadership: strategy approach; human assets approach; expertise approach,; box approach and change approach.
regards,
david chong
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