THE world witnesses an American President whose talk is bigger than his walk. Or, an even better way to say it is that his bark is bigger than his bite. He has publicly insulted leaders of the Eastern half of the world with his so-called “deal-maker thesis” but has been cowed into silence when he met with ASEAN plus 3 summit leaders recently.

The world can take a lesson on leadership from this president.

In the field of management and leadership, there is a serious debate about managerial-change leadership versus entrepreneurial-change leadership. 

Managerial leadership, traditionally, focused primarily on system maintenance, and the more dynamic model used new value creation as their focus for core businesses, or non-profit functions.

Profits are never critical for administering the public sector but some form of full cost recovery always is.

The Privatisation Policy of the Malaysian Government had been an agenda with built-in guarantees for a minimum level of profitability.

Therefore, billions are paid out to individual companies in the name of ‘risks and incompetence’.  Really, what is the real risk and what was so sophisticated about “sub-contracting culture with no value-added costs?”

Within our privatisation of public roles and goals policy, many so-called performance values were driven by the value-add called “profitability” But, is not such a concession, especially for static physical projects like highways, always the cardinal calculus of competitive public concession-making, in the first place? Their agreed time frame defines all those words.

Through my writings, therefore, I would like to challenge that specific logic and ask, if that was not in fact the wrong core value, now, with the benefit of 30 years of hindsight? The NEP too, under this model of public concession-making, was in fact asset stripping or raping without much value-added, right?

Leadership models

Any form of leadership within the digital age cannot be defined by mere bottom-line profitability considerations alone because monetary performance alone is no more the right or correct value.  Delivery of goods and services to the right and correct people is equally an important consideration.

What the new age and world needs is a “transformational leadership”. Within the transactional model, all relationships are mere transactions operated at a rational and business-interest level of our construction of options.

Narrow minded worldviews, which are ethnic-based assumptions about right and wrong and good and bad, are redefining the world as we know it. The politics of I-Me-Myself and the-my-kind-of-people with same look and feel, is now becoming the operative worldview globally.

Whether Brexit, Catalina, and Kurdish votes; they are the similar reflections of core values for self-survival of different communities. But, such reflections are not personal but a community level of truth!

Core narrow-minded community-based insecurities are now becoming front and centre values in today’s world of global politics. If we are not sensitive, in our case of the tribal groups in Sabah and Sarawak, they will obviously become louder cries, or voices for a systemic review of the 1963 case for the Federation of Malaysia, for the same reasons.

We, in the federation of Peninsular Malaya, must learn to listen to such voices arguing for fair play and demanding moral audacity for truthfulness and honesty. It is an obvious cry against abuse of power under their 18 and 20 point non-agreements, or their original proposals and recommendations.

At the global level and success of any modern political democracy, our concern must be what, and how, we define what that truth is, and what is false or untrue in the public spaces and arenas of life. There is no more space for narrow-minded bigotries based only on sectarian religious-based worldviews that decry those of other races and religions, as is now most obvious in the case of Myanmar.

Worldwide, the demand is for truths in public spaces to be transparent, open, and competently revealed. Whether it was the floods in Penang, or the Rohingya in Myanmar, or riddance of Robert Mugabe and wife, these are all public space events and the truths about them will be fully revealed and fully appreciated.

And, for those of us who knew Pastor Raymond Koh personally, it is equally important that publicly available truths about his abduction and disappearance must be fully disclosed.

The Suhakam Public Inquiry is the first time in my memory of Malaysian history when a truly public and evidence-based inquiry was conducted, and which I could choose to participate in.

My prayer and hope is that Pastor Raymond is still alive and well, and the new IGP will disclose all relevant information, and in fact, they will be able to recover Pastor Raymond and others.

Transformational leadership is fully committed to all such truths and will leave no stone unturned in the pursuit and discovery of truths in each investigative matter. 

Transactional leadership will only undertake so much, as part and parcel of a “brokering a deal!”  True leadership inspires all those in and around the transformational leader always raises the level of the water for all concerned!

This column is dedicated to Tan Sri Elyas Omar who was always a transformational leader, with whom we had an 81st Birthday Party for all INTAN Pioneers. – November 27, 2017.

* KJ John worked in public service for 32 years, retired, and started a civil group for which he is chairman of the board. He writes to inform and educate, arguing for integration with integrity in Malaysia. He believes such a transformation has to start with the mind before it sinks into the heart!

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.