This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on January 16, 2023 - January 22, 2023
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair ... .” — Charles Dickens (1812-1870), A Tale of Two Cities
Happy new year, all! We ushered in 2023 two weeks ago with a quiet moderation Kuala Lumpur has never seen before, even as we prayed for better days ahead. No party hats, no fireworks — just our prime minister leading a short prayer of gratitude and hope at his chosen place of worship, befitting the climate of the times.
Ever the optimist, I hope that he and the new government he leads will successfully put our nation on an even keel and prepare it for the turbulent socio-economic waves we are expecting ahead.
But here we are in the first month of the new year, and already our political leaders are back to recycling their tired bag of old tricks — trying to engineer coups so that incumbent state governments will fall and new ones installed! Power grabbing is a hard habit to break, or so it seems. Same old, same old again?
Despite his well-known gift of eloquence, our new prime minister treads on shaky ground as he tries to govern this nation with his “unity” cabinet. He needs our support and perhaps a new brand of leadership to steer our economy and national development beyond the levels of his previous two predecessors. Enter Positive Leadership.
Positive leadership, when embraced, is modelling, facilitating and purposefully influencing positive emotions that encourage people to excel in their work. Positive leaders cultivate an empowering environment through communication, accountability, emotional intelligence, motivation and a model-worthy work ethic. Much as you would prepare and till the land for agriculture, positive leadership enables an effective and emotionally invested workforce in the most frictionless way possible.
Positive leadership sees the well-being of the individual human and the organisation (nation) as prongs of the same fork. In his public addresses and speeches, our prime minister has alluded to being in that frame of mind. The time is right, and the time is now.
Why? Because the nation needs a dose of positivism to set the thermostat right. Malaysia of the 21st century has been characterised by constant change and disruption. During this period, our nation and the world have experienced unprecedented events in history.
The aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, the proliferation of technological innovations, emergence of the digital realm as a platform and the advent of social media are some of the groundbreaking events that have taken place in this short span of time. The latter factor impacted our recent general election and will continue to significantly impact how governments work and how businesses are conducted globally.
The impact of these strategic forces is felt not only at the country level, but filtered down to industries, markets, segments, and individual products and brands. Effective leadership in these modern times requires a proactive approach to managing change and its impact on long-term organisational growth. Positive leadership will enable this approach to work better than any other alternative.
While the prime minister and his cohorts are all about “Reformasi” and the process of change in government, he must understand that, in the end, he will be judged mainly by how the good ship Malaysia floats and sails towards the beckoning horizon.
Tinkering with the existing government apparatus to provide a corruption-free, more efficient and responsive social system is all very good, but as a trading nation with neighbours competing to outdo one another, Malaysia’s leaders, especially its prime minister, must keep a cautious eye on geopolitical volatility: Geopolitical factors can cause sudden but destructive damage to international relations and of course, international markets. Unstable geopolitical environments can chase away capital investments and drain financial assets. High geopolitical volatility could also lead to stricter government regulations in local markets, which makes it more costly for organisations to conduct business in certain geographies. Positive leadership will go a long way in preparing a soft landing. Geopolitical risks have increasingly become a significant challenge for leadership teams as most of the components remain outside their control.
Having said that, our government’s science and technology team must be prepared to focus on another disruptive force: continuous technological disruptions. Such disruptions have impacted organisations in all industries and sectors, starting from healthcare to manufacturing and computing.
Data mining firms are building databases of human DNA to evolve the science of personal identification, 3D printers are being used to print building equipment, everyday products, entire houses and even artificial human organs. The combination of cloud computing and artificial intelligence has magnified the scope of data-driven decision-making. Malaysians must be equipped with the knowledge and skills to actively involve themselves in this sphere.
Linked to these technological disruptions is the emergence of entrepreneurship and start-ups. Start-ups, nimble and agile as they are, have the ability to significantly disrupt business models through new ways of creating and selling products.
In the 21st century, managing economic and political uncertainty has become a critical leadership challenge. On paper, our prime minister is no slouch in this department. He was a former deputy prime minister and headed the finance ministry in an earlier life. He should be able to breathe positivism in this arena. As business organisations increasingly look at expanding quicker and start-ups look at scaling up faster, economic and political uncertainty needs to be accounted for in any form of growth strategy.
The late professor Peter Drucker once said, “Wherever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.”
The same applies to successful nations as well. Leadership in the 21st century will be a combination of multiple courageous decisions. Although it is more challenging, the impact of positive leadership will also be very high during these times.
Some of the headwinds that global business is facing currently are the strongest ever in the history of the world economy. To effectively navigate a nation through such headwinds, it needs leaders with courage, conviction, strong mental resolve, unwavering focus and a strong sense of purpose. A little positivism will go a long way!
But we also need to keep in mind the fact that a leader cannot achieve anything alone. This is more relevant now than it was before. To achieve critical objectives, a leader needs to have an open mind, be open to collaboration, have the ability to align differing viewpoints and have the charisma to lead teams with differing motivations and needs. Again, on paper our new prime minister is well qualified. Ever the resourceful politician, he has managed to cobble together an unlikely team to make up his government.
We pray the Almighty will guide this new government well. We Malaysians have endured a tough three years, mostly of our own making (after all, we tolerated the emergence of unpopular, unelected leaders in our midst). We deserve better, methinks.
Zakie Shariff is executive chairman of Kiarafics Sdn Bhd, a strategy consulting group. He is also an adjunct professor at the Faculty of Industrial Management, Universiti Malaysia Pahang.
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