With all the atrocious statements being spewed out of the mouths of morons, injustice in so many areas, all we really have to fear is an unconscious or blind refusal to understand the scheme of things and to use that information to our benefit. As we well know, fear attracts fear. Anger produces more anger while love begets love. During such trying and challenging circumstances such as what we currently see in Malaysia, we need true leaders who display excellent marks of leadership to draw us out of the quandary, depression and sense of hopelessness but do we see that happening?
John Naisbitt said, "The new leader is a facilitator, not an order giver."
What we need are leaders who can show us:
- responsibility, accountability and reliability in what they say and do
- that they knowing the latest facts of the situation such as understanding goals, objectives and directives
- that they are capable of delegation and administration of people and other resources of both the state and the nation
- that they can playing the political game and emerge winners instead of losers
- that they know when to zip up and when to speak
Leadership is an art that needs a certain style and ineffable qualities that set people from others to justify them being in that select position. Without the necessity of ordinary citizens voicing their discontent, our political leaders should have an intuitive manner and a clear conscience to know that what they are doing is good not just for themselves or their party, but for the collective good of the nation.
It is truly very saddening to see what is happening in our midst. We see one faction vs another, one party versus another and then they retaliate and launch another onslaught as one plot is revealed after another and the many plots being unraveled thicken and breed sub-plots. Gosh! When will the season of madness end? Have people no sense of decency?
I believe many leaders should go to a quiet place and do serious soul-searching and ask themselves whether they are playing wholesome roles as leaders. Are they true to their calling to lead the people who elected them? Or are they leading us down the path of destruction while they attain self-glorification?
Some soul searching questions that leaders should ask themselves are listed below. In fact, we should ask our leaders these questions too, bearing in mind the element of accountability, since we are the ones who elected them to office.
1. Do our leaders display the mark of personal integrity as leaders whom we can HONESTLY trust and admire?
2. Do our leaders display personal courage and have the guts to stand up to bullies and negative forces for what is good and right, to protect the rakyat?
3. Are our leaders consistent when talking from a podium and when talking at the grass root level?
4. Can our leaders intelligently and responsibly debate issues of concern to the rakyat with intellectual rigor, honestly and consistently with arguments and reasons to support their premises? Do they prepare themselves for Parliament and do they keep tabs on what is happening in their constituency?
5. Can we see mental strength and stamina in our leaders and do they have the ability to bounce back from every challenge with more resolve to work even harder and wiser for better results?
6. Do our leaders crack under pressure?
7. Do our leaders maintain their personal dignity and teamwork when under trying circumstances?
8. When in battle, do our leaders exude a calm and sound demeanour to direct energies and people in the right direction?
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9. How many of our leaders possess charisma and star attributes to have that extra something that can make people listen to them and act on their advice or do we have leaders that turn us off so much by their arrogance, indifference, and warped unfair discriminatory tendencies?
10. Do our leaders have intuitive abilities to read the writing on the wall and to have enough confidence to trust those vibes and take the necessary action to protect the rakyat and the nation? Or do we have leaders that only read their own agenda?
11. Do our leaders have the people mentality and put the rakyat first to attend to their needs not just in a catastrophe or during elections but attend to them because they care and they want to help?
12.Can we honestly say that we have wise leaders who are able to weighing multiple and subjective viewpoints when making decisions and charting courses instead of those who go only ONE way - either their own way or the way of their cronies?
13. Can our leaders hold their head up high to building powerful oratorical skills to influence others positively instead of projecting themselves?
14. Undoubtedly, we need leaders who possess creative problem-solving skills and can think out of the box to produced innovative means of resolving conflicts, conundrums, paradox and the unknown such as what we see before us today.
We desperately need leaders who can take the current level of leadership to the next level. The political arena is often untidy, unpredictable, challenging and ever-changing, yet exciting and satisfying, only if they know the way to go.
Malaysia needs leaders who are brave explorers who dare to tread in no man's land because of the rakyat and to be a nuanced orchestrator without inciting people's anger and yet to be a wise and daring catalyst who can cleverly synthesize his ideas with the best of existing ones without rocking the boat too much.
Most of all, I believe that the mark of a true leader is one who is a gentle, caring human being and a holistic renaissance person. And why so? It is because a genuine leader is dynamic and an ever-expanding self, growing and learning, so that he can better serve the rakyat and the nation - his true calling. And so, the true leader is a work of art in motion, moving in tandem with people around him to meet a common objective as spelled out in their election speeches - we need leaders who live out their promises and not just serve us empty promises every now and then to make us happy or to distract us from seeing the reality as it is.
Martin Luther King, Jr. said that "Life's most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?"
What are our leaders doing for us? I believe just as employees go for appraisal, the rakyat needs to appraise our elected representatives in black and white so that they will seriously toe the line and remember that they are serving the rakyat and not the other way round. How many around us have the mark of true leadership?
Monyet King Both sides (BN or Pakatan) sorely lack leaders. People need to learn that just by standing in an election - doesn't make them leaders.
But then again, the Malaysian public deserves the "leaders" it gets. This is the price to pay for years of apathy.