The Leader, The Teacher & You

Leadership Through the Third Generation

Siong Guan Lim, Joanne H Lim

• Éditeur: WSPC
• Année: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781783263790
• Sujet: Business
• Sous-sujet: Leadership

Former Head of the Singapore Civil Service Mr Lim Siong Guan now shares his diverse experiences and fresh insights on leadership in his exclusive new book, The Leader, The Teacher & You. As a former Permanent Secretary in ministries, including the Ministry of Defence, the Prime Minister's Office and the Ministry of Finance, and former chairman of the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore and the Singapore Economic Development Board, the indefatigable public servant has contributed greatly to Singapore's success, introducing innovative policies and practices at each turn, which have greatly enhanced drive and performance across the board. Most notably, he is known for his pursuit of excellence, especially in spearheading the Public Service for the 21st Century (PS21) movement, to develop organizational excellence. From Singapore's early years of government to its emergence as a prosperous metropolis, Lim has served the nation tirelessly through the years.

In The Leader, The Teacher & You, Lim puts forth a fresh take on the notion of leadership as other-centered, with the focus on enabling others to be the best they can be. This noble vision of leadership is elaborated and built upon through the sharing of his experiences, in particular the memorable lessons and deep-seated convictions he has had while serving under Mr Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's first Prime Minister, and Dr Goh Keng Swee, Singapore's First Deputy Prime Minister. Different types of leadership, such as personal and position leadership are touched upon as the author encourages leaders to take an active role in empowering those they lead and spurring them on to excellence. Coming from a man who has helmed many distinguished organizations, Mr Lim's insights on core values essential for organizational excellence are also not to be missed. The book offers practical and down-to-earth advice for leaders in all walks of life. For leaders who genuinely care for the people they lead and hope to make a difference in their lives, this book will be a crucial guide.

Contents:

• The Teacher:
  • My Teachers
  • Opportunities and Obligations
  • Learning by Doing
  • Systems for Success
  • Governance and PS21
  • Culture and Values
• The Leader:
  • Leadership
  • The Pursuit of Excellence
  • Position Leadership
  • Personal Leadership
• Challenges:
  • Be Yourself
  • Be the Best That You Can Be
  • Build Your Life with Pride and Dignity
  • Learn by Doing
  • Think … and Think Again
  • Pursue Excellence Constantly
  • Learn to be a Part of an Orchestra
  • Constantly Prepare for the Future
  • Know Where You Want to Get to
  • Choose to See the Best in Others
  • Empathise with Others
  • Believe that There is a Better Way

Readership: Professional, academic, student and lay public interested in the topic of leadership and governance. Key Features:

• The book is written by a prominent author, the former head of the Singapore Civil Service, who served in government under the founding fathers of Singapore, and lived through the economic and social transformation of Singapore from independence
• The book introduces a new take on leadership ("other-centred leadership") and excellence ("being the best you can be")
• The book provides new insight into the foundational beliefs and values that make for strong nations and organizations, where success and survival are two sides of the same coin

PART I

THE TEACHER

Walk the ground!

Do not sit in the office without getting to know the people on the ground and seeing the true situation on the ground for yourself.

If people see your willingness to get your hands dirty, they will respect you for taking the time and effort to understand their situation.

Chapter 1

MY TEACHERS

It was a bright, sunny morning in July 1969. I was reporting for my first day of work at a sewage treatment plant. As I drove through the main gate, I noticed a couple of men painting a road roller that obviously had not been used for some time.

Once in the office, I asked why the road roller was being painted the normal grey of such equipment; I was told it was because the road roller was being “condemned” — a term used to describe the retirement of the equipment so a replacement could be bought.

The answer deepened the mystery. Why spend the effort to paint a piece of equipment that was being discarded?

“Oh,” one of the men explained, “the ‘certificate of condemnation’ has to be signed by an engineer from the Public Works Department. If he saw the rusting equipment, he would say we caused the equipment’s sorry state because we did not take care of it.”

In other words, the men had left the irreparable piece of equipment in the rain; then after a decent interval, they painted it up so they would not get blamed for the state of disrepair. This way, everyone wins — the engineer would not cast blame and would be fully justified in issuing the “condemnation certificate,” and the workers could look forward to a new machine.

This taught me a very important lesson: The people on the ground are much smarter than you think... so walk the ground! Do not sit in the office without getting to know the people on the ground and seeing the true situation on the ground for yourself. If people see your willingness to get your hands dirty, they will respect you for taking the time and effort to understand their situation.

Be there for the troops!

People want:

•To be appreciated

•To have their work acknowledged

•To taste success

The challenge for leaders is how to create situations where:

•People are not afraid to try

•People can savour success to build up their self-confidence

•People can safely learn from their mistakes

The lesson about being on the ground and being there for the “troops” was brought home forcefully to me when massive floods occurred in Singapore a few months after I started work at the sewage treatment plant as a mechanical engineer. I was also responsible for the mechanical and electrical installations at various sewage pumping stations.

The water was overflowing the riverbanks and submerged the massive pumps at one of the stations. We had to get the water out of the basement where the pumps were located before the massive pumps could be restarted. When I arrived on the scene, the workers were already strenuously at work trying to get the water out with a few mobile diesel- driven pumps, but the mobile pumps were simply not up to the task.

I told the workers to link the pumps together to get more suction power. They told me this had never been done before, which immediately put me in a mental quandary as to whether what I was asking them to do was sound. I quickly recollected in my mind what I had been taught in university about hydraulics, and told the workers to push on with the idea. Fortunately, things worked out, and I sensed my standing in the eyes of the workers went up several notches.

After many years of working with people, I have uncovered a host of universal characteristics about people. People have a deep sense of pride and want to do a good job. People want to be appreciated and want their work to be acknowledged. People want to taste success, and when they do, they automatically become more motivated and more self-confident, which in turn engenders initiative and innovation. No one wants to look stupid or fail on their job.

The challenge for leaders is how to create situations where people are not afraid to try, where people can savour success to build up their self-confidence, and where people can safely learn from their mistakes.

More fundamentally, I have learned that most people want to be led; what they seek are good leaders who work with both their head and heart, and who will help their people discover themselves. Good leaders are for their people both a shepherd and a teacher, and serve to guide their people, empathise with them, energise them, synergise their work, and embolden them to think innovatively and act courageously.

I served in the Singapore Civil Service for 37 years, from 1969 to 2006. Throughout my career, my starting position has always been to seek to be

We must always seek to be Number One in our thinking.

We must think for ourselves and seek to develop capabilities unique to ourselves.

We must be prepared to learn from everywhere, but we must always be clear why we are doing what we are doing.

Above all, we must be comfortable to be in front where there is no one else to follow and we are making our own way.

leaders in our thinking, not followers. We might be ranked number two or even fifty rather than Number One in the ranking table, but what must set us apart is that we think for ourselves and seek to develop capabilities unique to ourselves. We must be prepared to learn from everywhere, but we must always be clear why we are doing what we are doing. We must be comfortable following, but above all, we must be comfortable to be in front where there is no one else to follow and we are making our own way. This is what makes the difference between being Number One and not being number one; it is the difference between sustaining success and degrading performance in an unknowable future.

Allow me to illustrate my point by comparing riding an escalator to climbing the stairs. The people who simply stand on the escalator will feel inadequate when they reach a level where there is no escalator but only a staircase to go to the next level — they have never developed the muscles to give them the strength, energy, and confidence to climb the stairs. So using the escalator is a good idea: ride on what others are doing, but walk up the escalator at the same time to develop your muscles and capability as you go!

I have often been asked who I had learnt the most from and who had helped form my thoughts on leadership. I always answer without hesitation that they were Mr Lee Kuan Yew, the first Prime Minister of Singapore, and Dr Goh Keng Swee, the former First Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore.

People often ask me what it was like to serve Mr Lee Kuan Yew, as he was known to be very tough and demanding of high standards of work. They always react with surprise when I tell them that the three years as his Principal Private Secretary were the freest three years of my working life!

In all my other career appointments, I could determine the agenda for thought and action, so my diary was continually full as there was always more that could be done in improvement and innovation than there was time and people to drive the change. However, when I was serving Mr Lee Kuan Yew, I could only operate within his agenda, and thus I had time on my hands to read books and think deeply about issues of life and the government of nations.

From Mr Lee, I learnt the principles of governance that undergirded the transformation of Singapore from the early days of self-government

Building a nation is not the same as building a city: a city is made of plans and concrete structures, but a nation is made of people united to work together for a bright future for all.

A leader needs to have:

•Clarity of views

•Single-mindedness of purpose

•A capacity for clear communication

in 1959, subsequent independence in 1965, and her development and evolution into a modern metropolis.

Mr Lee taught me that building a nation is not the same as building a city: a city is made of plans and concrete structures, but a nation is made of people united to work together for a bright future for all. Mr Lee also taught me that a leader not only needs to have clarity of views and single-mindedness of purpose, but also requires a capacity for clear communication, where complex problems are conveyed in a way that can be understood by the man-in-the-street.

I well remember my first meeting with Mr Lee as his Principal Private Secretary. He told me that in the course of my work, I would be dealing with foreigners, and advised, “Always look the foreigner in his eyes. Never look down. You are dealing with him as a representative of Singapore. Conduct yourself as his equal.” As I look back, I plainly see that in this wise instruction lies the reason for what has made Singapore so much of what it is — well-regarded by the world, respected, self-aware, pushing always against the boundaries of possibilities.

From Dr Goh Keng Swee, I learnt the art of getting things done in situations of ambiguity and uncertainty. I learnt the importance to have the courage to try new things and the discernment to cut losses when things do not work out. I learnt to think clearly and never to camouflage ambiguity and uncertainty with words. I learnt the need to set goals that are a stretch but achievable with effort and imagination. I learnt how to harness the energies of people to a high and worthy cause. I learnt the need to be open to good ideas from anywhere, and to have an indomitable spirit to be masters of our own destiny. Above all, I learnt from Dr Goh that “the only way to avoid making mistakes is not to do anything, and that, in the final analysis, will be the ultimate mistake.”

Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Keng Swee were master teachers to me, and even though they might not have realised it, they infused deep lessons on leadership and governance in my soul. From them, I learnt always to be on the lookout for talent and to do whatever I can to allow people to achieve their potential.

Mr Lee and Dr Goh also impressed on me the need for Singaporeans to have a relentless drive for excellence, and desire to be the best that we can be in everything we do; for Singapore, unlike for so many other

Singaporeans need to have a relentless drive for excellence, and desire to be the best that we can be in everything we do.

For Singapore, survival and success are two sides of the same coin. No one owes us a living and no one else is responsible for our security.

The drive to be exceptional in the way we think is not an option; it is destiny for Singapore.

Success only comes with the apt application of principles that fit the context of time and circumstance, and is fired by the human spirit that says tomorrow can be better than today.

countries, survival and success are two sides of the same coin. There are countries that are independent but not sovereign, and countries that are sovereign but not independent. Singapore must seek to be friends with all who would be friends with Singapore, but never forget that no one owes us a living and that no one else is responsible for our security. The drive to be exceptional in the way we think is not an option; it is destiny for Singapore.

Throughout my career, I have been blessed with opportunities to make a difference in every place I was at, by offering people a vision and a deep sense of purpose in their work so that they would stretch themselves to the maximum and create the destiny of the nation:

•At the Ministry of Defence, the vision was to lift the morale of the SAF with a public campaign that positioned the soldiers as the “defenders of the nation.”

•At the Prime Minister’s Office, the vision was to build a public service that was “among the best in the world.”

•At the Ministry of Education, the vision was to support teachers and schools as they worked hard to “mould the future of the nation.”

•At the Ministry of Finance, the vision was for staff to direct funds towards “creating the Singapore we want.”

•At the Ec...