Singapore and Leadership
Singapore is high handed democracy . single party system since the independence stifling opposition . But this high handed ness by Govt is for the benefit of its people, not for personal gain
May I briefly tell you the story of Singapore so that you can understand why it is often told with admiration all over the world.
Singapore was a small, hopeless Island. They were so poor it was impossible to survive on their own. Singapore decided to go into a union with other countries to form Malaysia in 1963. But because of ethnic riots, she was expelled from the union in 1965, and singapore did not see how it is going to survive as a country. It was so bad Singapore had no potable water. They relied on other countries for water to drink!
Singapore had no natural resources. No oil, no gold, no solid minerals, nothing. All it had were human beings — and ports. But country did not give up. Singapore decided to pick the pieces of people’s lives. They resolved to turn their fortune around.
Today, Singapore story has changed completely. So you know, Singapore is no longer a *Third World country. It is one of the *four Asian Tigers* — so-called because of incredible development story.
*Singapore is the only Asian country with the top AAA rating by all credit rating agencies. Singapore is the fourth largest financial centre in the world. It is one of the five busiest ports in the world. Manufacturing accounts for around 30% of their GDP. And Singapore has the third highest per capita income in the world.
Singapore don’t have a single drop of crude oil on the land.But it is one of the biggest exporters, not importers, of petroleum products.
Singapore is in the top three of oil-refining centres in the world, yet they don’t have oil! It has some of the biggest refineries in the world.
* largest oil-rig producers in the world! The World Bank ranks Singapore as the easiest place to do business in the world.
how did this country attain these feats. Singapore leaders were no magicians - no angels. They were human beings like everyone .
The first thing the country recognised is that quality leadership is non-negotiable! We often hear the argument that if people are bad , leaders are bad . Singapore disagrees . Singapore believe If the leaders are good, the followers will be good too . The leaders take the critical decisions and show direction.That is why they are called leaders. It is the dog that should be wagging the tail, not the tail wagging the dog.
Don’t blame passengers for bad driving. Countries are transformed by good leadership.
Why does a country need competent and exemplary leaders? Development starts from vision . No country develops by accident or co-incidence. Development is planned.
The leader, who must understand the critical issues, puts together a team, shares his vision with them, assigns them responsibilities and leads them from the front.
That is where it starts. It is when you have a vision of society that you will know that *education is key, electricity is key, health is key, infrastructure is non-negotiable.* It is when you have this vision that you know where to direct your energy and resources. You know the kind of people to put in charge of key ministries and agencies.
Furthermore, leaders must *not be obsessed with instant gratification and personal comfort.* That is one of the biggest problems with wrong leaders . Such leaders are too obsessed with the perks of office that they have forgotten why they were elected in the first instance.
Such leaders travel in personal chartered jets . What a waste. Here is a story from the book, *From Third World to First.*
The story is on *pages 363-364* and it had to do Mr Lee Kwan Yew’s trip to Ottawa, Canada, for the Commonwealth meeting in 1973.
The Bangladeshi Prime Minister, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, arrived in style in his own aircraft.
When I landed, I saw a parked Boeing 707 with “Bangladesh” emblazoned on it. When I left, it was still standing on the same spot, idle for eight days, getting obsolescent without earning anything.
As I left the hotel for the airport, two huge vans were being loaded with packages for the Bangladeshi aircraft. At the conference, Mujibur Rahman had made a pitch for aid to his country.
Any public relations firm would have advised him not to leave his special aircraft standing for eight whole days on the parking apron. You want aid but you are showing opulence to the world.
Presidents of Kenya and Nigeria also arrived in jets. I wondered why they did not set out to impress the world that they were poor and in dire need of assistance.
Our permanent representative at the UN explained that the poorer the country, the bigger the Cadillacs they hired for their leaders.
So I made a virtue of arriving by ordinary commercial aircraft and thus helped preserve Singapore’s Third World status for many years.
However, by the mid-1990s, the World Bank refused to heed our pleas not to reclassify us as a *“High Income Developing Country”* — giving no Brownie points for my frugal travel habits. We lost all the concessions that were given to developing countries.
So are the countries that are obsessed with Religion. The Muslims among citizens pray five times day, go for hajj so often, fast during Ramadan and mention the name of Allah as punctuation for every word and every sentence. The Christians among citizens are always speaking in tongues or eating communion, paying fat tithes and heavy offerings and holding prayer sessions at home every morning. Yet these are the same people loot state treasury without compassion or compunction, inflate contracts recklessly, operate killer squads, and watch — without conscience — as citizens struggle without clean water and good hospitals.
But We only wonder: how can you say you believe in God and fail so woefully in what the Holy Bible and Holy Qu’ran teach about loving your neighbour, caring for the needy and showing responsibility as a leader? Difficult to understand it.
These are the leaders who conveniently combine religion with greed.
But every country can become great by putting the welfare of your citizens above their leaders personal comfort.
May I briefly tell you the story of Singapore so that you can understand why it is often told with admiration all over the world.
Singapore was a small, hopeless Island. They were so poor it was impossible to survive on their own. Singapore decided to go into a union with other countries to form Malaysia in 1963. But because of ethnic riots, she was expelled from the union in 1965, and singapore did not see how it is going to survive as a country. It was so bad Singapore had no potable water. They relied on other countries for water to drink!
Singapore had no natural resources. No oil, no gold, no solid minerals, nothing. All it had were human beings — and ports. But country did not give up. Singapore decided to pick the pieces of people’s lives. They resolved to turn their fortune around.
Today, Singapore story has changed completely. So you know, Singapore is no longer a *Third World country. It is one of the *four Asian Tigers* — so-called because of incredible development story.
*Singapore is the only Asian country with the top AAA rating by all credit rating agencies. Singapore is the fourth largest financial centre in the world. It is one of the five busiest ports in the world. Manufacturing accounts for around 30% of their GDP. And Singapore has the third highest per capita income in the world.
Singapore don’t have a single drop of crude oil on the land.But it is one of the biggest exporters, not importers, of petroleum products.
Singapore is in the top three of oil-refining centres in the world, yet they don’t have oil! It has some of the biggest refineries in the world.
* largest oil-rig producers in the world! The World Bank ranks Singapore as the easiest place to do business in the world.
how did this country attain these feats. Singapore leaders were no magicians - no angels. They were human beings like everyone .
The first thing the country recognised is that quality leadership is non-negotiable! We often hear the argument that if people are bad , leaders are bad . Singapore disagrees . Singapore believe If the leaders are good, the followers will be good too . The leaders take the critical decisions and show direction.That is why they are called leaders. It is the dog that should be wagging the tail, not the tail wagging the dog.
Don’t blame passengers for bad driving. Countries are transformed by good leadership.
Why does a country need competent and exemplary leaders? Development starts from vision . No country develops by accident or co-incidence. Development is planned.
The leader, who must understand the critical issues, puts together a team, shares his vision with them, assigns them responsibilities and leads them from the front.
That is where it starts. It is when you have a vision of society that you will know that *education is key, electricity is key, health is key, infrastructure is non-negotiable.* It is when you have this vision that you know where to direct your energy and resources. You know the kind of people to put in charge of key ministries and agencies.
Furthermore, leaders must *not be obsessed with instant gratification and personal comfort.* That is one of the biggest problems with wrong leaders . Such leaders are too obsessed with the perks of office that they have forgotten why they were elected in the first instance.
Such leaders travel in personal chartered jets . What a waste. Here is a story from the book, *From Third World to First.*
The story is on *pages 363-364* and it had to do Mr Lee Kwan Yew’s trip to Ottawa, Canada, for the Commonwealth meeting in 1973.
The Bangladeshi Prime Minister, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, arrived in style in his own aircraft.
When I landed, I saw a parked Boeing 707 with “Bangladesh” emblazoned on it. When I left, it was still standing on the same spot, idle for eight days, getting obsolescent without earning anything.
As I left the hotel for the airport, two huge vans were being loaded with packages for the Bangladeshi aircraft. At the conference, Mujibur Rahman had made a pitch for aid to his country.
Any public relations firm would have advised him not to leave his special aircraft standing for eight whole days on the parking apron. You want aid but you are showing opulence to the world.
Presidents of Kenya and Nigeria also arrived in jets. I wondered why they did not set out to impress the world that they were poor and in dire need of assistance.
Our permanent representative at the UN explained that the poorer the country, the bigger the Cadillacs they hired for their leaders.
So I made a virtue of arriving by ordinary commercial aircraft and thus helped preserve Singapore’s Third World status for many years.
However, by the mid-1990s, the World Bank refused to heed our pleas not to reclassify us as a *“High Income Developing Country”* — giving no Brownie points for my frugal travel habits. We lost all the concessions that were given to developing countries.
So are the countries that are obsessed with Religion. The Muslims among citizens pray five times day, go for hajj so often, fast during Ramadan and mention the name of Allah as punctuation for every word and every sentence. The Christians among citizens are always speaking in tongues or eating communion, paying fat tithes and heavy offerings and holding prayer sessions at home every morning. Yet these are the same people loot state treasury without compassion or compunction, inflate contracts recklessly, operate killer squads, and watch — without conscience — as citizens struggle without clean water and good hospitals.
But We only wonder: how can you say you believe in God and fail so woefully in what the Holy Bible and Holy Qu’ran teach about loving your neighbour, caring for the needy and showing responsibility as a leader? Difficult to understand it.
These are the leaders who conveniently combine religion with greed.
But every country can become great by putting the welfare of your citizens above their leaders personal comfort.
Comments
Post a Comment