Is Singapore's leadership and meritocracy sustainable?

The concept of leadership has often been upheld as the be-all-end-all factor of success. A typical list of leadership qualities may be given below:- 1. Skills and qualities 2. Expertise 3. Achievements 4. Business acumen 5. Good communication 6. Numeracy 7. Professionalism 8. Integrity 9. Critical thinking Leadership however is only an idea or concept. In "The High Impact Leader" by Bruce J. Avolic, Fred Luthais (Mcgraw Hill) leadership involves bringing the future to the present, authentic leadership development (ALD), self-regulation, with an implicit theory to analyse and challenge it. Examples of such leadership given includes Warren Buffet who was noted to be leader possessing qualities of confidence, hope, optimism and resilience grounded in strong core values through building of enduring relationships. The search for such a leader is like that of looking for a black cat in the dark room that is not there. Moreover, it has a flipside - selfness, self-centeredness or individualism. China has gone through thousands of years of central or top-down leadership based on the belief that it is the centre of the world leading to neglect and retrogression in development of science and technology. It has a system of selecting the best of talent called called mandarins to run its governments. The result is entrenchments of self-interests rather than nurturing of honesty and integrity for the good of all. Even communism it has turned to from the 1950s has failed to solve its many seemingly intractable problems – lack of unity of purpose and direction, fractionalism, individualism and greeds. With a streak of good fortune, it has thrown up a person of the like of Deng Xiao Peng after the fall from grace of communism in 1980s, who carefully steered it from a free-for-all or fight-it-out democratic system as championed by the western countries when he took over the helm of this country. He desisted the temptation to launch into western liberal democracy after the demise of Mao ZeDong's power. Instead he carefully developed a hydrid of collective decision making premised on positive attitudes, selflessness, signified as "modernization, hundred flowers bloom". Such a model of leadership is akin to Lao Tzu's advocation to lead a selfless life or Einstein's advocation that "the highest destiny of an individual is to serve rather than to rule". Such an approach is not different from the servant leadership advised by Einstein, or the common value-adding behavioral approach adopted by successful chief excecutives of world's biggest corporations - the rule-of-thumb behavioral value-adding approach of Welch. Deng's servant leadership has rubbed off on a new generation of dedicated leaders for China from the 1980s who are truly committed to working selflessly for the good of all. The liberal democracy as championed by the west is found to be driven by divisiveness and conflicts. The basic issue clearly, is not whether China has succeeded in a servant leadership. By comparison with its checkered past, China today has for the first time made unprecedented progress in all aspects of nationhood unrivaled by any of its past leaders over its past thousands of years. What it truly needs is to institutionalize Deng's servant leadership on a concrete platform of relationship-based pro-people and pro-strategy workflow processes based on yin and yang dualism and Sun Tzu Art of War strategies. Leadership is synonymous not with Tao – rule of law but with Te or form and substance. When talking about leadership, the name Lee Kuan Yew easily comes to mind. Lee has been widely credited as having single-handedly built up the island republic as a clean and corruption-free country of political stability, pro-investment environment, clean and green living environment, successful housing of its people, improvements in standards of living benefiting albeit the upper crust of society. Lee himself has written volumes of memoirs to explain his perceived leadership achievements based on some basics and fundamentals of nation building. Many management gurus have attempted to justify his leadership as benevolent dictatorship or on some kinds of alternative to western democracy. For example on 12 November 2010, in an article published in the Business Times (Singapore) contributed by SPRING, it is stated: “In today's highly competitive environment, it is critical for organizations to strengthen their management capabilities to drive productivity improvements. Productivity is not just about doing things more efficiently but by doing things right. A research study on 4,000 firms in Europe, the U.S. and Asia by Stanford University and the London School of Economics found that good management practices have a significant impact on productivity". It may be asked: Is Lee's leadership model truly something real, manageable and sustainable good management practices. It will be found that he had originally adopted a socialist approach premised on some Westminister Model of democracy. However, after 47 years of autocratic rule power had gotten hold rather than some enlightened socialist or Westminster model which has been largely side-stepped in favor of autocratic rule riding on the croak of democracy. Dr. Catherine Lim, an astute social commentator of Lee's leadership and meritocracy observed that the People's Action Party's total share of votes after the 2011 GE, has dipped to the lowest - 60.1% with a loss of one Greater Representation Constituency (multiple seats grouped constituency for racially-balanced representation) despite the elimination of the one-man-one-vote electoral system and credible alternative oppositions. Based on feedback from social media the last venue left for airing of truths and information, Lee's authoritarian rule can be described as consisting of some self-claimed basics and fundamentals of nation building including the elitist system of education and staffing of government called leadership and meritocracy, a system of choosing academic scholars, to run the government, the relentless use of libel suits and Internal Security Act against fellow politicians to stay in power and a tax-and-privatise fiscal and housing policies aimed at benefiting the government coffer at the expense of the lower- and middle-income groups who are being made to struggle to keep up with rising costs of living, housing and transportations created by the state. While Lee strongly opposed welfarism he did not shy from paying out billions as extraordinary benefits in the form of so-called pay-for-talent million-dollar salary or retirement packages while stinging on granting the slightest benefits to people in medical or social programs to the poor. Even Professor Lim Chong Yah an insider who has chaired panels on wage administration for years has admitted that there has been serious suppression of wages of middle and lower-income earners by up to half under import-cheaper-foreign-labor and the tax-and-profiteer policies. Under such conditions of governance, people could see through the hypocrisy of many stern policies that only serve to benefits the elites and to keep the businesses afloat by sheer taxing and profiteering on public resources. The relentless use of autocracy leads to ever-escalating costs of living and housing and unfair self-reward of multi-million salary packages and other benefits to party elites. Many voted with their feet; many capable talent have migrated. Appeacements with olive branches such as "openness, inclusiveness, and moral education" "instilling of family and ethical values in schools" etc are being held out to ameliorate harshness of his key policies. Clearly without addressing the basics and fundamentals with Tao and Te dualism, such look-good measures have been greeted with general skeptisms and cynicisms. As events have unfolded, despite claims of incorruptibility, Singapore is far from being a corruption-free country with many elites found to be corrupt despite their being paid the highest salaries as compared with counterparts in the rest of the world. It is time to democratize and return power to people with pro-people and pro-strategy servant leadership model built on yin and yang causation truly founded on force based on equitable social exchange with people. Throughout the review of past and present-day systems and practices, we have been referring to positive attitude, creation of values as key ingredients of success. Warren Buffett the world's most notable value-adding proponent widely known to have said: “Price is what you pay; value is what you get” (read more on price, functions and values correlation later) Welch too had been asked by his world-wide audiences to explain the difference between his change-oriented mission statements and values. He saw no difference between behaviors and values. K. G. Lockyer, has described in his book “Factory and Production Management” (third edition) as total quality concept of L.D.Miles being practised in the late 1940s – 1950s, on how to create “that property of the product which makes it work or sell” in Gages Twelve Steps in production:- 1. Select the product to be analyzed. 2. Extract the cost of the product. 3. Record the number of components. 4. Record all the functions. 5. Record number required currently and in foreseeable future. 6. Determine the primary function. 7. List all the ways of achieving the primary function. 8. Assign costs to all the alternatives. 9. Examine the three cheapest alternatives 10. Decide which idea should be developed further 11. See what other functions need to be incorporated 12. Ensure that the new product is accepted. The single most unique feature of process management is to create values through generating KPI feedback in the form of four-part task-line with a “2” signifying compliance or “1” for non-compliance as shown below:- Tasks => Management By Exception => 3 steps of administration + 10 specializations => identify core tasks => processing (against quality-time-cost controls) => form processes (macro-actions) => work-form processes (micro-actions, database records, facts and data) => self-generating of KPI variances via task-lines from forms/work-forms => closing task-variances => top management oversees team via weekly management charts with needful further actions. In Process Management, tasks are processed on two levels - administrative level, and operational level. In both, core tasks are clearly identified and processed connected by cause-effect relationships set in quality-time-cost controls called action processes. We can now truly motivate people with pro-people and pro-strategy relationships through KPI-linked appraisals of core tasks within each department. At the operational level, core tasks are processed against technical relationship e.g. 1-2-3 or "M.I.S.T.A.K.E" in security operation, “FIRE-SAVE-HANDLE” in fire-safety enforcement, “CIDSHOP” in facility and customers' services and others. With Process Management, we are able to process tasks with behavior-action workflow processes for en-masse application of resources and knowledge supported by KPI monitoring of quantified measures of “1-2-3” (33%-66%-99%) easily converted to moving averages and percentages of progress. Total quality management is the long-term goal and objective of organization. The Six Sigma or Toyota Way have made their mark. There is a force in such a TQM. However, such TQM is no means easy to implement. Such TQM needs to be kept simple and relationship-based aimed at creating values as listed in the value-adding steps. Only when the conditions as listed are fulfilled can one really say that he or she has attained the so-called rule-of-thumb or checklist approach as elaborated. Through Process Management there is no doubt that TQM and its offshoots of Six Sigma and Toyota Production System could be further enhanced with form-substance execution connected by simple cause-effect relationships. What we seek to achieve is to impart a force via the rule-of-thumb or checklist approach to add values opening new opportunities for en-masse application of knowledge and resources. Such a rule-of-thumb approach is service-oriented transparent and accountable based on the philosophy to empower people to work together for the good of all to achieve breakthrough change. .......................... It seems that pastor Minchin is banned from entering Singapore because he has written a book that is against the government of Singapore. One wonders if there is a proper, and objective basis for coming to such a conclusion that he is anti-Singapore. Or could it be that he is for Singapore's ongoing evolvement as a free and democratic society? Who should make the judgment?