When Leader Fails To Listen

In many instances of my life, I have come across leaders in many arenas. Be it during my school day or at the national and world levels. Of course, leaders are not born but they were groomed to be one.

However, it is a kind of sad when leaders are not listening to the followers for the betterment of the group, society or community. They thought that they are a kind of too "flawless" to be corrected. I have seen many scenarios that leaders were shutting the door just to prove that they are all correct all the time.

Yes, I do agree that leaders must be a decision-maker but can we afford to have a decision-maker to ruin our entire life or whatever we are doing for that matter? In my opinion, leaders must sit and work together with their followers in order to achieve better result and outcome. Rather than bombardment, face-to-face talk is sometimes required for the betterment of the situation.

As for Malaysian sport, we are so blessed to have Dato' K . Rajagopal as the gaffer of our national football team. He is a kind of person who is strict but has deep human touch to handle many kind of obstacles in his team. Just imagine, to handle a former bunch of losers and later to be able transform them to a team best described as "men of steel" is no easy task. It requires deep self-reflection to achieve such feat.

 

In one of the talk shows that Dato' K. Rajagopal had been given the opportunity to advice, he had emphasized on face – to – face talk rather than pin-pointing and blame-shifting. Do we really need someone like him to handle the more complicated circumstances? I guess we badly need this type of guy to drive us through bad and good times.

Tun Dr Mahathir on the other hand, is a type of visionary leader. He was so open to ideas (and that was why we have KLCC, KLIA and many more great landscapes for our nation) instead of only doing his own way. He was so determined to transform Malaysia with the introduction of Wawasan 2020 and to help the Bumiputras back on track in the business world (we are all aware on how the majestic of Malay's entrepreneur being torn apart by the Portuguese until the "rule and divide" policy implemented by the British had further abolished the sense of Malay's business supremacy).

Thus, the decision is in our hand. Choose wisely as leaders are not only leaders but they are the connector to our dreams...

 

Your "friendly neighbourhood";

 

Mufarz @ Rizal