Leadership in Courage

Some leaders are remembered that last forever. They are adored by many fans across the border, across the race, across the cultures and across the time. As stated by many experts the difference between business-as-usual leader and inspiring leader is that the latter has courage to change the world. In details is that the true leader – during their time – is to put his extraordinary vision at stake. It means they take the risk of failure. And to do this courage, pertinacious, brave-heart is much needed.

The greatness of leader is attained when his idea has been successfully transformed into action and resulting in the great achievement. Only through this way we acknowledge and adore the leader.

Prophet Mohammad SAW was taking a great risk when he tried to elevate the Arabian from the marginal society to the civilized one. It was not the easy task, since the culture and people's mind had been ingrained for thousands of year. But he had reached his vision in his lifetime and moreover he changed the world by spreading the new value of life. Eventually many people in this world preserve his teaching to date.

Moreover there are many examples of leadership in our era. We will remember Deng Xiaoping, Lee Kuan Yew, Mahathir, Pak Harto and Pak Habibie, not only because they had ever been state leaders, but they had done something risky to serve the country. Certainly some last in grace but some did not make it.

Deng Xiaoping took ideological risk to open and connect China to the rest of the world. He conducted trial and error to develop the first China special economic zone in small fishery village, Shenzen. It was a great success and the followed by other special economic zones and the rest is history. And now none can analyze Chineses success without mentioning Deng.

Lee Kuan Yew did not develop Singapore from scratch. It was the hub cities for regional area for decades. But had he had a great vision to make Singapore always relevant to the world's needs, Singapore would not have been attractive for foreigners to establish bases for regional services.

Mahathir Mohammad has a vision to make his Malay race to be better living. He envisioned to achieve the developed nation status in 2020. And the best lesson from Mahathir is that he developed Multimedia Super Corridor 1996 to address the progress of information technology. It a sharp mind and bold action of Mahathir because it is the high risk investment. But he insisted that the information technology is the strategic sector that Malaysia should embrace it from the very beginning. Thanks to Mahathir, Malaysia is now ready to shift from middle income country to the high income through the worker's skills in value added products.

In my opinion Pak Harto deserved Indonesian leader because of his merit to stabilize Indonesia after the politic turmoil. Upbringing as a farmer, Pak Harto succeeded to bring Indonesia self sufficient in rice production. Even he tried to expand paddy field in Central Kalimantan swamp area, but he failed. And However Pak Harto is a leader with vision and he had struggled to realize it. In similar vein Habibie is also our leader. He tried to develop Indonesia by embracing high technology such as aircraft. Even he failed to make profit from all his strategic industries, at least he had a vision and knew what to do for the country.