Leader with Local Wisdom

September 22, 2009 by Gugus A. Sakti
Filed under: Pengembangan Diri 

CEOs in many company especially in developed countries blamed as one of factor that make economic crisis happen in this century. Many CEOs blamed that they cannot lead and manage their business. And the result many of those CEOs fired from their company in 2008.

There is a learning point that we can take from global economic crisis. Because of several problems that occur caused by western style CEO, a lot of countries try to learn their own local wisdom of leadership. Every country, like Japan, Korea, and China, try to search again their local values for leadership from their own culture.

Indonesia actually rich with values of leadership with derived from local culture. And one of local values of leadership from Indonesia is the leadership style of Ki Hajar Dewantara. His famous leadership principles are ing ngarsa sung tulada (a leader must give guidance and example in front of his followers), ing madya mbangun karsa (a leader must be able to transmit his vision and motivate all his followers as a team), tut wuri handayani (a leader must be able to push the spirit of his followers and backup them with full support).

Those three leadership philosophy are implemented by an Indonesian CEO. He is Suwito Anggoro, Presiden Direktur PT Chevron Pacific Indonesia, a big oil company in Indonesia. Although he is very familiar with many kind of western concept for modern management, he believe that the leadership philosophy from Ki Hajar Dewantoro still relevant until this time.

As a leader Suwito try to be a good example for his workers. He believes that he cannot stop someone doing something wrong if himself still doing things. Because of that he has a commitment that everything he do must be able to be a good example for his workers. To realize it, one time in a month he does an inspection to some Chevron Camps in Indonesia. He believes that as a leader he must show his integrity to other people.

Among his workers, Suwito always be a team playaer to show his integrity. He always tries to inspiring his worker with new and fresh idea. At the same time he believes that a leader should realize that he and his team have the same right to give idea or suggestion. And a leader must be able to utilize the whole team to maximize the work of every person in that team.

According to Suwito, there is a situation that a leader must intensively observe and give guidance to the team, but there is also a time when a leader must take a distance for a moment to improve the performance of the team in taking decision without waiting comment or order from their leader. Suwito believes that a leader must be able to delegate authority along with the accountability.

For Suwito, to push the performance of the company, company must have professional managers and workers who have the soul of discipline. As a leader he also do not like an uncertain decision. He realizes that leader cannot make a decision that will make all person happy, but he believes that leader must be able to think and decide as fast as possible with good consideration to achieve the team’s goals. For Suwito, it is important for leader to be able to listen, think, decide, and communicate.

Reference: SWA no. 18/XXV/20 Agustus – 2 September 2009

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