Leader

Photo taken after the end of NCSV Innovate Hackathon 2017 that I had led the team in organising.

Over the past few years, I am thankful to have had many opportunities to lead in various functions in the capacity of a leader. I owe it to the community and the people around me for giving me the chance to serve them. In thinking that the leadership experiences would deepen my understanding of what it means to be a leader, what makes a leader a leader, and what constitutes good leadership, I realised I still do not have all the answers. Hence, the subject of leadership has always intrigued me for a long time. Throughout history, leaders have been seen everywhere in the military, political scene, societal context, and in the corporate setting.

Perhaps, something of more relevance to most of us joining the workforce or leading our own venture is the idea of leadership within the workplace. In this setting, the function of the leader is, in summary, to create an ecosystem that fosters the entrepreneurial mindset. This is a mindset that embraces critical reasoning, encourages looking at the bigger picture, and a mindset that aspires to innovate. This ecosystem needs to build upon a culture that appreciates the creative output and tenacity of the workers to drive innovation.

When we think about leadership, the discussion often raises some pertinent questions. Is a good leader nature? This would imply that biological conditioning is imperative in endowing and priming leaders with the built-in programming and presupposed moral virtue that would enable them to think as a leader, to set direction, to instill in others the desire and propensity to follow their lead. Or is a good leader nurtured, suggesting that leadership is a learned art? In other words, cultivating good leadership is contingent on the successful acquisition of practical leadership skills. Or is good leadership a combination of nature and nature? Do we delineate practical skill (or even practical virtue) and moral virtues? Or are they intricately linked?

Even then, raising all the aforementioned points seem to imply a certain desired traits and characteristics of what it means to be a leader. In thinking that one of the hallmarks of leadership is the ability to arouse in others the desire to follow, I reflected upon my previous experience learning about the art of rhetoric. Essentially, without followers, a leader is effectively ineffective.

Leader: Connecting to the Previous Learning

Along the same thread, I revisited some of the concepts that I had learnt in Writing and Critical Thinking: Civic Discourse in a Fractious World (UWC2101B), and examined the concepts of ethos, pathos, and logos (not so much the main focus in the class) that I have learnt from Professor Mark Brantner’s class:

Along the same thread, I revisited some of the concepts that I had learnt in Writing and Critical Thinking: Civic Discourse in a Fractious World (UWC2101B), and examined the concepts of ethos, pathos, and logos (not so much the main focus in the class) that I have learnt from Professor Mark Brantner’s class:

Class reading for Writing and Critical Thinking: Civic Discourse in a Fractious World (UWC2101B). Pathos and Logos talks about how to appeal to the audience through emotion and logic, respectively.

Through this lens, we can see that the credentials and the moral virtue of the leader are fundamental ingredients that build his ethos. By scrutinising the speech by Martin Luther King Jr., we also come to understand how pathos is the ability to evoke the emotional appeal that touches the feelings of the follower. Lastly, logos, typically complementary to the first two, provides the intellectual rigour that moves the follower.

In this light, good leadership seems to be predicated on mastering the art of rhetoric, or in modern day terms, knowing how to effectively communicate, manage and move people towards the desired goal. In this light, we can arguably conclude that to the extent that a leader is considered morally virtuous by his follower, coupled with the ability to appeal to the follower, the moral traits will enable the leader to be “practically” successfully. In turn, that success will reinforce the ethos of the leader. Hence, moral and practice virtues of leadership can be understood to be intricately linked.

Yet, as I further reflect upon the conclusion I arrived at, I was reminded of the class I took in Virtue and Leadership (UHB2204), taught by Professor Loy. One of the course text that we read was The Prince, written by Niccolò Machiavelli. By not making any value judgement on the concept of leadership by Machiavelli as we go through the thinking process I underwent, I revisited some of my previous work:

Final Paper for Virtue and Leadership (UHB2204), where I examined what it means to be a leader with practical virtue.

“The Prince should nonetheless make himself feared in such a mode that if he does not acquire love, he escapes hatred, because being feared and not being hated can go very well together.”

At first, the previous work I did seems to suggest that moral and practical virtue could be delineated. On one hand, Machiavelli seems to suggest that practical virtue—the ability to produce results—does not necessarily have to be built upon the moral virtue of the ruler. Without the moral virtue, leaders can still lead effectively by anchoring their leadership in authority, and in fear.

Final Paper for Virtue and Leadership (UHB2204), where I examined what it means to be a leader with moral virtue.

Yet, on the other hand, in the later segment as I analysed the moral virtue of leaders, I came to realise that a leader is only morally virtuous if he acts in accordance to the moral values that are consonant with the normative standards in the Judeo-Christian framework. While leadership anchored in authority could be effective in helping the leaders to achieve their objectives, which in Machiavelli’s book refers to the expansion of their regime, it is the moral virtue of the prince that allows him to get the follower’s true fellowship. In a modern day corporate context, regardless of what leadership profile we take on in the future, the challenge is always to go beyond anchoring on the position of authority to lead a team. What is most desirable in a leader is his ability to inspire in the follower through his exemplary character, work ethics, and his ability to communicate his vision that captures the followers’ buy-in. Hence, moral and practical virtue are related by symbiotic ties.

Blogpost assignment for the module Virtue and Leadership (UHB2204), where I touched Confucius’ ethics that focuses on the ideal character traits fundamental for effective leadership.

Revisiting the ethical consideration segment of the post “Engineer”, we visited some of the concepts of ethics and professionalism through a blogpost that I prepared for the Virtue and Leadership (UHB2204) module. I realised that the blogpost, again, echoed the idea of moral and practical virtue. For the gentleman to act in accordance to the rites (guided by moral virtues), he guides the society to act in accordance to the rites, which can contribute to the success of his empire (practical virtue).