Oleh/By : DATO' SERI DR. MAHATHIR BIN MOHAMAD
Tempat/Venue : LEGEND HOTEL, KUALA LUMPUR
Tarikh/Date : 22/05/94
Tajuk/Title : THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF THE WORLD
LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE ORGANISED BY
THE ASIAN STRATEGY & LEADERSHIP
INSTITUTE (ASLI)
I am delighted to be among experts on organisational
development. I wish to take this opportunity to thank the
Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute (ASLI), the
organiser of this function for inviting me tonight. That
Malaysia could play host to so many leading experts on
leadership and management strategies is indeed commendable.
I would like to extend a warm welcome to Dr. Ken and Mrs.
Marjorie Blanchard and all the other overseas participants
at this World Leadership Conference. I hope you will enjoy
your stay in Malaysia.
2. Hosting the World Leadership Conference in Asia for the
first time is certainly very timely at this juncture of
Malaysia's development efforts, as we know that the 21st
century will indeed be the Asian century. We are moving
into an age of Asian leadership as Asia emerges to become
one of the primary drivers of global economic growth. The
rise of East Asia is only natural and inevitable given the
dynamism of countries in this region. It is estimated that
during the 1990's, growth in Asia will be twice as fast as
growth for North America and 50 per cent faster than growth
in Europe. Whilst world growth is expected to be around
three per cent this year, the East Asian countries are
expected to grow by seven to 10 per cent this year.
Malaysia, with its estimated eight per cent growth in 1994,
will hopefully continue its track record of sustainable
rapid growth.
3. The dynamism and robustness prevailing in the East
Asian economies will continue to make them major players in
the global economy. However, we have to accept that the
road ahead is not going to be paved with gold. We must
continue to work hard. We must protect the gains we have
achieved by maintaining continued peace and stability within
our own borders. In this regard there can be no compromise
on law and order. Without stability there can be no
long-term economic growth. And without national consensus
there can be no stability. We hope that whilst Western
experts study the remarkable growth and progress of East
Asia, they will not try to impose on us Western norms and
standards. As young nations, evolving our own systems of
values and practices, we need to maintain our rapid
progress. We should always be ready to learn from others
but the choices should be ours to make.
4. George Bernard Shaw once wrote, "The reasonable man
adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists
in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all
progress depends on the unreasonable man". But in
concurring with him, I believe we need to adapt ourselves to
changing circumstances and conditions. We cannot run away
from change. We must overcome resistance to change and
embrace change in order to move ahead. To be successful in
managing change, managers and leaders must be able to change
their mind-sets, their paradigms and their attitudes.
Leadership is not a matter of words as it is one of
attitudes and actions. It is therefore a mighty challenge
for leaders to be able to motivate their followers with a
vision that can provide strategic direction and to then help
them change their attitudes and behaviour.
5. Malaysia is a lucky country but our success did not come
through luck alone. Malaysia is a success today because of
the courage and wisdom of our past leaders, who were
prepared to embrace change and motivate our people to accept
change. However, now that we are on the threshold of the
21st century, we need to do much more. We must look to the
future with confidence, commitment and enthusiasm. That
Malaysia should succeed at all is remarkable given its
multi-racial and multi-cultural character. Even though
Harvard's Professor Huntington predicted the clash of
civilisations and cultures, I am confident that our
multi-racial nation will remain united and progressive,
provided we have the right leadership attributes.
6. The leadership challenges of the 21st century facing
Malaysia are manifold.
- First, is the challenge to maintain the good times
presently prevailing in the country. Leaders of
the future must be able to maintain continued
economic prosperity and sustainable development.
- Second, is the challenge of keeping the Malaysian
nation closely united. This is particularly tough
given the nature of our country's different
ethnic, religious and cultural groups. The
bonding of a united nation has been the greatest
challenge of this generation. It will be no less
a challenge for future generations of Malaysians.
We should therefore look at conditions in Bosnia,
Rwanda, the former USSR and others, to realise the
cosequences of tribal, ethnic and religious
conflicts.
- Third, is the challenge of maintaining Malaysia's
international competitiveness. The World Economic
Forum has ranked Malaysia the fourth
most-competitive nation in the world. We cannot
afford to be complacent and to lose our
international competitiveness.
7. Leadership is a vital aspect of organisational
development that seldom gets sufficient attention. We know
that the leadership dimension must be given greater emphasis
in our organisations. We have a proverb that says that a
tall tree attracts more wind. Companies and countries must
therefore renew themselves through carefully-planned
leadership development and succession planning.
Organisational renewal will enable successful companies to
stay successful even with the changing of the guards.
Likewise, nations too must undergo leadership renewal from
time to time. Here in Malaysia, we are fortunate that
leadership renewal has been smooth and leadership
transitions have been peaceful and orderly. I would like to
urge Malaysian entrepreneurs and Chief Executive Officers to
also plan for an orderly succession to achieve successful
organisational renewal.
8. Another key dimension of leadership that needs to be
sufficiently addressed is business or management ethics. It
is equally important that managers and corporate leaders
have high moral and ethical standards in line with the
traditional values of inculcating moral integrity. I am
delighted that Dr. Ken Blanchard will be speaking to us
tonight on `The Power of Ethical Management'. This is
because ethics is important among managers and business
leaders if they are to be socially responsible. Our
corporations need to become caring corporate citizens.
9. Creativity and innovativeness are two other subjects
that must be given greater importance in management studies.
Malaysian companies must strive to innovate and be more
creative. In this rapidly changing world where speed is a
vital competitive advantage and time is of the essence,
creativity and innovativeness are key success factors for
the 21st century management.
10. Education and human resource development will
remain the cornerstones of our plans and strategies in the
years to come. We must continue to invest in our human
capital. In this regard, the Government will accord greater
importance to human resource development. Malaysia wishes
to develop into a successful regional centre of excellence
for education. The Government will continue to liberalise
our approach to education so that education becomes a vital
component of our strategy. In this era of information
technology, knowledge, skills and ideas are new sources of
competitive advantage.
11. The 21st century definitely belongs to people with
imagination and knowledge. Since the business of tomorrow
is the education industry, Malaysians must work towards
developing Malaysia as the centre for education, - i.e. the
educational hub of South-east Asia. Malaysia therefore
welcomes the participation of foreign universities and
training providers to not only come to Malaysia to train our
nation of 19 million people but to use Malaysia as the base
for South-east Asia, a thriving region of 300 million
people, needing new skills, knowledge and technology.
12. I hope the World Leadership Conference will focus on
some of the issues I have mentioned earlier. I hope you
will share your knowledge and experiences with one another,
for in this increasingly interdependent world, nothing can
be more satisfying than building international bonds of
friendship and goodwill across borders and cultures.
13. On this note, I have the greatest pleasure of
officially declaring open the 1994 World Leadership
Conference.
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