Transformational Leadership free essay sample

Although what type of leadership is the perfect one is still arguable, a great amount of research evidence has indicated that a type of leadership known as transformational leadership is the one that will improve organizational behaviors and therefore enhance the overall performance of an organization. In this paper, we will first discuss what transformational leadership is and elaborate on how transformational leadership is related to organizational citizenship behavior, creativity and turnover. Then, we will show the extent to which transformational leadership is applied within a certain organization in China and offer our suggestions on how to improve transformational leadership in that organization. To begin with, we are about to explain the definition of transformational leadership and present the empirical evidence on the positive correlation of transformational leadership to organizational citizenship behavior and creativity and the negative correlation relation to turnover. Transformational Leadership Transformational leadership is one of the most important leadership patterns, and has been widely researched throughout the years since 1978, when James MacGregor Burns first introduced the concept of transforming leadership in his descriptive research on political leaders. We will write a custom essay sample on Transformational Leadership or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page â€Å"For Burns, leadership is a process of evolving interrelationships in which leaders are constantly influencing and modifying employees’ behavior until organizational goals and the vision of the leader are met. It is a process in which leader and followers proactively raise each other to higher levels of morality and motivation† (Goho, 2006). Johns and Saks (2011) mention that there are four dimensions in transformational leadership: (1) idealized influence, (2) inspirational motivation, (3) individualized consideration, and (4) intellectual stimulation. Idealized influence can simply refer to as â€Å"Charisma†, the extent to which the leader can develop personal appeal to employees and influence them to work actively. Inspirational motivation is the component characterized by the leader’s ability to depict a clear vision and successfully motivate employees to work towards that vision. Individualized consideration refers to the trait that a leader can work as a mentor or coach who pays individualized attention to employees’ needs and concerns. Intellectual leadership examines the leader’s ability to fully excavate employees’ innovation and creativity. These four dimensions generate an effective pattern of leadership that is widely used in the workplace around the world. According to Warrick (2011), transformational leadership generates payoffs and benefits towards individuals, teams and organizations as a whole. It increases their performance, commitment, innovation, cohesiveness and outcomes, shapes and reinforces a new culture, builds trust among leaders and employees, decreases employee stress and burn out. One main reason that makes transformational leadership significant is that it is closely related to other organizational behaviors like organizational citizenship behavior, creativity and turnover, which are all important to an organization’s wellbeing and development. In the following sections, these relationships, or more precisely, correlations, will be discussed in details. Organizational Citizenship Behavior In terms of organizational citizenship behavior, the most significant theory is put forward by Dennis W. Organ who defines OCB as â€Å"an individual behavior that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system, and that in the aggregate promotes the effective functioning of the organization. By discretionary, we mean that the behavior is not an enforceable requirement of the role or the job description, that is, the clearly specifiable terms of the person’s employment contract with the organization; the behavior is rather a matter of personal choice, such that its omission is not generally understood as punishable† (Organ, 1988). We can infer from the definition that a company does not recognize it as a formal standard of behavior despite of its positive effects, so whoever is high on OCB may probably not be equally rewarded as the one who makes other obvious contributions to the company. Moreover, it is just an initiative action, and to which degree an employee lacks OCB will not be necessarily related to the punishments. According to Podaskoff et al. (2000), there is a seven-dimensional taxonomy of organizational citizen behaviors: helping, sportsmanship, organizational loyalty, organizational compliance, individual initiative, civic virtues and self-development. The most important part is the helping behavior, an action that includes being willing to help the co-workers (George and Brief, 1992), interpersonal helping (Graham, 1991), and altruism (Organ, 1988). Organizational citizenship behaviors have many forms. Some of them are directed at individuals and others at organizational performance. Examples on OCB directed at individuals are people’s showing concern and courtesy toward colleagues, and going out of the way to make newer employees feel welcome in the working environment. Similarly, examples on OCB directed at the organizations are people’s identifying themselves as part of the organization, and defending the organization when other employees show dissatisfaction or even hostility towards the organization. Transformational Leadership and Organizational Citizenship Behavior We have discussed earlier that there are four dimensions of transformational leadership: idealized influence (charisma), inspirational motivation, individualized consideration and intellectual stimulation (Johns amp; Saks, 2011). From the existing research, we find that transformational leadership yields higher employee OCB. (Organ, 1988). And the transformational leadership can also influence OCB in terms of idealized influence (charisma), individualized consideration and intellectual stimulation (no specific study on inspirational motivation). Idealized influence (attributed charisma and idealized behaviors) may result in higher commitment and job satisfaction, and may also increase a firm’s profitability, sales and revenues (Bass, 1985a,1990b; Podaskoff amp; Mackenzie, 1994; Waldman, Ramirez, House, amp; Puranam, 2001). Intellectual stimulation may enhance employees’ problem-solving skills, ability to deal with changes and to create innovative ideas. From the perspective of organizations, intellectual stimulation will help improve the innovation, production as well as unit performances in the organizations (Bass, 1985a, 1990b; Bass amp; Avolio, 1993; Anthony, 1998; Howell amp; Avolio, 1993; Hsu, 2002; Seltzer amp; Bass, 1990; Tichy amp; Devana, 1986). At last, with individualized consideration, employees will have higher commitments, extra efforts, increased performance and better use of team work. Therefore, based on the empirical studies, the following hypothesis is formulated: Hypothesis 1: Transformational leadership is positively correlated with organizational citizen behavior. Creativity In a highly competitive world, creativity has become increasingly important to the development of an organization. Creativity greatly influences innovation performance that helps an organization gain competitive edge within the industry. Creativity is defined as â€Å"the production of novel and useful ideas concerning products, services, processes, and procedures in organizations† (Amabile, 1988). Besides, creativity is also â€Å"a process in which employees develop novel and useful solution to meet challenges and solve work-related problems in the course of goal-directed behavior† (Amabile, 1998;Yong, 1994). Transformational Leadership and Creativity Research evidence shows that leadership, especially transformational leadership which exerts close relationship with individual creativity, has a great influence on creativity (Scott amp; Bruce, 1994; Tierney et al. , 1999). Moreover, according to Bass’s (1985) transformational leadership theory, transformational leadership is posited to be composed of four dimensions, namely charismatic influence, individualized consideration, inspirational motivation, and intellectual stimulation. Based on the empirical research and theories, we assume that all these four dimensions of transformational leadership are positively related to followers’ creativity. Charisma, or idealized influence, refers to the extent to which the leader acts venerably and is emotionally appealing to followers (Bass, 1985). In such a situation, followers are enthusiastic to accomplish beyond expectations and they are more likely to achieve higher work objectives (Amabile et al. , 1996; Amabile et all. , 2004). Thus, a good leader with transformational leadership can inspire followers’ creativity by making the employees feel challenged and encourage them to explore novel approaches in innovative advocating environment. Individualized consideration refers to the extent to which the leader is sensitive to each subordinate’s needs and concerns (Judge amp; Piccolo, 2004). Given that the transformational eaders satisfy subordinates’ developmental needs, subordinates in turn are more likely to devote more time and hardworking to requite their leaders’ expectation. The followers are thus stimulated to achieve high level of creativity. Inspirational motivation describes the degree to which the leader enunciates a vision that fascinates and inspires followers. By applying symbols and e motional encouraging behavior, transformational leaders appeal to discover their followers’ potential and encourage them to achieve what is beyond their self-interests for the good of the organization (Bass amp; Avolio, 1995). As a result, increased number of novel ideas will be generated under a free expression environment, which eventually may contribute to the organization’s gaining of competitive edge. According to Hater and Bass (1988), transformational leaders also exert intellectual stimulation to arouse followers to think in creative ways and analyze issues using problem solving skills before they take the action. In addition, followers are strongly supported to challenge the status quo, to question old assumptions, and to satisfy their curiosity with unlimited imagination (Bass, 1985). Consequently, followers may tend to figure out unconventional approaches and thoughts to address problems, which is beneficial to sustainable development of the organization. Therefore, based on the empirical studies, the following hypothesis is formulated: Hypothesis 2: Transformational leadership is positively related to employee creativity. Turnover Turnover is always an important issue for organizations to deal with because of its incredibly high cost. A fast food restaurant may have to spend hundreds of dollars on hiring and training a new counter attendant. For a large corporation looking for a new CEO, that cost can rise up to millions of dollars because the number of qualified candidates is usually very limited in the job market. In fact, the actual cost of turnover is usually well beyond what can be measured by money. An employee who resigns may also take away the special experience and skills developed over time on that job and sometimes may even transfer the confidential business know-how to another company. Therefore, the importance of retaining staff cannot be ignored. High staff turnover is one of the organizational problems that managers need to put an end to before it gets out of control because it has a negative impact on the bottom line of service organizations (Amarjit, Neil and et al. , 2011). In the past decades, the relationships have been found between job attitudes and turnover. Research indicates that the less satisfied the employees are with the job and less committed they are to the organization, the more likely they are to quit. But research also discovers some exceptions when situational factors intervene to influence an employee’s decision (Johns amp; Saks, 2011). For example, an unsatisfied employee may have to stay if the job alternatives are quite limited. Or in another situation, a satisfied employee may have to leave if emergencies like the death of a family member or the birth of a child happen. In general, turnover intentions can be reduced and ultimate turnover can be prevented if approaches are taken to improve the employees’ satisfaction and commitment to the organization. Transformational Leadership and Turnover The number of studies on the relationship between turnover and transformational leadership is relatively small. Research evidence has found a significant negative relationship between transformational leadership and employee intention to quit and indicated that higher transformational leadership lowers the employee turnover intention (as cited in Gill, Mathur, Suraj amp; Bhutani, 2011). Though the direct evidence that supports the negative relationship between turnover and transformational leadership seems not very strong, some studies show that transformational leadership are positively correlated with job satisfaction and commitment (Medley amp; Larochelle, 1995; Charles amp; Katherine, 2007; ). As we have discussed that job satisfaction will help reduce turnover and transformational leadership will help improve job satisfaction and commitment, we can probably assume a negative relationship between transformational leadership and turnover by using the job satisfaction and commitment to organization as a medium. Therefore, based on the empirical studies, the following hypothesis is formulated: Hypothesis 3: Transformational leadership is negatively correlated with turnover. Method In the preceding section, we have presented the theoretical framework of transformational leadership. From this section on, we begin to discuss the application of transformational leadership in the real business environment. The organization we investigated is Shaanxi Weihe Electrical Power Co. Ltd. , located in Xianyang, Shaanxi Province in China. It is a major electrical power supplier in that area with more than 2000 employees. We surveyed 17 people, including 7 males and 10 females. These participants are from the Human Resources Department and Accounting Department of that company, with an average tenure of 15 years. We designed a questionnaire and translated it into Chinese. Then we sent the translated version of the questionnaires by email to our contact person in the company, the Director of the Human Resource Department and received questionnaires by email from our contact person when all participants finished their questionnaires. Our questionnaire consists of 12 questions, with each 3 questions investigating one perspective of transformational leadership. Specifically, Question 1-3 investigates intellectual stimulation. Question 4-6 investigates individualized consideration. Question 7-9 investigates inspirational motivation. And Question 10-12 investigates idealized influence. For each question, we asked the participant to use number 1-5 to indicate the extent to which they agree that their immediate supervisor exhibit a certain behavior. Both the original English questionnaire and the translated Chinese one are in the appendices of this paper. Results Table 1: The results of our survey indicate that in general the employees in the Human Resources Department and Accounting Department neither disagree nor agree that their immediate supervisors, namely the Director of Human Resources and the Director of Accounting exhibit transformational leadership in their daily work. In this section, we will discuss the results respectively from the perspectives of intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration, inspirational motivation and idealized influence. Question 1-3 investigates the extent to which supervisors intellectually stimulate employees. The average result of Question 1-3 is 3. 39, which indicates that supervisors sometimes encourage employees to innovate but sometimes do not. Actually, the mode of results of Questions 1 and 2 is 2, reflecting the fact that most mployees do not agree that their supervisors encourage them to solve problems from different ways or solicit their ideas when solving problems. Question 4-6 investigates the extent to which supervisors consider the individualized needs and concerns of employees. The average result of Question 4-6 is 4. 08, the highest among all four perspectives and the mode of the results of each question is 4, which altogether indicate most of employees agree that their supervisors can treat them as an individual rather than an ordinary member of the department. Therefore, the supervisors perform well in showing individualized consideration to their employees. Question 7-9 investigates the extent to which supervisors motivate employees to complete a certain task by explaining the importance of the task and communicating optimism to employees. The average result of Question 7-9 is 3. 33 and the mode of the results of each question is 3. We can reasonably interpret the data as a moderate performance of supervisors in terms of inspirational motivation. Question 10-12 investigates the extent to which supervisors display idealized influence, which is also known as charisma. The average result of Question 10-12 is only 2. 86, the lowest among all four perspectives. The mode of results of Question 12 is 2, which reflects a fact that most employees think their supervisors fail to win their respect. To summarize, supervisors in the two departments are successful in showing individualized consideration but are unsuccessful in showing idealized influence. In terms of the other two perspectives of transformational leadership, supervisors in the two departments deliver a moderate performance. Discussion As discussed in the preceding section, transformational leadership is important for the development of an organization because it is positively correlated with organizational citizenship behavior and creativity and negatively correlated with turnover. However, the investigation on the application of transformational leadership in Shaanxi Weihe Electrical Power Co. Ltd. shows a moderate level of transformational leadership in daily work. Therefore, we believe that it is necessary to provide our recommendations will help improve the transformational leadership in the company. Since we have discussed the result from four perspectives of transformational leadership, our recommendation are presented in the similar pattern. Intellectual Stimulation The results of Question 1-3 reflect a moderate transformational leadership in terms of intellectual stimulation. According to empirical studies, the following approaches can be adopted to improve intellectual stimulation. â€Å"Intellectual stimulation is defined as having a leader who encourages innovation and creativity, as well as critical thinking and problem-solving. Intellectual stimulation involves arousing followers thoughts and imagination, as well as stimulating their ability to identify and solve problems creatively† (Bass, 1985). Leaders play a crucial role in stimulating intelligence among subordinates. Those who possess transformational leadership will help arouse employees’ new ideas, stimulate them to view the world from new perspectives and boost creativity. According to HEXACO personality model (Ashton et. al, 2004), a good leader should have the personalities of honesty-humility, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness. A leader high on openness is more likely to inspire the adaptive performance of employees and enable them to deal with uncertain work situations more effectively and solve problems more creatively. To improve the performance of employees, leaders also need to be educated and trained to be transformational. Only with better knowledge and skills on transformational leadership, can leaders be able to exert positive influence among their followers. Individualized Consideration According to the survey, the leaders perform well in terms of individualized consideration because the average results of Question 4-6 is 4. 8, the highest average among all four dimensions. However, there is still room for leaders to further develop this aspect of transformational leadership by conducting â€Å"career counseling with the followers, careful observation of followers and recording their progress and encouraging followers to attend technical courses† (Alannah amp; Mark, 2006). Through career co unseling, leaders will learn what their followers are interest in or what they are concerned about, and thus take appropriate actions that may motivate followers to achieve their individual goals. Besides, by carefully observing followers and recording their progress, leaders can develop familiarity with their followers, get a feedback of their leadership performance and learn what kind of leadership behaviors tend to be the most effective one. Sometimes, transformational leaders also encourage followers to attend job relevant courses, sending a message to the followers that they are expected to deliver better job performance. In this way, followers will not only enhance their professional skills but raise their self-efficacy as well. Through conducting these activities, individualized attention allows leaders to become familiar with followers, enhances communication and improves information exchange† (Alannah amp; Mark, 2006). In addition, followers are likely to perceive that they supported by their leaders, and they are therefore more likely to convey their thoughts to the leaders when they are stressed or concerned. Inspirational Motivation The average result of Ques tion 7-9 is 3. 3, which indicates the leaders in the company need to improve their inspirational motivation during the daily work. Therefore, three recommendations are discussed as follows. First, an inspirational leader should give employees the task that is within their capabilities. According to Vroom’s Expectancy Theory (1964), one’s belief that he or she has the ability to do the task successfully is called self-efficacy. Research evidence has showed a positive correlation between self-efficacy and task performance. The higher the self-efficacy a employee has, the better the task performance he or she will deliver. Second, an inspirational leader should also understand what their employees need. Although research shows that financial incentives seem to work better than other incentives. Leaders cannot always provide a salary increase as a motivator. According to JCM (Hackman amp; Oldham, 1974), a good job that an inspirational leader can create should contain five core job characteristics known as variety, identity, significance, autonomy and feedback that affect employees’ motivation particularly. As a consequence of the implement JCM, the employees will have high internal motivation, high job performance, high satisfaction and low absenteeism and low turnover. Third, the inspirational leader should communicate the vision and mission of the company to employee in an enthusiastic way. Leaders could talk to employees about their ideas, plans or goals. Employees may think that if they have no chance to construct or change the organization they are working in, they may not devote themselves to the organization. Therefore, leaders should describe a vision that inspires followers and even make them to sacrifice the self-interests for the good of the company (Burns, 1978; Bass, 1985). Idealized Influence The survey shows that idealized influence, also known as charisma, ranks the lowest among the four dimensions of transformational leadership with an average of 2. 86. The lack of confidence and respect from employees has become a main weak point of the leaders. â€Å"The emergence of charisma is a complex function of traits, behaviors, and the being in the right place at the right time† (House, 1977). And â€Å"the prominent traits include self-confidence, dominance, and a strong conviction in one’s beliefs† (John amp; Saks, 2011). Therefore, the following suggestions are provided for the leaders to enhance their idealized influence. To begin with, leaders should continue to elevate their comprehensive abilities and qualities. As long as they truly master the knowledge and management skills related to the job, they can accomplish tasks easily. In this way, it is less likely that leaders fear and avoid the difficulties so followers will trust their supervisors and work with them with more confident. In addition, it is advisable for the company to train the supervisors periodically to make them realize the significance of collectivism. Those leaders who are instructed to be loyal to the organization would direct their subordinates in a positive and effective way, which, gradually distinguish themselves from ordinary leaders. At last, leaders cannot win the respect from their subordinates if they frequently show their superiority as a supervisor. Leaders should treat every staff fairly and equally. This with no doubt will increase employees’ job satisfaction and positive attitudes towards their leaders. Setting good examples for workers is also essential. In most cases, leaders lose their respect from employees for the reason of being rude to the subordinates. Therefore, it would be better if directors of these two departments stand on employees’ sides and take their feelings into consideration. Limitations Although the results of the research reach our expectations, limitations of the research method cannot be neglected. Constrained by the limited time and human resource allocated to this project, we fail to further expand the recipient base of the survey. We believe that if more people had been investigated, the result of the survey would have been a better reflection of the real situation. Besides, the recipients of questionnaires are from only two department of the company. We fail to include more employees from other departments, especially the employees from the frontline workshop who make up the majority of the employee population in the company. At last, we use mathematical average to analyze the data collected from the questionnaire. We believe that there should be statistically better method for analyzing the data because we have realized that the highest and lowest score will offset each other when we calculate the mathematical average. References Alannah, E. R. , amp; Mark, A. G. (2006). Refining individualized consideration: Distinguishing developmental leadership and supportive leadership. Transformational leadership free essay sample Biography Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Albukhary , or better known as Syed Mokhtar was born in1951 at Jalan Day, Alor Setar. Syed Mokhtar was raised from a poor family consisted of 5 members. His father was an immigrant from Afghania. Syed Mokhtar inherits his business skill from his father who buys and sells cow. Syed Mokhtar was not very good in academic, but he is excellent in figures and account. Syed Mokhtar manages to start his very own business in 1966 when he follows his father to Kuala Lumpur to buy and sell cows. The first company that Syed Mokhtar builds is Syarikat Kenderaan Sentosa (SKS) which registered in 1972. Syed Mokhtar involve in rice business in 1990. Now Syed Mokhtar has built his own business empire through his effort and world class leadership practice. Yayasan AL Bukhary is one of his prove that he has not forgotten where he come s from, a poor family in Kedah. We will write a custom essay sample on Transformational leadership or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page He has a net value of US$2 billion and considered as 8th Malaysia’s richest man according to Forbes. Syed Mokhtar keeps building his business empire and mange to take over some of the prestigious company such as MMC, DRB-HICOM, PERNAS and Pelabuhan Johor. Syed Mokhtar also involve in a global business venture in other country such as China, Iran, Libya and others. He create new friend and at the same time not forgotten an old friend. People around him always feel comfortable with his kindness and humble. Syed Mokhtar was an excellent example of how a businessman leader should be. Never forget to help others when we have been successful. Transformational Leader When Syed Mokhtar started his business, he already places a big dream. He makes a clear vision in each of every new thing he invested. He is able to see opportunities whereas the others failed. When he started his logistic  business, SKS, he knows that this business already monopoly by the Chinese. Typical Malays would like not to involve in this business as it is difficult to penetrate Chinese blockage. Syed Mokhtar doesn’t see this as a barrier but use this stepping stone for him to succeed. He chooses to make these Chinese as his friend rather than being their competitors. As Kedah was known as rice producer, most of his earlier cargo is rice. The rice distributors were dominated by the Chinese, so Syed Mokhtar manages to approach reliable Chines to work with him at the earlier stage. He offer higher pay for the Chinese, and also promise an extra profit sharing if the company make profit. Syed Mokhtar very determines to break the Chinese wall. He put a clear vision, to penetrate Chinese monopoly. He uses a Chinese to do that. He involve on the business himself. It is said, that Syed Mokhtar always comes home late to wait his lorry come and go without any problems. Within 3 months, his company already makes profit and keeps expanding. Syed Mokhtar than move to rice industries, which is more difficult market to penetrated yet he manage to use the same approach as his earlier involvement in logistic business. He makes partnership with Chines to started Shah Enterprise Sdn Bhd. He needs his Chinese fellow market influence and the Chinese need his advantages as a Bumiputra. Syed Mokhtar stated his clear vision to his shareholders that he just not want to be a Bumiputra representor in order to get contract from the Government, but he want to control the company. He contributed 42% of his company equity and later on become majority shareholder. Slowly, Syed Mokhtar manages to build his empire, venturing in new business activity. In a way to become a success business man, he also faced difficulty. When he ventures in property developers, it is a purely new thing to him. As the economic downturn in 1985, Syed Mokhtar failed to maintain in property development industry. A lesson he learned, never involve in anything that you are not ready with. Behaviors, Traits and Skills Behaviors refer to a response of an individual or group to an action, environment, person or stimulus. Traits refer to a distinguishing feature, as of a person’s character. Skills refer as the effectiveness of a leader. As Syed Mokhtar becomes a corporate man, he shows a world class  characteristic of a World class leadership. Syed Mokhtar has his own clear vision on how he would be in the future. As a proof, when government introduces New Economic Policy, Syed Mokhtar takes a full advantage of government effort to help the Bumiputra businessman. Syed Mokhtar penetrates a Chinese monopoly market. He has a clear vision to do business that can confirm profit. For others, it is a suicide action when trying to compete with the Chinese businessman as they already create a great wall within them. If Syed Mokhtar doesn’t ambitious enough, he would not dare to compete with the Chinese. After setting up his vision, he manages to plan on how to make sure he will succeed. Yes, h e choose to friend with the Chinese instead of confront them. He uses Chinese to break the Chinese barrier. A very good business strategy perhaps. When we talk about personal integrity, no doubt about Syed Mokhtar’s personal integrity. At his earlier stage in logistic activities, he have an opportunities to do easy profit by letting go two out of transporting permits to the Chinese. A lot of Bumiputra sell their transportation permits to the Chinese businessman to get easy money. If Syed Mokhtar doesn’t have personal integrity, he might do so. Another ways to show Syed Mokhtar integrity is on how he is still keeping his share which he bought by using the Bumiputra quota regulated by the Government under New Economic Policy. He may sell the market share if he wants to earn easy money yet he did not do that. He believes that the market share where he bought using Bumiputra quota is his responsibility to keep. Syed Mokhtar always have close relationship with his employee. It always think how to meka sure that his company can survive so that no body have to quick. This show how high the EQ he have. When the economic down turn, he manage to keep the staff and without fail to pay the salary on time. He feel that, it is the duty of him to make sure the company survive so that a lot of people can continue their living. He always keeps his current friend in contac t and at the same time makes new friends. It is believe that he made more than 100 calls a day just to make ask his friend condition. Yayasan Al Bukhary is one of the examples to show how his believe to help the society. He contributes his company profit to Yayasan Al Bukhary so that poor people can get a chance to higher education. Even though he is not good in academic, he is still believe that knowledge is very important. His best quoted, â€Å"â€Å"I think it has to do with realization of where you come from, and where you are  going.† He always remembered how he came from a poor family and then become a successful business tycoon. When we talk about how he plan in doing business, he adopt the 4 main skills which world class leader hold. When he wants to do business, he always plans from the beginning. When he want to venture in cocoa supplier with China, he plan on how he should attend the Cantoon Trade Fair and then how to make sure he manage to get the supplier of the cocoa. He plans to buy a land so that he can plant cocoa. He plans how to make sure that he won’t have any shortage of cocoa . When he get government contract for supplying goods, he manage to get supplier from international market. In order to make sure he can manage to secure the supplier, he choose to venture in production business to make sure he can secure price and maintain the supplier. This is how he thinks and plan when doing business. When Syed Mokhtar wants to take over MMC, he asks his accountant to do the calculation. He empowers his staff to do the calculation for him. Even though the final decision was made by him, but he managed to organize the workload within his workers. As soon as he completes the transaction of buying MMC, the first thing he do is organize his profitable source to support the MMC. As a result, he manages to recover MMC in profitable position. This is how he organizes as to make sure he can fulfill his vision. Syed Mokhtar also shows a good leading skill to his employee. One of his trait is he will do thing seriously. Dr. Mahathir, former prime minister also quoted that Syed Mokhtar is an example of a strong Bumiputra and will work hard to achieve what he want. Syed Mokhtar always wants to know what happened in the business he ventures. When his early involvement in property development, every day he will go to the site to ensure that the development progress is on schedule. As a result, he manages to complete his very first residential project, Taman Mawar at Kedah. Syed Mokhtar will conduct a meeting with his anchor man in the late evening till morning. This is how he gets to know what is going on in his company. The meeting conducts in a casual way and not in formal manner. This will create a close relationship between him and his employee. These are some example on how Syed Mokhtar do a controlling on his business empire. Effective Leader World class leader surely show an effective leadership style which can be measure by his company sales, net profits, profit margin, market share etc. Syed Mokhtar shows how effective he becomes a leader based on his behaviors, traits and skills explained above. He manage to turn around a problematic company into a profitable company such as MMC, PERNAS and DRB-HICOM. If Syed Mokhtar not effective, he might have failed to overcome the situation face by the said companies. Another measurement for an effective leadership is the follower’s attitudes. Syed Mokhtar shows a good example to his staff on how to do work in a proper manner. That is why, when the accountant being asked to come up with a proposal on whether to invest in problematic company, the staff gives a fair report. If the staff doesn’t follow Syed Mokhtar attitude as being honest, definitely, the accountant will only show good report to earn an easy commission. However, Syed Mokhtar has shown a good example to his employee as to be high integrity in doing their work. Syed Mokhtar always feels that he is responsible for the survival of his company as there a re too many people depending on it. These is why, the staff have a very close relationship with Syed Mokhtar, even the ex-staff who already retire still contacting Syed Mokhtar as friend. Syed Mokhtar have proven his ability to manage a company, and as a result, Government always granted a big project to him. If the Government doesn’t feel confident with Syed Mokhtar effectiveness, he might not able to take over MMC, DRB-HICOM and Tanjung Pelepas Port. These are also an example of how Syed Mokhtar proves his effectiveness. Syed Mokhtar is a good example on how NEP can help Bumiputra become major role in Malaysia economic. It is just a matter of whether we are brave enough to get involve. To be a good leader, we must maintain four elements of skill which is plan, organize, lead and control. Good leader always practice good traits and behavior. Lead change in the organization Syed Mokhtar also practices changes in his leadership as it is crucial to survive in business environment if he did not change. When Syed Mokhtar starts to invest in Middle East, Syed Mokhtar already makes a change in the way he conduct his business. He has to think global and not just concentrate on local. These are some prove to show that Syed Mokhtar also practice  changes in his leadership. In order to become major player in the global market, Syed Mokhtar has to change to adopt with the global market and global requirement. He always respects other people values even though they come from different raise or religion. By practicing change on his attitude, Syed Mokhtar always able to adopt with the difference with others. When Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi took over Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed position as Mlaysia’s number one leader, Syed Mokhtar also have to make change in order to maintain his role as business player. He observes the policy maker and adopt with the situation. Syed Mokhtar always aware with the government policy and take advantage from the policy introduces. He always manage to seek opportunity to expand his business. These need change in his leadership style or he may not succeed. Derailment Every leader has the strength and weakness. Nobody is perfect. However, derailment can be cover up by leader action on the issues. Syed Mokhtar also has a derailment. One of the examples is, he did not value precisely his ability to involve in property development before h enters the industry. As a result he did not survive when world was hit with economy down turn. He learned a good lesson from it. Syed Mokhtar should good consider a lot of factors before joining property development industry and yes he did that when he reenter the industry. This time he is well prepared. Another thing that shows his derailment is when he wants to purchase MMC with a premium price. His valuator has advise him not to proceed with the purchase MMC with the higher price as they already calculated the impact on his business empire. However, Syed Mokhtar did not listen to them and proceed with the purchase. Even though Syed Mokhtar knows that buying MMC only will reduce the revenue of his business empire, but Syed Mokhtar still feel his duty to help the government. MMC is like a Malaysian pride. Syed Mokhtar should listen to his expert as he already empowers them to make a study. But in this case, Syed Mokhtar uses his intuition. Syed Mokhtar also misuses his power on the company he holds. This can be one of his derailments. Minority shareholders of his company lodge a complaint in the general meeting asking explanation when Syed Mokhtar takes 20 million of his company profit and contributed to his own foundation, Yayasan Al Bukhary. The minority feel  that Syed Mohtar should have not do that as it is the company hard earn money. However, Syed Mokhtar always feels that some of his income is other peoples share and he share with the poor and needed people through his Yayasan Al Bukhari. Even though, there are minority shareholders, Syed Mokhtar should get their concerned when make decision on company money. Syed Mokhtar should use a persuasive approach to get the minority approval on the issue. A clear information should be given to the minority shareholders on how Yayasan Al Bukhari run and how the fund being distributed. Conclusion Imagine how a poor village boy can become a business tycoon and consider 8th Malaysia’s richest person. He builds his empire from the very bottom and throughout his hard effort. If Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar doesn’t have a world class leadership in his, it is difficult for him to become as at now. He may not get a perfect formal education, but he learns through experience. Syed Mokhtar always willing to learn a new think and he evolve accordingly. He builds his own success and at the same not forgets where he comes from. He holds a positive value in himself and that make him as a respectful leader. Syed Mokhtar has a strong heart and determination. He proves that he also can compete with superior competitor. The most important thing he did not forget from where he begins his empire. He always holds in Islamic value in doing his business. Syed Mokhar always believes that everyone can achieve something if given fair chances. That is why establish Yayasan Al Bukhary, to help the poor and needed people. References