Myth 154

Professional, Ethical and Honourable Managers LKY recently talked about good leaders being men of honour who will mean what they said and deliver what they said. What he said is basically the qualities of a decent man which can also be seen as the good qualities of managers. How do Singaporean managers fair in these 3 criteria? There are definitely the good and the bad managers. I have seen many who are neither professional, ethical nor honourable. An ethical manager is expected to make decisions that are ethically correct and fair to their employees and staff. They cannot short change or cheat their employees. That is a fundamental requirement not only of managers but any decent man in any position. And at times when decisions came from the top, from head office, that are ethically or morally wrong, as professional managers, they must say no to them, reason it out with HQ that the decisions are bad decisions. Many choose to keep quiet and follow the orders. Not to rock the boat. Why should they. Not sure if you can call them smart managers. The third point is of honour. Any man that is worth being called a man must honour what he said. How often when confronted with what they said, many managers will pretend that they are dumbfounded. What? Who said that? I never said that! They will not even remember what they said or committed. And one good way to prevent themselves from being caught and can't back out from it is not to have anything in writing. Not even minutes of meetings. Definitely not in emails also. The best summary for such managers is the 3K Manager, Kiasu, Kiasi and Kiamistake. They are anything but professional, ethical and honourable.