Crisis in Leadership?

'Leaders need to have an intrinsic sense of right and wrong. These qualities don’t seem to be apparent in our society. This is worrying. The difference between what is expected of a political leader and a senior civil servant is that the latter helps to formulate policies, while the former assesses the soundness of the proposed policies, their long-term implications, and then goes out to convince people to believe in them. While we have good people with credibility and integrity in cabinet, not enough of them appear to have the acumen to explain them clearly and simply, and persuade the ground. This is a key quality of leadership, which in turn is a tacit balance of IQ, and EQ – an intrinsic capacity to listen.' Viswa Sadasivan I have extracted the above comments of Viswa's recent speech on the crisis of leadership in Singapore. Nothing new, but surprising and unbelievable to know that this is the perception of Singaporeans from all walks of life. I also share the same conclusion. Why surprising? How can this be when we are paying so much for the best, and the best, so well paid, give people this kind of negative impression? What is wrong? Paying not enough or the best is simply not good enough? With the money we are paying, and the honing of interviewing and selection skills, and scrapping the bottom of every barrel, we should be having very outstanding leaders whom the people can easily accept and associate with, and say, yes, these are the best leaders we are paying for. What we have are doubts and a feeling of unease, that they are not what they are expected to be. How many of you share this impression? Or is this just isolated cases of a small group of people having such views? The quality of leadership is not what they think they are, but unfortunately, what the people think they are.

Revisiting our wasteful ways

With petrol prices going up, many cars will become collectors items. Bought and kept in the car park. Many will be driven only occasionally. Then there are the weekend cars that are used sparingly because of the usage restriction and owners' lifestyle. Now why must cars that are in excellent condition be made to pay additional road tax just because it is more than 10 years old? The mileage clocked in many of these cars are less than those clocked by normal cars. Should I ask the supertalents to take a look into this anomaly of unthinking past policies? Oops, sorry, better don't say policies are unthinking. They were designed to collect more revenues for any justifications. But please, please, think again and modify the formula for cars that are obviously under used despite the 10 year age.

The ugly and obnoxious poor

We have the ugly elite and the ugly Singaporeans everywhere. How about the ugly and obnoxious poor? Michael Palmer met a resident who demanded that he gave him $20k as a loan and he promised to repay him in 3 years with interest. Now, who in his right mind would hand over $20k to an asshole he does not know? And where is the MP going to find the money to give to one and many assholes who come to demand for that kind of money? While we discuss the plight of the poor in general and wanted them to have a less diffficult time, but on the individual level, many of these assholes do not deserve any kind of kindness. Do not be deceived by their pathetic and helpless sight. You do not know what they talked about the givers or what they scolded the givers for giving less. Heard of the beggar sneering at the $2 he got and demanded more with an insulting tone? In Today paper there was a complaint against this aggressive taxi drivers who tailgated a hogger. From the way he described the incident, the driver was definitely road hogging. But the threatening way the taxi driver drove and challenging him was uncalled for. Not only taxi drivers, bus drivers, sales staff, waiters and waitresses, hawkers etc, if only you hear what they say or curse at you. Even cleaners in foodcourts can be very nasty and abusive. Sometimes the Way or Tao is still worthy of retrospection. Let them be. It is their karma. They have to lead their lives the way they were, an experience that they need. The problem is that many don't seem to learn to be a better person. And if karma is real, they will repeat their sorrowful stories over and over again.

Pay up TV licence fee or else...

While the transport companies are going after the small time cheats, MDA is going after those who refused to pay the TV licences for their own reasons. Many just find it ridiculous to pay for things that they do not want. There are many channels, yes, but how many want all those channels that are programmed for them? Many will be contend to live by one or two channels and some may not want a single channel at all. Haven't technology caught up and be able to monitor which channel people tune in to and charge for usage, and not because the provider wants to provide and the viewers have NO CHOICE but to pay? It reminds me of the Medisave, Life CPF, Minimum Sum retention scheme etc etc, when the people have NO CHOICE. Who cares if MDA provides for 10 or 100 channels free if those are not what the viewers want? Who cares if MDA thinks it is important or good to provide 'TV and radio programmes that "inform, educate and entertain our multicultural and multiracial society"?' Why are the masses made to pay or subsidise for the effort of MDA to want to cater to everyone? Personally I only watch one channel. Not even listen to radio and all the craps the rowdy and at times silly DJs are gabbing about. So why should one pay for services and programmes that one does not want? Compulsory woah. If MDA thinks that they are the one to decide what the people should hear or see, then they should pay for it themselves and not demand that the viewers and listeners pay for them when the people did not want to hear or see.

Time to catch the bus/train cheats

Public transport companies are going all out to catch these petty thieves for cheating the transport giants for a few cents or a few dollars per trip. These are big monies to lose and it is estimated that the total amount lost is $9 mil annually. At $1 a trip cheated, that is 9 mil trips or roughly 25,000 trips daily. Either we have so many cheapskate buggers or cheats, it is still no good. Cheating is cheating, even for a few cents. It is now like a war against these petty thieves, and manpower and all resources, including satellite technology will be harnessed to save the $9 mil and to teach these useless buggers to be honest. People who have to cheat for a few dollars are not worth living. And worst still, there is a higher justification for the huge amount of money going to be spent to tackle this cheating problem. If not because of the cheating, transport companies need not keep on raising transport fares. So the cheating hurts the majority of the honest fare paying commuters. All fare paying commuters must be grateful and should lend a helping hand to catch all these cheats. And when the problem is solved, they can expect fares to be lowered. Or at least there will be lesser fare hikes. The moral of the story is that if these people want to cheat, they must cheat big and in style. And they would not even be called cheats if they are smart enough to do it. They will even be respected for being able to collect hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars without anyone knowing what is happening. The real and big cheats always get away and it is the small petty thieves that are caught and embarrassed.