Leadership style and generation gap

The leadership styles of the first generation political and govt leaders and those of the present generation have quite distinct features. In those days, political leaders and permanent secretaries were more individualistic, more confident and also abrasive. The fact that they were tasked to carry on the responsibilities of building a nation and the single mindedness in the way they went about their mission could also be a cause for their domineering and high demands on people working with them. There is no room for errors. Niceties were things that did not exist, or a rarity. These individuals behaved like gods in their own right. They were bossy and arrogant and ruthless. They were very task oriented, task masters. From the PM and his permanent secretaries, even to the RSM in SAFTI, each one was a terror in his own right and personality.

No one dared to make mistakes. Minister of Housing took his own life. The permanent secretaries went screaming, yelling and smashing things when things went wrong, particularly in Mindef. Senior officers trembled when called to see to the perm sec. There was little camaraderie at the senior level. Everyone was expected to perform and to perform. Many heads rolled. The bosses were real mean and had little tolerance for incompetence.

Such impersonal leadership style has its good and bad consequences. LKY, Goh Keng Swee, Pang Tee Pow, Howe Yoon Chong were names most fear for those having to work with them. The good part was that things got done efficiently or people got removed. Many second generation ministers were removed prematurely for under performing.

Some time in the late eighties the management style changed. The next generation of permanent secretaries took over the helm and valued teamwork, relationship became important. Political leadership also took on a kinder style. A change in a perm sec or CEO would see a new team being installed in the organization. The CEO or perm sec would bring along his most trusted lieutenants, people he had worked with, comfortable with, tested and dependable. He needed not to watch his backside when the men around him were his men. When he played tennis, all would play tennis. When he refused to play golf, all would not play golf.

It was a different leadership style and different personality cults. Though this style was supposedly more friendly, it could also be unforgiving for those not in the same camp. But generally those within the camp were assured of their rice bowls, maybe iron rice bowls. Heads no longer get chopped. The tolerance for mistakes and underperformance was must higher. Wrong doers were forgiven, ka ki lang mah!

This last feature could be the weakest link in the new leadership style. Ka ki lang, or my people were put into positions of power and responsibility. This could be good and bad depending on the people being put into those positions. Poor or bad performers were tolerated and remained to make more mistakes. This was getting more obvious by the days and very glaring today. No one seemed to have to answer for his mistakes, no matter how gross. It is kind of ok, never mind, put him aside, let’s move on. No one gets shouted at. Everyone is pally pally with the bosses and the bosses with their kakis.

The softer and team building style is easier to live with and everyone is just a close associate, a close friend. And if only they all performs well and doesn’t make grave mistakes, life will be a bed of roses. Unfortunately it is not to be so. It starts to rot and smell.

The harsher and less tolerant style was boorish, intolerance and hard on the individuals, on dignities and pride, very impersonal, but very task oriented and very little wastage holding onto not too able talents. No good, out you go and next please. It did not smell nice but smelling good was not an issue.

The old civil servants and politicians paid their price for serving under hard nosed no nonsense bosses. Some got very disenchanted and really pissed off, losing their pride and self esteem. Today, everyday is like a party, everyone so friendly and warmth and easy going no matter how they messed up things. Working life under the new style leadership is like a ball.

Oh, I forgot. The bosses then were mean, and so was the pay. Today the pay was so fat and comfortable that no one would want to retire or offend the more than friendly and generous bosses to trifle with their good fortune.

Singapore can learn from the West how to become a big and powerful country

                    The West inclusive of Russia and USA will teach Singapore how to become a big power through war and aggression.

It is a good idea that Singapore's defence minister is upgrading Singapore defense with the intention to buy the most up to date  US all purpose fighter aircraft F 35 as well as the latest and most advanced submarines. What a clever forward looking defense minister we have? But what an oversight he had as someone suggested he should also build the all powerful aircraft carriers and the all fearful space killer satellites and ICBMs to enable Singapore to conduct strategic cyber warfare when the needs arise. But all the money spend on the strategic military hardwares will be nullified if they are not used and employed. I suggest since Singapore like to ape or follow the West ( inclusive of Russia ) especially US way of thinking and doing things it should adopt their policy of vicious aggression, invasion and conquest. Remember England was only a tiny country of less than one hundred and fifty thousand square miles about four hundred years ago , around between the years 1600 to 1700. Then it went on a rampage of aggression, invasion and conquest through raw military might. It invaded and controlled  the whole of North America until the secession in 1775 of the thirteen states to form the nucleus of the satanic United States of America. Then it went on to attack and invade Africa, India , Australia and eastern part of China. The US of thirteen states comprising an original   territory of only about five hundred thousand square miles followed the footsteps of its predecessor England and went on never ending streaks of aggressions and conquests when it swallowed up all the self governing native Indian states as well as invading and annexing about one million six hundred and fifty thousand square miles of Mexican lands comprising the present states of Florida, Texas, Nevada, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and California. US then continued its aggression and conquest across the Pacific Ocean when it forcibly invaded and annexed the island kingdoms of Hawaii and Guam. Russia which originally had a territory of about less than half a million square miles followed the aggressive war path of England. It attacked and invaded much of Finland, Sweland, all the separate and independent states or kingdoms in the Caucasian region as well as Ukraine and  all the territories around Black Sea. Russia continued its aggression and invasion across north Asia  and took away by force illegally about four million square miles of Chinese lands extending from lands around Lake Baikal to the Maritime Province facing the Pacific Ocean. From a small country of about half a million square miles Russia has extended its territory to about nine million square miles through war and aggression. Malaysia and Indonesia acquired much lands and territories at the expense of many different states with the collusion of the British and the Dutch. So there is a precedence for Singapore to expand its territories through war and aggression and of course through military might . A country or nation in a small dot of a few hundred square kilometres is unsustainable. In any case Britain had sold out the people of Singapore, Penang, Malacca and Sarawak which originally should have been merged or united to form the country of  Sinpenmasawak.  Now Singapore is not only rich and wealthy but also well equipped with superior military might. So there is nothing to stop us from taking Penang, Malacca and Sarawak and if possible Johore , Batam and Bintan Islands for after all these territories were arbitrarily divided between the British and the Dutch to prevent fighting between themselves. Only  when Singapore can expand and command vast territories then it will be able to accommodate not only 6.9 million people but also not less than 69.9 million people. So you see England, Russia , US and many other countries started small but now they are very big through military might , war and aggression. They have shown us the way how to expand and become big, strong and sustainable. So what is stopping us now. All we need now is to gang up with one big power and once we have achieved our purpose we can tell this big power ally to go to hell. Singapore has a bright future if it can expand, and unite the territories and the people around its periphery. After all nations wax and wane , coalesce and cast asunder and now is the time for Singapore to wax and coalesce and form a strong truly multi-racial nation.

Housing prices - No room for failures

The most talk about slogan in town is Singaporeans cannot afford to fall sick. A few days stay in the privatized govt hospital can clean up whatever savings the patient has. Hospital bills are no joking matter and a few weeks or longer can lead to bankruptcy to many.

The other dreaded problem is people falling into hard times and losing their homes. With housing prices so high, several years to wait for one from the BTO schemes, anyone caught losing his home is as good as losing his pants. How could a person losing his jobs and losing his home through some misfortune or business failure afford to buy a home again? Possible but very very tough. And if this happens to a family, the family members will be in dire straits.

Not able to fall sick, now don’t ever lose your home. Some may use their homes like they say, as gambling chips, trading and hoping to make gains, may end up unable to buy one back again. The two bites of the cherry may not hit home to some but when it hits, it is too late to regret once both cherries are gone.

Don’t pray pray when housing prices are getting beyond the reach of more and more Singaporeans.

More transparency in the stock market

I must applaud the move by SGX for improving transparency in the stock market by reporting on the number of short sell positions in each trading session. Though this is not something new as other exchanges have been doing so, it is still a step forward in the name of greater transparency.

Transparency must be good for everyone. For one, investors can have some knowledge of the number of short positions in the stock market the day before. Traders and investors could now have a bit more information on what others are doing and how many stocks are being shorted.

There are two misgivings though. While shortists would have to indicate their short positions, there is no way to know how many of these positions are covered in the same day. Thus the balance open position is still a mystery to the traders and investors looking at the SGX report. The information is at best incomplete or giving a false picture of outstanding short positions. The second misgiving is that the report only comes out the next day, after the trading session is over. So there is really not much that the traders and investors could do except for a little hindsight of what had happened the day after.

Now things would be quite different if one is a big trader or fund that has access to super computers that are plucked into the SGX system. Such computers would not only now able to see how many buyers and sellers of a stock, of every stock in the market, it will now be able to see who is shorting and whether the positions are covered back when shortists have to indicate their sell positions. If only I were to be able to get hold of such a computer to peep into the trading activities in the market, would I therefore be able to capitalise on the sensitive information that the normal traders or small investors would not have and take advantage of it? Would the super computers be telling the big fund managers that such and such a stock has a big short position and not covered, and the fund could then do the necessary to reap an easy profit all because the shortist’s position is now in the open, open knowledge to the super computers only?

If a fund manager is privy to such sensitive information and takes advantage of it, would it be a violation of the stock exchange rulings for insider trading or unfair practices vis a vis other investors and traders? I am not sure how much information the big funds and traders have with their super computers plucked into the SGX system and whether they are really playing an unfair game, playing in an unlevel playing field?

Who knows, or is there anyone out there that can give a clearer picture of what is going on, what is happening, what advantages did the super computers give to their operators? With short selling now in the open in the name of transparency, can there also be more transparency as to the capability of the super computers, what are they doing and what advantages do they have against those trading without super computers?

A need for an Asean consensus on military spending

Eng Hen is boasting about Singapore eyeing the most advanced multi role F 35 fighters the Americans are developing, and new submarines too. All these are good as long as our pocket is deep and the people need not be shortchanged for other public services from the Govt. In a way these are very expensive toys that are very nice to have. I would even suggest we should have satellite defense system, killer satellites with leading edge technology and even ICBMs with multiple nuclear warheads. And of course the supersize aircraft carrier that can sail the seven seas. By the way, when an ICBM takes off it won’t land anywhere within a few thousand km radius unless it flies vertically, burns itself out and falls back under gravity.

While I am getting carried away with wild wet dreams, someone please jolt me back to reality. What are these expensive weapons for? Who are they intended to pitch against? Do we need a battalion of tanks to fight a mob? Do we need a fleet of warships to fight against sampans? The question is, who are our possible enemies and what are their capabilities? How far more do we want to have to be one step ahead of our ‘enemies’ to feel secure?

Then the obvious thing, if we up the bets, our ‘enemies’ also can up the bets. So I up you, up me, all for the sake of upping the stakes but with no ends to it. And who is gonna benefit from these extravagant expenses? The arms merchants of course.

The world has changed, and the possibility of wars between states in Asean region has diminished, at least under the present conditions. Oops, what’s happening in Sabah? While it is necessary to prepare for war in peace, it is even more necessary to build confidence between states, to build good relations and make peace more enduring with less deadly weapons pointing at one another.

There is now an Asean organization and relations between the Asean states are relatively very good. Would it then be possible and better for the Asean states to start discussing about arms reduction in the region, not only to keep big power influence minimal, but stop an arms race among the Asean countries? Time and effort spend towards this goal would be more productive, and save a lot of money and resources by keeping the military profile and budget of Asean countries as low as agreeable given the respective needs and considerations of countries, big and small.

If Singapore is not going to buy those monster killer weapons, there is less likely for the neighbours to want to buy even better or comparable machine. Save the money for better use. Think of consolidating the present status quo. There is no need to keep ramping up GDP growth, population growth, better military hardware growth etc etc. If the Asean countries can reach a consensus to accept a certain level of military hardware and build up, would it not be better for all instead of blindly buying and buying and expanding and expanding, to be what, a big time gangster? Who are we trying to frighten when a better way is to agree to lower the temperature? I am not saying no defence but at a level to keep everyone happy and comfortable without any need for excesses.