Leadership Lessons: Loyalty or Competence?

Loyalty or competency?

Loyalty is sometimes an overrated virtue. One much respected counsel once suggested that PM Najib form a new team.

The PM was reluctant to do so. The main reason he says, the people around him have been loyal to him. For that reason, he is prepared to overlook other qualities.

The wise counsel answered back. Loyalty is indeed an esteemed virtue. It was essential when you operated at the other level. You needed that virtue to ensure you achieve your goals. The loyalty that you speak of is specific.

Now, you are operating at a different level. The loyalty that you require is of a different kind- a higher level of loyalty that is universal in its effects. Its loyalty in the sense of being faithful to a cause. Not faithful to a person.

The kind of loyalty that you speak of, serves your personal purpose. To get where you are. You can reward those who are loyal to you in other ways.

But at this level, competence is more important than loyalty. Because competence affects other people, it affects the whole country. Loyalty serves a narrower purpose. Competence and the elements that flow from it- efficiency and dedication affect whole people.

Suppose those who are loyal to you are incompetent? Their incompetence debilitates people and undermines good governance.

To make the great leap forward a personal and often specific nature of loyalty, is by nature violent and harsh. But that is the call of a leader.

Loyalty is of special interest only in a feudal setting. In the history of Malay civilization, the only time when loyalty was the center of the universe was during the epochal battle between the Malay warriors Hang Tuah and Hang Jebat.

I feel inadequate if I were asked to discuss the full symbolic significance of the battle between these two warriors. Only one person in Malaysia can do justice to such a prominent cultural event. I am of course referring to Kassim Ahmad (comrade Kassim to me always) who was the one who actually produced the gold standard in the study of Hang Tuah. He was the one who wrote the book which became staple text for students of my generation at 6^th form level.

Nevertheless here is my interpretation. At the centre of the epochal battle, is the concept of loyalty. Two concepts of loyalty were involved. One, which was represented by Tuah and the other by Jebat. One may argue that both were actually fighting for two different versions of loyalty.

Tuah was fighting for loyalty towards the preservation of an eventually disappearing world- loyalty to the preservation of a feudal order embodied in the person of a feudal king. It was a loyalty that was specific; serving the narrow interest of a reckless and unjust king that caused irreparable damage to a wider concept of loyalty- that of seeing justice and the brotherhood of man prevail.

Jebat was fighting for a loyalty to a cause. The loyalty which he represented was of universal import. To fight for the universal principle of justice so that future generations can build on this principle as one of the foundations of a modern and democratic society.

So while both can claim they fought for a concept of loyalty, we the present generation shall judge which kind of loyalty is more functional to the greater good.

Hopefully, the symbolic significance behind the bloody and macabre fight between two protagonists of two different concepts of loyalty is not lost on the leader of this country.

To move from a specific centered loyalty to a loyalty of universal import is never easy. As the epic fight between Tuah and Jebat demonstrated, by the very nature of the principle at stake, it was also essentially and necessarily violent and, in contemporary terms, revolutionary. The leap between the lower level of loyalty to the higher level must by necessity, be violent. Hence it will not be in the manner of attending a dinner party, or making embroidery or having a cup of Darjeeling tea.

In terms of leadership then, in order to take the next leap and to take the nation to the next level, the leader needs to be assertive and firm. Just like the carriage cars that are pulling the carriage head ever backwards, the solution is to replace the carriage cars.

Now, apply our judgment on the 10 ministries that failed to submit their reports on KPIs and the BN lawmakers who absented themselves from the business of the August House. There are thousands of others who are willing to take up the responsibility as lawmakers and do something that makes a difference for the greater good of our society.