Why many Filipino leaders fail
In our just concluded three-day National Convention of Filipino Human Resources Managers in Waterfront Lahug, we had invited many resource speakers from Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam. One of the plenary sessions tackled the ultimate issue: WHY LEADERS FAIL. One of the speakers was our own SVP of the JG Summit Group of Companies, Mr Nic Lim, who was our colleague in San Miguel Corporation for many years, and who now leads and manages no less than 54 companies owned by John Gokongwei, ranging from Cebu Pacific and the Robinsons malls. Briefly there were five reasons discussed on the failure of company presidents, CEOs, and COOs. The principles might as well apply to our national leaders.
The first cause of failure is leading and managing without an overall vision, mission, and strategy. These people who pretend to act as leaders do not provide a clear direction for the people to follow. Their decisions, actions, words, and initiatives are a series of disjointed, fragmented, intermittent, and knee-jerk reactions to events and circumstances. They are not following a clearly defined pathway, much less a road map that leads to a predetermined goal. The second source of failure, assuming that there is an overall strategy, is the lack of competence to execute the plans and strategy. No matter how beautiful is the vision and the mission, they are all useless without an effective execution.
The third cause of failure of leaders is the lack ability to organize a team of dedicated champions who shall translate plans into actions and ultimate results. The implementing team is crucial and any group of people, no matter how competent individually but who do not act as a real team, will result to another failure. The fourth cause, assuming there is a vision, there is a team and there is an attempt at execution, is the failure of the leader to communicate the vision and the mission. Communication spells the difference between grandiose plans and flawless execution. A unity of purpose can be achieved only when both the leaders and the led are constantly aligned by a well-implemented communication plan and system.
The last, and I dare say, is the most important cause for leadership failure are the flaws in the character of the leaders. These are the Achiless' heels of Filipino leaders. We've had leaders who had vision and a good team to execute his vision. He also had a very effective communication plan. He was very good in execution. But his character was flawed by greed, lust and insatiable hunger for power. He ended up driven away from his throne. The leader who replaced the failed one was flawed the vision was one of revenge and persecution of enemies. There was no team and communication was incoherent and at times self-contradictory.
Visions and strategies in the hands of the incompetent or the inept and the naive will be totally useless and can even be disastrous. An effective team led by a corrupt leader can ruin the whole organization or for that matter, the nation. Honest leaders who are incompetent can put public interest in serious jeopardy. Competent leaders who are dishonest can bleed the nation dry. The good news is that we have a lot of honest leaders and competent ones. But the bad news is that the honest ones are also the incompetent. And the competent ones are unfortunately dishonest. The few who have both the needed competence and honesty are not interested to run. They have better things to do than be dirtied in the political arena of stench and decay.
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