Leadership and Change- A Presentation to the Professors and Students of the University of Malaya....... .March 15, 2010...

GA Business and Management Consultancy
The Real Best in Asia

In that presentation, I said, " Just when we thought we were adjusting to the rush of change, the technological revolution has been revved up and turbocharged by an information revolution- a development that confounds us at times but also opens up new doors for us... and these technological changes are plunging us heading into realms that we could only have dreamed of not long ago.

I pointed out that, " It's our responsibility as the champions of quality improvement to embrace change that lead us to new potential and achieves the vision. It's been said that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things, but as Robert Kennedy told us, " Only those who dare to fail can ever achieve greatly...."

Of course , these thoughts seem fairly tame today. Anyone who has tried to hold on to the status quo over the  past 15 years probably has been run over by change! Many of the factors we speculated would be increasingly important not to the workplace back then are not only everyday realities now, but actually were surpassed by changes we couldn't even imagine at that time.

Jean- Baptiste Alphone Karr, the French critic, journalist and novelist , wrote the epigram that usually is translated, "The more things change , the more they stay the same." You may think that leadership is a fairly constant concept, but this issue makes it clear that even leadership is not immune to the effects of changing world. In fact, the more appropriate quotation for today's world probably is, "Nothing endures but change," as Heraclitus, the Greek Philosopher noted.

The global economy and multinational work force are part of every organization's landscape today, and they require new thinking and practices from leaders. Corporate social responsibility isn't a theoretical term; it's a requirement described in an international standard and demanded by stakeholders. Lapses in ethical leadership are subject to governmental and private investigations, litigation, and fines- and they cost companies their reputations and in some cases, their survival.

One of friends recently said, "Leadership in corporate Asia is not for the fain hearted." It's difficult to argue with that perspective, yet there are still many people who aspire to leadership roles, and fortunately, there are many with the capability to succeed. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "The greatest waste in the world is the difference between what we are and what we could ultimately be."