Leadership in crisis

The main purpose of a leader is to lead. It doesn’t really matter what sort of leader you are – a religious leader, a political leader, a business leader. To make important decisions, leaders have advisers to help them decide. To sort out their schedules, they have assistants. To do the heavy lifting, they have dedicated staff. To nod and laugh at their lame jokes and outlandish analogies, they have followers.

But to lead is something leaders need to do themselves. It’s not something you outsource to a third party, or rely on others to do for you, or simply expect to fall into place. Even more so, in difficult times. Just as rough seas demand the captain’s closest attention, so do such times of crises require a leader’s guidance and leadership the most.

To the naked eye at least, I don’t think that’s really what we saw (and continue to see) with the current floods, now is it? Not from our “leaders”, at least.

It’s not about the physical presence – the prime minister should be able to golf all he wants, the opposition leader can bike all he wants. Some physical activity is, after all, good for a leader’s state of mind, especially with the stressful job of leading this country and keeping up with what is being promised to whom, when. Besides, images of Datuk Seri Najib Razak and Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, chest deep in floodwater, giggling and playfully splashing E. Coli infested water at each other may have been excellent for public relations and make for a good front page cover, but wouldn’t really do much for the victims.

But continual assurances and perhaps a long-term strategy would have been nice. The floods are a continual problem for the east coast, not one that happened yesterday, or last week. It’s a perennial problem that has happened since the time of Cik Siti Wan Kembang and since the time the turtles decided to make the shores of Rantau Abang their personal gynaecology ward. And though neither the turtles nor Cik Siti herself may have been able to foresee the magnitude of the floods this time around, the fact remains that it has been there, some measures could and should have been taken to better mitigate it, and perhaps the deforestation activities in the affected states should be re-looked.

Yet the emphasis appears to be finger-pointing and self-promotion. Malaysian social media users jumped at the first opportunity to discredit their political and ideological opponents. At a time where we should be discussing a proper national emergency plan, disaster relief plan and environmental feasibility plan, we are instead dwelling on polemics. Not new polemics either: issues of the use of national assets to fly wives of VVIPs, issues of hudud. Is this really the best time to see if people like to shop in Bangkok?

But happily, there has also been much positivity that came out of this all. Contrasted against all the noise, we saw silent workers doing things deserving the loudest of applause. For example, a Sikh relief mission were the first to reach an isolated Orang Asli village that had gone without food for days. One minority group of Malaysians, reaching out to another minority group of Malaysians, both often overlooked, yet to both of whom Malaysians owe plenty.

Apart from the usual humanitarian organisations and corporate suspects, noticeably more Malaysians grouped together, teamed up and did things. From collection to packing of goods to coordinating the trips, to building mini-networks of aid efforts to ensure all the villages were covered. All this happened while some politicians were still fumbling with plastic bags, maybe to ensure the printer got their nose right in a photo to be stuck on a bag of rice.

Thankfully, not all politicians do things the same way – and indeed we saw many, from both sides of the divide, wading into the disaster areas, and many did so without the pomp and glamour with which we usually associate them.

Perhaps instead of infinitely squabbling, the political parties can come together and discuss relief efforts instead of talking about race and religion all the time. Recent events show that non-politically inclined Malaysians are very much involved in society, if coordinated properly and organised. Synergised with their own resources, they could complement the current emergency relief efforts, take some burden off the authorities and channel all the positive energy we have seen even more effectively.

The intangible benefit of these conjoined efforts could very well be the answer to some of the polemics on which we have been dwelling as a country. Perhaps, boldly, even a step in the direction of national reconciliation and unity. – January 13, 2015.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.