Why SG is unable to produce real leaders...

[Sammyboy RSS Feed]

An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

Let’s face it, leaders and leadership material is developed when it is placed under challenging situations. For example, military commanders develop their skills from combat experience and leading men under combat situations. Military academies like West Point or Sandhurst can only teach one so much. The real learning is out in the field. The American and British armies are highly regarded because their senior leaders have seen some form of action sometime during their careers.

By contrast, the Singapore military favours book learning over actual combat experience. Yes, unlike the American and British armies we don’t go to war but we are also a nation that is obsessed with defense. We spend the largest percentage of our GDP in this region on defense. We do send people to UN Peace Keeping missions to give them a bit of exposure (technically peace keeping and war are two different things). You would imagine that we’d want our Generals to be a bit more seasoned rather than text-book soldiers. Unfortunately we don’t. When we had a general who acquired the closest thing to combat experience and was praised by the international community for his leadership, we demoted him and pushed him into retirement as fast we could. We promoted younger, less experienced but more book smart people over him.

There seems to be a cultural aversion to exposing bright people to challenges. Instead of testing out people under stress, the system seems to allow the chosen to avoid it and it gives them power over those who don’t have the luxury of avoiding hardship. Should it surprise anyone that Singapore fails to produce people with leadership qualities?

- http://desparatebeep.blogspot.sg/201...wn-leader.html


Click here to view the whole thread at www.sammyboy.com.