[Vnbiz] Staying to be a leader - the de facto leader

[Tran Dinh Hoanh]

Dear brohter Thien & CACC,

Brother Thien raises many excellent issues in his message.  I won't be able
to comment on all of them today (although I hope that eventfully we would be
able to cover them all).  However, I would like to expand on one point
brother Thien made:

Bother Thien wrote:

There are 3 method of leading:

-When members' skill and knowledge are lower than leader, leader needs to
use dictatorship.
-when members are at the same level as leader, leader can use democratic
leading.
-when members are very skillful, leader can use free leading.

What is good leader? Good leader is the one, who can achieve the goal of his
organization. good leader doesn't need to know all but need to know exactly
how to achieve the goal.

Let me talk about the first method--Dictatorship, "when member's skill and
knowledge are lower than the leader."  Every dictator in the world like this
argument and everyone of them claim that they are more intelligent than
their people.  "Of course, if I am not more intelligent than you then why I
am the government and your are the second-class citizen?"  Even the VCP at
one time claims that "The Party is the Apex of human intellectuality"  (Dang
la dinh cao tri tue loai nguoi) and even today the VCP is claim the right to
be the exclusive leader of Vietnam because oobviously it doesn't think
anyone is good enough to compete for the leadership role.  (I will leave it
for you all to decide your yourself how good and how intelligent the VCP
is).

Coupled this with "Good leader doesn't need to know all.  Good leader needs
to know how to achieve the goal," then we may have serious problems.  The
VCP often thought that it was more intelligent than its people and knew how
to achieve its goal, so it simply forced its people to do what it wanted,
whether they liked it or not--from Tram Hoa Dua No against artists and
writers, to Cai Cach Ruong Dat with Dau To against millions of farmers, to
Kinh Te Moi against millions of southerners.  All turned out to be, to say
it softly, stupid.  It doesn't matter how good your think your plan is, if
your people's hearts and minds are not in it, your plan will fail.

But my point is not to harass the VCP (I just think it is important to keep
studying our own history seriously).  My point is:  Every dictator of the
world says that he is more intelligent and his people are stupid or at least
more stupid than he is.   So, the "dictatorship method" that brother Thien
mentions is not really a method, but an abuse of power, most of the time.

So, the key to true leadership is "To get your people to agree with you."
Sometimes you have to talk a lot, sometimes you say nothing, sometimes you
talk soft, sometimes you talk bossy.  It doesn't matter what you do.
Whatever you do is your art.  The result is what that counts--Your people
agree with you.  Let your people and you together figure out how to achieve
the goal.

Have a great day!

Hoanh
____________


On 4/19/07, Tran Ba Thien <tranbathien at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> [ Vietnam Business Forum ]
>
>
>
>  Dear brother Hoanh and friends,
>
> this is not my argument against your points. I want to look at your points
> in opposite direction.
>
> first, how about the role of leader? Why do we need a leader? what do we
> expect him to do for us? what do he require us?
>
> when people come together and create an organization, they must have the
> same needs. they must expect the organization to have activities able to
> meed their need as much as it could. thus, they need to have a
> representative to lead the organization to fulfill their dreams. Leader
> takes that responsibility from his members. the role of leader is to lead
> his organization to achieve their goal. He doesn't need to know the want of
> each member.
>
> If your boss always asks about your want, you will feel upset. If your
> mother always looks for your wants, you will feel tired. You want them
> listen to your voice. But you never want them to take over your life. it
> means that you want this person to do this thing for you and want the other
> to do other for you. You don't want only one person to do all. Because when
> someone can know all about you, you will be slave of them.
>
> me too, I don't want my wife to be my trusted friend, my colleague and my
> classmate, my old neighbor friend and etc. she should play some roles on my
> life but not all roles of my life. She should be a very and very important
> part of my life but not all of mine. the one, who know all about me can be
> very dangerous person against me. Leader, who can knnow all the want of his
> member, can be a dictator.
>
> when you are leader of a group with 20 members, you don't need to know all
> the want of each person but you need to learn their voice. What they really
> expect from the organization, what they really expect from you what mission
> that they expect from you. We can see that, besides the main goal of the
> organization, members want to be free,, want to perform their member role
> independently and want to work and to live in social values, social
> standards and etc. they want to develop their skills in inside the
> organization. They want to improve their qualify of living from the
> organization.
>
> There are 3 method of leading:
>
> -When members' skill and knowledge are lower than leader, leader needs to
> use dictatorship.
> -when members are at the same level as leader, leader can use democratic
> leading.
> -when members are very skillful, leader can use free leading.
>
> What is good leader? Good leader is the one, who can achieve the goal of
> his organization. good leader doesn't need to know all but need to know
> exactly how to achieve the goal. it's  No matter of his method of leading,
> no matter of each member thinking. Remember that's not only the achievement
> but also qualify of the achievement is very important. We should not
>  achieve materialist values of our goal but lose human values.
>
> Best luck,
> Tran Ba Thien
> tranbathien at gmail.com
>
>
> --
> Tran Dinh Hoanh, LLB, JD
> Attorney of Law
> Washington DC
>
>
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