Tan Chuan-Jin shares views on leadership with SMU students

By Vimita Mohandas, Channel NewsAsia, 10 Oct 2014

Manpower Minister Tan Chuan-Jin highlighted key leadership qualities such as maintaining trust, clarity and a nurturing spirit when he spoke to students at Singapore Management University's (SMU) bi-annual career and internship fair on Friday (Oct 10).

The DARE! SMU Career and Internship Fair saw 88 employers offering jobs. The fair is expected to attract more than 400 job seekers - from sophomores to final year and postgraduate students.

Post by Tan Chuan-Jin.

At the career fair, Mr Tan had a dialogue with students on his perspectives of leadership as an SMU freshman had messaged him on Facebook for an interview on team-building and leadership qualities - a topic the Manpower Minister feels passionately about.

Mr Tan said such engagement is also a key leadership quality, which helps to connect parties and make everyone feel a part of something.

Another key theme is trust, he explained. "People are prepared to follow you because they trust you, they believe you have their interests at heart and that you care for them, and when the chips are down or the stakes are high, you will be there to look out for them and protect them even at the expense of your own interests. That is why you are prepared to go that extra mile.”

Mr Tan added that a good leader also strives on clarity. This means making sense of complex situations to give people clear directions and lower their anxiety. Another aspect is nurturing people - such as teaching them and helping them grow in order to achieve sustainable success.

The Manpower Minister also fielded questions such as the extent to which social discourse has evolved with the rise of social media.

He said: "We need to create a constructive space where people can debate and discuss things civilly and constructively. This is not the code-speak for censoring and so on, because you find that some of these conversations get polarised very quickly, and a lot of people with different views rather not speak up because they get flamed and shouted down.

“But that is the nature of that space. So society has to decide how that space of discourse needs to evolve. So it is not just from the leader's perspective but actually the people who are participating."

Mr Tan added that such discourse may not even necessarily lead to common consensus, but the aim is to find common ground amid the different views shared.

He elaborated: "Ultimately. leaders in whatever position will have to make sense from the different perspectives shared, and then be able to have the courage to make the decisions and then continually evolve those decisions."

Society needs to shape constructive space for discourse, Chuan-Jin tells students
By Joanna Seow, The Straits Times, 10 Oct 2014

The space for discourse is evolving and everyone needs to play a part in deciding how it evolves, Manpower Minister Tan Chuan-Jin said on Friday.

"We need to create constructive spaces where people can actually debate and discuss things civilly and constructively, and this is not codespeak for censoring," he said.

"We all have a role to decide how that discourse ought to take place," he added, noting that some conversations get polarised very quickly and a lot of people choose not to speak up "because they get flamed or shouted down".

"I think leaving it to just those who shout others down would mean it would take a certain tone, and in many ways we would also be responsible for allowing it to go that way."

Mr Tan was speaking to the media after a dialogue on leadership at Singapore Management University (SMU). Earlier, he spoke to around 180 SMU students, addressing questions ranging from how to discern which feedback is constructive, to how to manage conflict without people feeling disengaged.

Having more people stating their positions is key to managing the space for discourse, said Mr Tan. "Hopefully over the course of time you do actually have fairly balanced and constructive dialogues, where people can safely air their views and then walk away, perhaps not always having the consensus that we want but at least (having) some common space established."

Turning to a question posed by a student on whether getting good grades is more important than leadership in a competitive world, Mr Tan said it is possible to have both.

"Let's not get away with the idea that it's not important to do as best as you can...do as best as you can and after that focus on developing yourself as a person."

The dialogue was held before the second day of the university's biannual career and internship fair, attended by 88 employers including Google, Foodpanda and 3M.

On being a good leader, Mr Tan also told the students that having people's trust and being sure of personal values are two key components. "If you treat people with respect and you do genuinely care for people, I think they will respond."

Leaders should also create a climate in which people are willing to stand up and try new things, and then be willing to protect them if they fail, he said.

Third year accounting student Adrian Tan, 25, said after the event that the issue of trust resonated with him as the president of the SMU Accounting Society.

"I do sometimes micro-manage...I don't portray myself as someone who trusts my committee members that much, and I realised it's a two way thing, if I don't trust him that much he won't trust me as well," he said.

"In future we need to give autonomy to the people who're managing (jobs) and it will bring out the best overall, and the dynamics will be better as well."

SMU Information Systems Society president Teh Kaiwen, 26, said that leadership in Singapore can be better developed from a young age.

"It may be a culture that is in-built, people dare not speak up or share their thoughts because they're worried it's wrong. It would be good if, from a young age, students are already encouraged to speak up and be able to participate in important decisions."