Great Leadership & Organization System

Discussing about leadership reminds me to a leadership theory popularized by Ki Hadjar Dewantara. He is well known as the founding father of Indonesia national education. The motto used by Ki Hadjar Dewantara in his educational system is “Ing ngarsa sung tuladha, ing madya mangun karsa, tut wuri handayani. The meaning of this Javanese motto is : “(for those) in front should set good example, “(for those) in the middle should raise the spirit or enthusiasm, and (for those) behind should give encouragement and motivation”.

This motto describes what an ideal leader should do and shows that the mission of Indonesia educational system is to build the leadership character of the people. Leadership must be present in every part of the organization. Leadership must manage the organization well, not only as the level of vertical organizational structure as always described formally, but also as a series of horizontal work. Not only as a “top-down” organizational structure but also as in “front, in the middle, and behind” organizational structure.

In every part of the organization, a leader must be always present and to play its role well and properly. In front, a leader must set a good example to the people around him. A leader must demonstrate high integrity and professionalism, strong commitment and determination, good morals and attitudes, and the other good characters as personal. In the middle, a leader should be present to make organization’s environment becomes conducive, safe and comfortable. By maintaining these conditions, it may raise the spirit or enthusiasm of all members of the organization and increase the productivity and efficiency of organization as a whole. From behind, a leader must give motivation and encouragement to raise the moral force of the organization’s members so that they have same reason to move forward together.

A leader should not only depend on the charisma/force to influence/ask others to do what the leader or organization wants to do, like usual good leaders do. As described by Jim Collins on his book “Good to Great”, to achieve significant achievement and to establish lasting prosperity, great leadership characteristic will be needed by a company. A great leader will focus on the organization, not on himself. A great leader creates and manages a leadership & organization system in order to work properly and continuously improved.

To manage a big organization, it would be very hard for a leader to always be physically present and manage everything. Therefore, a leader needs to create a leadership & organization system to help him strengthening its leadership presence in every part of the organization. To ensure that the leadership & organization system created has worked well, a leader must choose the right people and put them in the right positon in the organization to establish a collective leadership. Afterwards, organization can move forward simultaneously and automatically to the right path by the system. The organizational system is also created to be able to prepare better leaders successor in order to achieve everlasting prosperity of the organization.