Qualitative and Quantitative Research Review, Vol.1, Issue 1, 2016. ISSN NO: 2 4621978 [600430]

Qualitative and Quantitative Research Review, Vol.1, Issue 1, 2016. ISSN NO: 2 4621978

LEADERSHIP THROUGH PERSEVERANCE:
NARRATIVE CASE STUDY
Ikbar P., Hasrita Lubis, Dileep Kumar M.
Othman Yeop Abdullah Graduate School of Business (OYA -GSB)
Universiti Utara Malaysia , Malaysia

Economic Faculty (FakultasEkonomi)
Universitas Islam Sumatera Utara, Indonesia

UNIES, Gorgasali University, Georgia, Europe

ABSTRACT

Follower-ship is the resultant manifestation of any good
leadership. The followership comes only when the followers
believe the leaders ability to induce better trust and confidence on
the leader‟s decisions. Tan Sri Azman, a Malaysian the business
leader believes that two components of successful corporate is
good leadership and enlightened management (to create and to
sustain), which needs, creating a healthy culture and a congenial
workplace environment for the followers. This particular case
study on Tan Sri Azman, has, followed qualitative research
methods of narration with the support of triangulation techniques
of observation, interviews and document analysis. Narrative form
of this research gives several insights from this business leader
that, a leader having transformational form of leadership is
essential to envision the future of business and gave a better life to
the followers.

Key words: Leadership, Personality, Transformative leadership,
Narration
INTR ODUCTION
Leadership lies with the charisma of the leader. In a corporate life,
creation of followership is a must to serve the stakeholders
effectively and efficiently. When you create a sound work culture
and better working conditions to the workers which indirectly
ensures a better quality of life. Tan Sri Dato‟ Azman Hashim, a
Malaysian Business leader has believed in these fundamental of
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leadership and touched the life of workers and turned them as
better followers. Through this case study the researchers tried to
explore and explain the leader‟s history, struggles, personality,
leadership styles and the vision statement.
BRIEF HISTORY
Tan Sri Dato‟ AzmanHashim was born on July, 1939 which make
him 73 years old this coming July. He was born in KampungBaru,
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and he was raised there. His parents were
a strict disciplinarian especially when it comes to the education
part of life. His father was working as a clerk in Malaysia‟s
electricity company called “LembagaLetrik Negara” and his
mother was a school teacher who later was promoted to
headmistress. Many traits and character he has today is attributed
to the wisdom imparted by his parents. Among the 13 siblings, he
was the first to pursue his study abroad. Although his interest was
in medical field, he was offered accountancy instead by a
university in Australia.
We can begin to analyze his traits from here where he is not letting
a chance slip by him because he accepted the offer even though it
is not his favorite field. After several years working with an
accounting firm in Australia he was granted with the Certified
Public Accountant (CPA) and Certified Company Secretary.
Starting from that, Tan Sri come back to Malaysia and starts his
career by working for central Bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara
Malaysia). After several years, he left the bank and opens his own
accounting firm which later was transformed to partnership with
two close colleagues. He was then offered to work in Malayan
Bank where the pay is not very high plus several crises in the
company itself. After, successfully transform the bank from small
to one of the largest bank in Asia he left the organization and start
his own bank and through series of merger and acquisition the
bank later on known as AmBank. He is also married to YM Tunku
Arishah Tunku Maamor and blessed with five children who are
also quite successful. He is recognized as the eleventh richest man
in Malaysia with his property estimation of RM 3.47 Billion or
USD 600 Million. He was also recognized by the Forbes magazine.
Aside from being the successful corporate leader, he also a man
who love life and several of his hobbies are Golfing, Singing,
Horse-riding, Water sports (Jet ski, Powerboat and Scuba diving)
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and Sport car driving. He loves singing very much because he
claims it can make him calm.
There are various awards given to him for his contribution in the
banking industry such as DarjahKesatriaMangku Negara in 1972,
DarjahDatoPadukaMahkota Selangor(DPMS) in 1980, Johan
Mahkota Negara (JMN) in 1984, Asia‟s Banker of The Year in
1985, Honorary Doctorate in Philosophy (UUM) in 1985,
DarjahPanglimaSetiaMahkota (PSM) in 1988, ASEAN
businessman of the Year in 1993, Manager of the Year in 1995,
Grand Entrepreneurial Award in 1996, MenteriBesar Grand
Entrepreneurial Award in 1997, SathyaSaiEducare Academy
Values for Life Excellence in 2004, Honorary Doctorate in
Business Administration 2004 and Lifetime Achievement Awards
in 2009. Some of these awards were presented by the head of
States in Malaysia and some are from business association. He
holds various chairmanship and directorship in different corporate
organization in Malaysia. People believe in his leadership
capabilities since he had proven it by turning around Malayan
Banking and AmBank. He was also the first person who
introduced the computerized system for banking purposes in
Malaysia. There is also various more contribution made in banking
industries. He is a person who is always looking forward and
looking for changes in his corporate life.
LEADER’S PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL PROFILE
Tan Sri Dato‟ Azman Hashim was born in 1939 in Kuala Lumpur
to a couple of a good disciplinarian and a good school teacher. He
is married in the year of 1963 and was blessed with five children.
One of his daughters is well known as singer goes with the name
of Mizz Nina. He got first class grade in Senior Cambridge
Examination and was offered to pursue his education in Australia
on Colombo Plan Scholarship. He was planning to pursue his
education in medicine but he was offered to pursue his study in
Accountancy instead. It takes him 5 years to complete his study in
Australia from 1955 to 1960. He was able to become a member of
Chartered Institute of Accountants, Australia (FCA Australia) and
the institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators (FCIS) in
such young age which is 21 years old.
On his spare time Tan Sri Dato‟ Azman Hashim enjoys his days to
singing, golfing, horse-riding, water sports and sports car driving.
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He is so fond of singing and he is nicknamed “singing bankers” by
his colleagues. He also enjoys variety of water sports such as Jet
Skis, steering Power Boats, Scuba Diving and various more water
sports. His childhood was spent in Kampung Baru, Kuala Lumpur
with a strict disciplinarian and a school teacher as his parents. This
might be one of the factors of his success in life. His father strict
disciplines might be one of the contributing factors where he was
brought up in the strict disciplines environment which cause him to
absorbs the values he was taught.
His professional life began when he was still in Australia he was
employed by Messrs O.L Hainess & Co. an accounting firm. After
that he returned to Malaysia in 1960 and join Bank Negara
Malaysia until 1964. After 1964, he left Bank Negara Malaysia and
open his own accountancy firm called Azman & Co. His firm then
grew into partnership and he then join the Board of Malayan
Banking Berhad in 1966. In 1980, he was appointed as the
chairman of Kwong Yik Bank Berhad. In 1982, he joins AmBank
as the chairman until today. Currently, he is holding several
chairmanships and directorships in AmBank Group subsidiaries
and business affiliation. If we see his past involvement, we can
conclude that he is very synonym with the banking industry. We
can also say that he specialized in banking business ever since he
returned from Australia and until today he is still involved in
banking.
The chairmanship position which Tan Sri Dato‟ AzmanHashim
holds today is Malaysian Investment Banking Association,
National Productivity Corporation, Pacific Basin Economic
Council International (PBEC), Non- Alignment Movement‟s
(NAM) Business Council, Co-Chairman of Malaysia-Singapore
Roundtable, Co-chair of United Nations Economic and UNESCAP
Business Advisory Council and Board of trustees in Perdana
Leadership Foundation. The directorship Tan Sri Dato‟
AzmanHashim holds currently is Malaysia South-South
Corporation Berhad, Malaysia -Japan Economic Association,
Malaysia South-South Association and Friends of Prisons
Association.
Besides that, Tan Sri Dato‟ Azman Hashim also is a member of
several professional bodies such as Board of Advisors, AIM Centre
of Corporate Social Responsibility, Malaysia-British Business
Council, Malaysia-China Business Council, International Advisory
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Panel of Bank Negara Malaysia, International Centre for Education
in Islamic Finance (INCEIF), International Advisory Panel for
World Islamic Economic Forum and the leader of the ASEAN –
Japanese Business Meeting. In 2008, Tan Sri Dato‟ Azman
Hashim have been awarded with The Brand Laureate Brand
Personality Award for his individual contribution in banking
industry.
Personality of the Leader
Tan Sr i Dato‟ Azman Hashim is well known as a perseverance and
intelligent person. This why there are many companies in Malaysia
wants him to be the Chairman and the president of their company.
He also have wisdom which is the quality of being wise and it was
defined as the body of knowledge and experience that develops
within specified society or period. This might be the results of
growing up with a strict disciplinarian as his father and a school
teacher as his mother. The values and teaching by his parents
might be absorbed by him creating his way of thinking. This
process might happen consciously or unconsciously where it might
influence his thought patterns and his attitudes towards everything.
Tan Sri Dato‟ Azman Hashim is also an optimistic person where
we can see that he was originally intend to pursue his study in
medical field but he accept the offer to pursue his study in
accountancy. This has showed us that he has the ability to trust in
his own capabilities. Optimist is defined as the hopefulness and
confidence about the future or the success of something. Here we
can say that, Tan Sri Dato‟ AzmanHashim is an optimist person
and he have confidence in himself. Other than that, his hobbies
also include singing which requires a lot of self-confidence. T his
can also be the proof that he is an optimist person.
Tan Sri Dato‟ Azman Hashim is also a diligent person where he is
careful and conscientious in works and duties which might explain
his success today. He is also willing to take risk as we can see h e
left Bank Negara Malaysia to open his own accounting firm called
Azman & Co which specialized in accounting and auditing
services. This company also specialized in consultancy services
which is provides to companies with problems related to financial
and other management issues. Another type of service is in the
secretary related issues. Then to expand the market of his
company, he is willing to collaborate and enter into partnership
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with other colleagues specializing in similar field. This shows that
he is risk taking person instead of risk adverse person.
Tan Sri Dato‟ Azman Hashim is also willing to share recognition
and compliments received. For instance, when he receive the
award of lifetime achievement awards he said “It is certainly an
honor for me to receive this award, as it is an acknowledgment of
our staff‟s commitment and contributions that have led to the
phenomenal growth of this sector especially during one of the most
challenging periods in the history of banking and finance”. Tan Sri
Dato‟ Azman Hashim also are very disciplined person which
imparted from his parents. In his personal life, he encourage his
children to do what they love to do. For example his daughter is a
popular singer goes by the name of Mizz Nina.
Tan Sri Dato‟ Azman Hashim also like to contribute to the growth
of new generation of managers and leaders where he is actively
involved in The Financial Sector Talent Enrichment Program
(FSTEP) which is a program managed by Institute Bank -Bank
Malaysia (IBBM) in collaboration with the central Bank of
Malaysia. Some claim that he is a gifted person even when he was
a student. He has the tendency to follow through what he has
started or in other word he is not a quitter. Besides that he is able to
influence people and become a source of inspiration to a lot of
people. He is always doing something outside of the routine by
finding new way of doing it besides always looking forward to
challenges in everyday tasks. His motto of not easily giving up and
always live up to the challenge at hand have saved him when the
economy is down and when his business faced financial problems.
Leader’s Vision towards His Personal Life
Tan Sri Dato‟ Azman Hashim personal life is planned carefully by
him. This is because of busy working schedule and that he had. He
is more of an indoor person during workdays and more of an
outdoor person on weekends. During workdays, his patterns of
activities were usually working, reading and watching television.
However, on weekends he will go out and do things he enjoys.
Activities he enjoys are including singing, horse riding, golfing,
sport cars driving and scuba diving. He enjoys singing since he is
still young because it makes him feel relaxed. His wife business is
in music industry so it is easier for him to enjoy singing. As for
sport cars driving, he has collected several exclusive imported
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sport cars from all over. He claims that he enjoys driving those
cars because of the thrill and adrenaline gained from the speed of
the car. Aside from that, he is a family man where he enjoys
spending time with his family and always encouraging them to do
what they do best. For instance, one of his daughters is
acknowledged in finance field and there is also Mizz Nina his
daughter who specializes in entertainment business.
From the above story about him, we can say that Tan Sri Dato‟
Azman Hashim is a person who know how to manage his time for
personal life and corporate life. He also claims that he will enjoy
life until the end of his life because life is short. When he was
involved in a severe car crash that almost claim his life, his
motivation and will to life help him to recover. The never give up
attitude also applies in his personal life not just in business.
Shockingly, he is not ready to retire even for his age and wealth he
have. He said that I enjoy what I do and I did not do it for money
and if I do it for money, I could have retired a long time ago. We
can say that his vision in life is Do what you enjoy doing, open
your mind, do not waste time thinking unnecessary things, enjoy
life because life is short and always be grateful for what you have
in this life. He also likes to help people, hence his involvement in
various organizations and association which involve in developing
the potential success in youngsters. In other words he is screening
for potential leader within Malaysia. Other than that, he is also an
important member of Perdana Leadership which is an association
of leaders from various industries.
He also has the attitude of not playing when he is working and play
hard when it is playing time. This attitude has helped him in
managing and allocating his time for business and personal life. He
is also open minded about his personal life and he said “I have got
nothing to hide. I enjoy my personal life by clearing the weekends
for various recreation activities”. He love singing and to date he
have recorded several albums consisting English and Malay oldies
songs. He also handles his stress by listening and singing to the
music he likes. Basically, we can say that he enjoys his life very
much and he is also relaxed which makes it somehow unbelievable
because a man of his career and success usually are very busy. He
is also fun to talk to or work with and some reporter/blogger claims
that they feel motivated, happy and relaxed. This quality that he
has is very important characteristic of a leader which is the ability
to influence others not by forcing them but by just talking to them.
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Since, he can manage his time properly for business and personal
life; we can conclude that his time management skills also are very
good in working environment. Some say that his love for music
and singing have been passed down to one of his daughters Mizz
Nina a popular Malaysian singer. He is a very recreational man but
he is also a very hardworking man when it comes to his job. He
always put his family first no matter what happen and he is a
caring person. His vision in his personal life is very good and he is
very interesting and fun person.
Leader’s vision towards his corporate life
Tan Sri Dato‟ Azman Hashim is a person who is claimed to be
easy to work with and he is also claimed as someone who do not
know how to stay still. In the sense of business life or corporate
life, he always find a challenge in performing his daily tasks.
Always changing his way of doing things is one of his specialties.
He claims that if he do the task the same way every time, he will
definitely get bored and probably would not be good. In this sense,
we can say that challenge in jobs is one of his sources of
motivation. He is also a person who would not stay in one place for
a long time because he will get bored when the place is not
challenging enough. As a proof we can see his career development
where he always jump from one place to the other. He is pursuing
satisfaction in his corporate life and he is a real entrepreneur and
good leader. For example he have bring a banking institution from
its difficult time to the time where the company is doing well in its
business. He then left the bank and join another bank and he is
doing the same with that bank also. This shows that he is attracted
to challenge and when the bank are already success there might be
no challenge left in the job so he left and find another challenge.
Tan Sri Dato‟ Azman Hashim is portrayed as a person who have
wisdom, discipline, challenge seeking person and hardworking. He
have the quality of empathy and willing to accept others opinion
and ideas. These qualities have made him well accepted and
respected in the organization and outside of the organization.
Outside the organization, companies and corporate organizations
invites him to be their leader because they are confident in his
abilities to steer their company to the success. Managing corporate
life by creating problem and a state of chaos to let his followers to
be more innovative and bring the best out of them when they are
looking for the solution. Most important vision is that he is not
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doing his job because of the financial rewards but he is pursuing
other types of rewards such as personal satisfaction, recognition
and knowledge. He say that he is a curious person and always have
the desire to get to know things. As a person who love challenge,
he will always find it in an organization and if there are no
challenge he will left the organization.
Tan Sri Dato‟ Azman Hashim vision for his corporate life is to
work and get personal satisfaction and satisfy his needs of
overcoming challenge, risk and at the same time get rewards doing
it. He is person who love his work very much and that is why he is
not retired yet given his age and his wealth. He looks at the risks of
doing business as a challenge and opportunity and these qualities
are the necessity in becoming a successful entrepreneur. He is also
someone who wants responsibility to feel that he is alive. The
proof is that he holds various chairmanship and directorship
whether in corporate sector or in non-profit organizations. Several
of his contributions in banking industry were introducing the
computer system to the banking operations and introducing the
needs/importance to advertise and promote the banking business.
From his innovations he was able to bring a small and unknown
bank to a big and successful bank. In conclusion, Tan Sri Dato‟
Azman Hashim enjoys both his personal and corporate life. It is
like they are complementary to each other. He is also a challenge
and thrill seeking person who like to enjoy life. When he get
depressed, he will sing and he loves singing very much hence the
nickname “the singing banker”. Bes ides banking, he is also into
finance and economics field. He also contributes much in new
leadership searching program called “Perdana Leadership” to
prepare Malaysia for the future.
Struggles That Leader Faced to Become Leader in Corporate
Life
When he just returned from Australia, he started working in central
bank of Malaysia. He then left the organization to start a new
accounting firm which has expanded into partnerships. After that
he was offered a top position in Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank)
and even though his income was reduced to 50% as compared to
the alternatives but he still decided to stay and serve that bank.
This has shown that he is a man who is attracted to challenge.
When he first started working in Maybank, this organization was
only small and not popular. After ten years working with Maybank
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he is able to open the largest banking line in Asia. During 1970s,
he starts collecting wealth in real estate sector through the shares
market. In 1982‟s he purchases about 40 percent of shares in a
textile company called Taiping Textile Sdn. Bhd. and this is his
first exposure to the corporate world. His favorite quote is “An
entrepreneur is an optimistic man, they will always feel challenged
to try more difficult things and the bigger the challenge is the
bigger is our desire to tackle those challenge”. He also said that it
is important that we believe “we reap what we sow”.
There are also two incidents which can be portrayed as struggles to
him in corporate life which is a series of economic depression. The
first economic depression have made him almost bankrupt and
during that time the amount of his debt was estimated to be RM
350 to RM 400 million. This first economic depression happened
during mid 1980‟s. During this time, he is struggling to cover his
debt and make his business survive. During this time he has to
offer very low rental rate for business premises in Arab-Malaysian
building. This is to encourage business man to rent from them and
hopefully this will increase their revenue. Somehow, he and his
company able to get out from this troublesome time and this
experience have made him more mature and experienced in
banking business and affairs. This is first time he have ever
encounter money problem to this extend. About a decade later he
encounters another big struggle which change his life forever.
The second economic depression was in the year of 1997 and this
is called an Asia‟s economic crisis and it have impacted his
business deeply. The profitability of his bank was decreasing
gradually and the company‟s management was in panic. He then
enter into the meeting room and calmly said “Gentlemen we are
currently in trouble but relax we will find a way to cater this
problem”. Then from the decreasing of profit, his bank incurred
losses in the real estate business because the real estate market
fluctuate and gradually dropping. During these dark days, his
company was deeply in debt and he is able to motivate his team to
work harder to overcome the crisis. He then try to be involve in the
central bank program called merger and acquisition of banks and
he was planning to merge with MBF finance.
His true nature is that he is not a quitter and he will definitely not
give up to things like economic depression and crisis. He then
proposes a new name and new corporate color for the merged bank
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in 2002. The name proposed is AmBank Group and the corporate
color is red and yellow. What makes him a great leader in
corporate sector is that he is calm, strategist, knowledgeable,
experienced and he can successfully manage his own people to
achieve the common objectives. He was able to turn the tide for his
company from deeply in debt to one of the most well-known
banking institution in Asia. He also receives several awards for his
achievement in banking industries and acknowledge globally.
Motivational Incidents from His Life That Made Him To
Emerge As a Leader
When he is still a child, his parents really are strict when it come s
to his educa tion and from all of his siblings he is the first one who
was offered to pursue his study abroad. He decide to set a good
example for his younger siblings by accepting this offer even
though he was originally planning to pursue his study in medicine.
This might be one of his motivational sources for him to emerge as
leader because he does not come from a wealthy family. His father
was an office clerk and his mother was a school teacher who later
was appointed as a headmistress. Even though they are not
wealthy, his parents were very strict and this also might be source
of his motivation to be successful in whatever he does. His source
of motivation are his parents, his siblings, his past standards of life
and his very own stubborn nature that would not give in to
challenge.
Besides that, his nature of proving that he can do something even
though people say he will not success in doing it. This is proven
when he left the Malaysian Central Bank (Bank Negara Malaysia)
to open his own accounting company even though during that time
here are not many practitioner in that particular field. In another
words, accounting firm was an unattractive field at that time but
because of his challenge loving nature he decide to give it a try. In
addition, accounting education from Australia was considered
second class and not very valuable as compared to education from
Britain. Everyone else sees it as potential threat but he on the other
hand sees it as an opportunity to seize the market in accounting
business. Due to his reputation gained from working with central
bank, he is able to expand his company and later it was registered
as partnership with several colleagues. Even when his partnership
firm becomes well known and has its own reputation, he is off to
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accept an executive position in Malayan Banking Berhad who has
some major crisis at that time.
Other than that, he was also involved in a severe traffic accident in
1989. Some said that his strong will to live have helped him a lot
during those difficult days. Ever since he recovered from his
injuries, he decides to do what he enjoys to the fullest. In this case
he enjoy tackling challenge arises in banking and finance industry
and he also enjoy living his live on the weekend when he is not
working. He is unbelievable because he should have trauma from
the severe traffic accident but instead he buy sport cars and drive it
fast. He claimed that he love the adrenaline rush and the thrilling
sensation he get when he drive very fast. From this we can see how
his mentality works in which is he is not avoiding what he fears
but he confront his fear and try to overcome it. As he claims
before, he is an entrepreneur and if he cannot overcome this fear
then he is not a good entrepreneur. In this sense, we can say that
his motivation comes from his attitude.
His optimistic, strict and very thorough attributes also have been
the source of motivation for him to emerge as a leader in corporate
world and at the same time a good leader in household. Even
though he is very busy with work, he put family above all. He
supports whatever his children show their interest in and not
forgetting his wife who manage a studio for music recording. His
motivation to emerge as a leader also might have been from his
desire to provide more for his family at the beginning stage of his
career development. However, after he has successfully emerged
as leader, then it is not about providing for his family anymore. It
is like working in banking industry have been a part of his personal
life which would explain why he does not want to retire yet even at
his age.
Leaders whom he consider as role models leaders in their life?
Why they are role models
In this part we will see who he considers as his role model that has
made him the way he is today. This is also important because the
person who he has considered as role model might have influence
his life and the way he behave. The first role model would be his
father who was working as a clerk in local company. Even though
he is only a clerk he know that education is very important for the
future. Resulting from this he is very strict and disciplined when it
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comes to his children‟s education. Living with him for years, have
made the “singing bankers” absorb his values and wisdom.
Wisdom here is defined as the quality of being wise or the body of
knowledge and experience that develops within a specified society
or period. It have affect his life in many aspects for example how
the thinks, how he react to the problems encountered, his attitudes
towards work and people. The second person who he had
considered as his role model was his mother who was a school
headmistress. She has shaped his life and imparted her wisdom and
discipline to him making him the way he is. He cla ims that without
their influence on him he would be the way he is. Both of his
parents also have been a big part of his source of motivation even
from he was still a children.
The singing banker also considers Sun Tzu an ancient Chinese
military general and strategist as his role model. Sun Tzu wrote a
strategy to be used in war which is also applied in business life. He
left one book on strategy in war and business called the art of war
which is used to manage conflict and win the war. Tan Sri Azman
Hashim has many times used the philosophies originated from Sun
Tzu whether in his life or business. His favorite quotation is “So it
is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can
win a hundred battles without a single loss. If you only know
yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose. If you
know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger
yourself”. He also use the wisdom he find in this book. Today, the
book of art of war have been published and translated in various
languages in different countries. The books also were use by
people in business to manage their business properly and its
success have been proven. When asked he said we as human
should learn from mistakes we and people before us have done. He
also said that, if you have made a mistake, there would be no point
in regretting it, it is the future and the action taken to cater that
mistake is more important.
Other than that, Tan Sri Azman Hashim also admired Tunku Abdul
Rahman Putra Al-Haj who was the first prime minister of
Malaysia. He is also known as the father of independence and
father of Malaysia because he struggles very hard to claim the
independence of “Tanah Melayu” from the British. Father of
Malaysia was bestowed to him because he is the one who have
suggested and struggles to unite Tanah Melayu (Malayan), Sabah
and Sarawak into one country called Malaysia. He is also a scholar
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who receives his education abroad but still he cares about his
people standard of living and this have captured the singing
banker‟s heart. In conclusion, there are several people who Tan Sri
Azman Hashim considered as his role model and they have been
an influence to him to emerge as a leader in corporate life and his
personal life. We can see that not only he has success in his
corporate life but he also made a successful leader in his personal
life. The wisdom imparted by the persons he considered as role
model have made him the way he is today. Apart from that, his
experience in life have made him more mature and diligent in
making decision regarding life and business. The severe traffic
accident has change his perspectives on life and also influencing
his way of thinking.
Leadership and Work Culture
First of all, Tan Sri Azman Hashim was involved in various
philanthropic efforts to promote leadership in the company he
serve and even in Malaysia. For example his involvement in
Perdana Leadership Foundation. He also founded Yayasan Azman
Hashim and the construction of Azman Hashim building which is
for rental purposes. The rental income received is used to fund
young scholars‟ education. Also he is involved in FSTEP which
was a training program for fresh graduates working in business to
encourage them becoming successful in the corporate world. He
was also involved in the internal AmBank program called raising
our human capital today which are designed to search for talented
and potential employees. The program then will train them to be a
leader. This has proven that he really is preparing the company he
work for to overcome futures challenge by recognizing, selecting,
train and cultivate potential leader within the organization. He
wants an organization where everybody is a leader and this
conform with the logic that a firm with a good leader will prosper.
Thus, if everybody is a leader in an organization, imagine what the
organization can achieve.
Not only he search for the employees potential to become leader,
the members of the board also are given training and education to
ensure they have the capacities required to manage the company.
Also, as we can see in the annual report of AmBank their
philosophies in the company are customer priority, Integrity, vision
and goal orientation, teamwork, open-mindedness, self-realization,
speed and creativity, quality and initiative. Most of these
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philosophies are the attributes of a leader which mean that Tan Sri
Azman Hashim promotes leadership in the company‟s culture.
Besides all this leadership attributes, Tan Sri Azman Hashim also
promotes empowerment, accepting ideas from his subordinates,
rewarding the exceptional performances, not too petty to give
recognition and compliments to his subordinates also being open
but very thorough about works. Implementing all this philosophies
in the working culture will create a healthy working environment.
The employees will feel more appreciated and will be motivated to
work harder for the organization.
According to the Hertzberg‟s two factor theory, the working
environment falls under hygiene factor. Those intrinsic and
extrinsic rewards falls under the motivator factor. These two
factors are regarding the factors that will motivate employees to
work harder and this might also be important factor to make them
stay with the organization. This is very important because the
ability to retain skilled employees are vital to an organization.
Always remember that an organization are run by people
(employees/staff), it only make sense that retaining them in an
organization will ensure the smooth operation of the organization.
Other than that, skilled employees are trained which involves high
costs (in money and time) to the company. It would be a waste if
the employees decided to run along to the competitors‟
organization. There are also some scholarly opinion that human
factor should be quantified and recorded in the organization‟s
financial statements. Some scholar suggest that this item should be
recorded as assets for the organization.
In conclusion, Tan Sri Azman Hashim really relates leadership
practice and attributes in the working culture by building the
appropriate culture and he also maintain the culture. Besides that,
he also change the working culture when necessary and the same
goes for his leadership styles. So far, he is doing a very good job at
it because it is extremely difficult to manage and lead due to
diversities in many aspects because the group has many business
lines and subsidiaries. The diversities mentioned is included the
different behavior of subordinates, different types of customers,
different structures within the subsidiaries, different rules and
regulations in every types of business lines. This might have been
why Tan Sri Azman Hashim was able to bring the company from
nothing to something.
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LEADER’S LEADERSHIP APPROACH
Leadership approach is how a leader applied their leadership in
managing their subordinates and influences them to working
within the paradox of the organizational goal. The “singing
Banker” use the approach proposed by Robert Katz. In the Robert
Katz‟s th ree skills approach a leader must have technical skills,
human skills and conceptual skills. Technical skills are the abilities
and expertise the leader have to fulfill everyday task. Technical
skills is also the know-how knowledge, be competent and
proficient in specific activities. In this particular skill set, Tan Sri
Azman Hashim has various expertise in banking, accounting,
finance and economics. His experience in banking and auditing has
made him very respectable in this particular field. To top it all he is
also a chartered accountant and a chartered secretary which is a
professional body recognized globally. The second set of skill is
human skill which is the abilities of the leader to work with other.
The abilities are used to helps you to get along with people, to
communicate and work with the team. This is done to get the most
out of the group the leader work with. The last set of skill is the
conceptual skill which is the skills that enables the leader to
understand and better decide the actions and measures that has to
be taken in a particular field of work. The singing banker have
these skills and also the human skills. As a prove, we can see how
he are able to turn a problematic bank into one of the largest bank
in Southeast Asia.
According to H ouse‟s Path -Goal theory, there are several
approaches to leadership which is based on the expectancy theory
of motivation. Under this theory, a leader roles and approaches are
to facilitates, coaches and rewards effective performance. The
leader also is flexible under this theory and they can change their
styles when necessary. Tan Sri Azman Hashim falls under this
category where he facilitates, he coaches and he also rewards
effective performance. According to Fiedler‟s contingency theory,
leadership approach are based on task structure, leader/member
relationship and positioning power. Fiedler then classed leader to
task oriented and relationship oriented. In the case of the singing
banker, he is a little bit of both of task oriented and relationship
oriented. He emphasizes on task his subordinates need to perform,
what is expected of them and making sure that minimum variance
happens. He is very thorough in his task and about his works. He
also emphasize on his relationship with his subordinates and as a
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prove his subordinates have claimed that he is a very fun person to
work with. He maintains tasks and relationship approach to
leadership in the organization.
Other than, he is also using approaches like creating a state of
chaos or problems in the organization then he would select teams
of employees to deal with the problem. This is performed to induce
the innovative, creativity and bring out the best in his employees.
Aside from that, he always finds some way to change the way of
performing and tackling tasks given. This is done on his own task
and on employees‟ task because doing everything the same way
everyday would made a person bored. He said that we should
explore more ways to perform the tasks to make it interesting and
exciting. He has done quite a share to make the healthy and
exciting working environment within the organization. This is
performed to motivate the employees because motivated
employees will work to their bone for the organization. This is in
accordance with Hertzberg‟s hygiene theory . He will give the
employees their direction, provide coaching, inspire the shared
vision, challenge the process, empower the employees to perform
their tasks but with a degree of supervision and he will personally
recognize their achievements and give them the proper rewards.
There are also the seven approaches to leadership which is
coercive, authoritative, democratic, affiliative, pacesetting,
coaching and hybrid. Coercive is when a leader use the immediate
compliance on all facets of business and it is not a very good
approach when it is the only approach used. The authoritative
approach would be an approach where the leader set the goal and
give the subordinates the way to achieve it. A democratic leader
would essentially listen to all subordinates to see if they have ideas
and accept the ideas if it is agreed upon by the other subordinates.
Unser affiliative approach, a leader will maintain their relationship
with the subordinates and reap the benefits arose from those
relationship. Pacesetting approach is when a leader who emphasize
on performance and nothing else. Under this approach,
underperformed employees will be sack out and replaces. As for
coaching approach, the leader would be involved and helping his
followers in performing their tasks The last approach is the one
related to Tan Sri Azman Hashim where he have a portion of each
of the previous six approaches. His approach to leadership can be
classified as hybrid approach to leadership. This approach has
work very well in serving him and the companies he served.
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Leader’s Ways to motivate his Subordinates and Fellow Beings
A leader should be able to motivate employee and making them
stay in the organization. This is because when they left, it is not
only them the organization are losing but also their skills,
knowledge, expertise and experiences they have gained under the
organization‟s umbrella. The employee would gain all of those in
various ways and training being one of them. As you know training
employees would consume time and money. If after they get all the
training they needed they turn their back to the organization and
say goodbye it would be a tremendous lost to the organization. A
leader also should be able to make the employees accept and
respect them. This also might be a key to making them stay and
motivate them to work harder for the organization‟s sake.
Motivation can be seen as how a person encourage someone to do
something not by forcing them to do it but by just talk them into it
or just by certain types of action. According to Hertzberg‟s two
factor theory, motivators which is concerned with the rewards,
recognition, personal fulfillment/growth and sense of belonging are
several things a leader should emphasize on to motivate their
subordinates. The other factor is hygiene which is concerned with
the workplace environment in which a leader should be able to
provide a healthy and exciting environment for his subordinates to
motivate them. The singing banker have perform and excel in this
two factors and we can claim that he motivate his followers by
providing and taking care of the items in both of these factors. He
is also a man of ethics where he treats people as he would wish to
be treated. He displays his deep concern about his followers‟
welfare, problem and issues. He also take a good care about his
followers not just use them to achieve something but he also
emphasize on his relationship with them. His approach is changing
according to the situation he is in.
Tan Sri Azman Hashim also motivates his followers and fellow
being just by talking to them. The way he talks and the way he
apply his wisdom in working and personal life have made his
fellow being motivate. He has this way of him that captures and
motivate people by just talking to him. Some people call it “aura”.
This quality of his was born with him and patted by the way he
was raised and also his experiences in the corporate world.
Logically, men who manage several companies would be very
busy but not him because he was able to separate his corporate life
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and personal life. Always a fun loving guy and an optimistic
person have made him accepted and loved as a leader and this
might be how he motivates his followers.
His hybrid approach to leadership also has contributed to his way
to motivate his followers. He is not too coercive, not too
authoritative, supportive, his coaching style, his affiliative
approach and his conscientiousness. He also would not show
inappropriate feelings and emotions to his followers. Being almost
always calm and reserved has made his followers respect and
accept them as a great leader. Aside from all this he also have past
reputation in the banking industry where he have proven that he is
capable in doing his job excellently. This kind of reputation have
huge impact in employees motivation because they know that he is
a smart guy and the probability of success under his wing is great
and they want to be a part of that success. Indirectly he has created
a shared vision among his followers. Most importantly, he does not
see his followers as employees but he sees them as friends. He is
also not an arrogant person considering his caliber as successful
corporate figures. His openness has been able to motivate his
followers. He also uses the approach where he shares his own
recognition with his subordinates. An example would be when he
achieve the lifetime awards he said “this is all thank to all the
personnel working with AmBank and it were not for their hard
work and dedication we would not be here”. This has showed that
he is willing to share his achievement with his followers and this
indirectly motivates his fellow being and followers.
Leadership Style and Leaders Decision Making Ability
Head, heart and gut. In leading the company, Tan Sri Azman has
use all three of the component depending on the situation the
company is in. He uses the head element when he is leading the
company towards the success and he is always thinking for the
benefits of the company. He is also considered a strategist where
his strategy has bring two banks from its difficult time to one of
the biggest bank in Southeast Asia. He used heart leadership style
when he emphasizes not only task oriented but also relationships
from his followers. He accepts his subordinates‟ ideas and he cares
for them. He looks for potential in them so that he can develop and
train them to become future leader within the organization. He is
also a part of leadership recruiting, training and developing
program outside of his company. Gut leadership style is used when
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he did not get carried away with emotions and relationship and he
will do what is needed for the sake of the organization growth. The
toughest decision in an organization is layoff decision which is
most of the leader weakness. Underperformed employees will be
given chance to make up for it in the future. For Tan Sri Azman, he
looks at this at a different angle where he would talk them through
and convince them that they are better off.
Charismatic leadership styles. He is a man who love life very much
and this might arose from his tragic traffic accident which nearly
take his life. He enjoy several things in life such as singing, horse
riding, driving sports cars, scuba diving and jet skiing. He is also
energetic and radiant in an infectious way which might have been
why he is able to influence his followers to act in accordance of the
shared vision. He also values the potential in his subordinates by
conducting induction program where the leadership potential in his
subordinates are identified and developed. He is also able to accept
others ideas especially from his subordinates. He displays his
openness to people which makes people become comfortable
working with him. His optimism traits have given hope to people
and as we can see when his company are facing Asia‟s economic
downturn he enter the meeting room with smiling face and said
“We are in trouble people, but rest assured we will get through it”.
This somehow have given his subordinates motivation. More
importantly he is an agent of change and he did not get carried
away with emotions.
Participative (Democratic) Leadership Styles. Tan Sri Azman also
use this style where he often asked for the subordinates to
participate in meeting and contribute their idea. He also used to
give the problem/issue to the subordinates and let them find th e
suitable solutions. In this situation he emphasizes on team working
where they will brainstorms and come out with appropriate
solution. Sometimes, even he will join the group just to show that
he cares for them and their opinion is important to him. Under this
style, it is true that the leader encourages the subordinates to
participate in decision making process but still the final say is in
the authority of the leader. The different between this style and
authoritative style is that employees are encourage to give their
input rather than just give the task to them and no question asked.
Also the different with delegative style is that the final say is still
in the authority of the leader. We can say that this styles is a part of
authoritative and delegative styles.
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Hybrid of Transformational and Transactional leadership styles.
Tan Sri Azman uses this style of leadership where he emphasize on
both on task and relationship. Under this style, he will sometimes
delegate the task and empower his qualified subordinates.
Sometime, he also use transactional where he would use rewards
and punishment system to manage his subordinates.
Few Examples of Leader’s Balanced Approaches for Task And
People-Oriented Leadership
Tan Sri Azman believes that two components of success is good
leadership and enlightened management (to create and to sustain).
Creating a healthy culture and workplace environment is the role
of a good leader. This is an important part but there is also another
part after that which is also important that is to maintain and
sustain the culture and the workplace environment. However,
sometimes change s in both of the elements are necessary to cope
up with the whole industry environment. In this case, it is also a
leader‟s role to make sure the changes a re made and adhered to. A
good leader will be able to manage the changes and reduce or
minimize the resistance to change among the subordinates. In this
context, Tan Sri Azman would use people oriented leadership
approach. When assigning tasks to his subordinates, he would be
thorough and explain every detail to make sure that they
understand the task and the way it should be dealt with. He is very
strict and very sharp at doing these things and we can see this as
his task oriented leadership approach.
When dealing with his employees, the singing banker will maintain
his personality, image, thinking pattern and reputation so that the
respect and acceptance of his leadership will not be tarnished.
Being always open whether in his personal life, opinion or
corporate life have made him the admired leader amongst his
subordinates. He claims that there are times to be strict, times to be
harsh and times to be friendly. He always balances his approach
depending on the situation. For example, if the subordinate do not
finish the tasks on time he will ask what is the problem pertaining
that task and he will try to understand his subordinate position and
situation. In this case he will give advice on how to perform the
task. In the case of the subordinates, did not perform according to
the standards he will get to the bottom of it and if it is proven that
the subordinates are not taking the task seriously, and then he will
scold the subordinates and give warnings. He also think that office
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are the place where people go to work and at the same time it
should be always in harmony.
When dealing with subordinates, he said that he will take different
approach for different subordinates. This is because human factor
is different in nature, behavior, attitude and motivation. Thus it is
important for a leader or manager to get to know each of their
subordinates. Some people when are not performed according to
standards, he would just throw something that would motivate
them according to their behavior. He also always believes an y
form of capabilities can make a different. When it is possible he
said do not ever scold your employees but find a way of telling
them their flaw and encourage them to improve on it. This is where
the leader should be innovative and creative. He also claims that
managing human factor is the most difficult task a leader should be
able to do. This is due to the uniqueness and diversities in nature of
the human factor themselves.
In performing everyday tasks, he also promote idea sharing among
the subordinates and he is very open and able to accept others idea
even from the subordinates. He also believes that a good leader
should promote idea sharing which would make the employees
more motivated and feel that what he says matter to the leader and
organization. To them it is a form of recognition and it provides
the sense of belonging. He always begin a meeting by saying that
no matter who you are or what position you hold, you should held
up head high. When it comes to idea, it does not matter what
position you hold but the quality and the usability of the idea itself
that matter. As a conclusion, he practice balanced approach of task
and people oriented leadership approach. This might be done by
according to situation he is in and more importantly he agree that
both of this approach should be balanced otherwise there would be
problems in managing the company.
Discovering the best in his people/ subordinates
As discussed earlier, he is open to others suggestion and ideas.
From this point he will be able to asse ss how his subordinates
think, their thought pattern, their intelligent and their maturity in
perceiving problems. He also practice listening to others idea,
processes them and sees whether it is applicable to the business
situation or task. Besides that, he claim that he will listen to them
properly until they finish instead of neglecting and giving
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comments on the ideas. The last part is that he will always provide
acknowledgement and encouragement regardless of the usage of
the idea itself. This is done to encourage the subordinates to be
more open and not afraid to tell their idea in the future. Other than
that this approach also can encourage innovativeness among the
subordinates. Then from this point, he will select the best or
potential subordinates to participating in a program called
development program. These programs are some sort of leadership
training program which is conducted internally in AmBank.
Additionally, he also prefers to work closely with his subordinates
so that he can monitor them while they are working. From the
monitoring and observation process he will see and spot the
potential and talent resides within the subordinates. The thing
about talent is that sometimes, even the person who has it does not
aware about it. In assigning the task, he would usually create a
state of chaos/problem in the organization then he would assign
certain task to certain individual or teams to solve the problems.
From this activity, he can encourage his subordinates to be creative
and innovative. The teams that are usually able to solve the
problem within the time given and the solution is feasible will be
recognized as talented. This would also lead to the development
program mentioned before.
Sometimes he would empower his subordinates to perform their
job/task assigned. Empowerment mean that how, where, who, what
and which are depending to the subordinates. How the task are
performed, where the task should be performed, who would be the
team working on the task, what need to be done to complete the
task, when to start the task are not outlined by the leader and it is
entirely depending to the subordinates/teams. By empowering
certain task to his subordinates he would be able to measure the
capability, the quality, the efficiency, the effectiveness, the ability
and the time management skill of the subordinate. From this, he
could form his valuation of the subordinate. There is no
specification to the task completion so the subordinate qualities
and attributes are monitored and measured to see whether they
have potential.
He always believes that any form of capabilities can make a
different. From the empowerment activity above, subordinates
would then be assigned to the suitable position according to their
capabilities. This is also an important part of managing human
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resource where the right talents and capabilities are assigned to the
right task or position. If a leader can do this then the organization
would definitely prosper. Aside from all this, he also actively
involved in outside program which is called Financial Sector
Talent Enrichment Programme (FSTEP) which is responsible in
developing and value-add the talent in young graduates to
overcome their employment in financial sector. Through this
program, he will select several of the best suited candidates to
come and join him in AmBank.
In conclusion, he always encourages and motivates his
subordinates to be innovative and creative whether in corporate life
or personal life. Also there are various of method he used to
discover the talent in his subordinates. All the talented and
potential subordinates will then be put in the induction program.
This induction program will be discussed in the later part of the
paper.
Instilling Foundation for Good Leadership Traits in His People
He always instills the foundation of good leadership traits in his
people. There is various ways he used in doing just that. One of
the method used are leading by example in which he would display
his willingness to follow the rules and act accordingly according to
the situation. He says that we as a manager or leader must show
our commitment to whatever rules or policies made otherwise how
should we expects the subordinates to follow them. In his everyday
corporate life he will display the values of a leader in front of the
subordinates hoping that they will somehow absorb the values and
characteristics showed. In the corporation also, he claims that a
good leader must deliver their promise to the subordinates no
matter and it is best that a leader should not make promises to
subordinates.
Besides that, he also instills the foundation for good leadership
traits in his subordinates by being strict and shrewd. As we know,
he was brought up by a strict disciplinarian and a school teacher
and this have imparted him with those values. This phenomenon
has led to the formation of disciplined, innovative, creative and
exciting working place. The working place environment also
important to create, sustain and possibly boost the subordinates
morale and motivation. He also encourages his subordinates to be
creative, innovative and avoid risk adverse personality. Now, it is
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agreed that all the above qualities are a good leadership traits. By
putting all of these qualities in the working environment, Tan Sri
Azman Hashim has instilled the foundation of good leadership
traits in his subordinates.
One of the methods used to instill or encouraged his subordinates
with the good leadership traits is by empowering his subordinates
on the selected tasks. By doing this, the subordinates will be able
to shine and display their qualities. Aside from that, empowering
also encourage the subordinates to be creative and innovative in
performing tasks because in finishing those tasks they will only
have themselves and the team to performed the task. He also
instills the leadership qualities by working together with the
subordinates in their daily tasks. By working together like that, he
will be able to monitor and at the same time coach them to do their
jobs. The process of mentoring and coaching will definitely impart
certain leadership qualities in the subordinates.
He also claims that it is not necessary to change employees
because this will make them retaliate and possibly left the
organization bringing the company‟s information and values with
them. This is for the same reason that a leader should not treat their
subordinates the same. Every subordinate have their own
perspectives, talents, behavior, attitudes and thought patterns. It is
a good leader duty and responsibilities to manage and put the
difference in the course that will benefit the organization. Every
subordinate have different talents and potential and this is also the
responsibilities of a good leader to channel the talents and improve
on the potential then to assign them to the right position.
The ability to assign the right people to the right position is very
important in ensuring an organization success. This is because, it is
important to match their talent to the suitable tasks. As a
conclusion, Tan Sri Azman Hashim uses various methods to instill
the characteristic and the traits of leadership in his subordinate. He
uses empowerment, mentoring, coaching and getting involved with
the subordinate to get to know them and instill the values and
leadership traits. His subordinates also claim that he is a fun man
to work with. He will walk his subordinates through the decision
making process and indirectly show them how it should be made,
what consideration should be taken and how to manage the
consequence of the decision.
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Leaders Mission in Corporate Life
Tan Sri Azman Hashim mission in his personal life is to enjoy live
considering the struggles he have overcome in life including
almost died in tragic accident and deep in debt when there is
breakdown in property market and the struggles he has to
overcome when in dealing with economic recession. His mission in
corporate life would be to be the greatest corporate leader there is.
This would explain why he is not retired considering his wealth
and his age. He has treated his work as an important part of his life
and if he were to retire he will deeply miss the challenges. The
sensation he gets when he is playing with risk and problems also
the satisfaction he gets when he resolve the problems or challenge
is what he is seeking in his corporate life. It is almost like he is the
one seeking the problems and challenge in his corporate life not
the other way around. Even in his daily tasks he would constantly
looking for new way of performing it because if it becomes
redundant it would be too boring for him. Basically, we can say
that his first mission in his corporate life is to seek as many
challenges as he can and solve it.
His second mission in his corporate life would be preparing
Malaysia for the future by recruiting, training, developing and
shaping young minds to be a great corporate leader. This would
explain why he is sponsoring bright young mind through their
education. As discussed earlier, his constant involvement in
FSTEP which is a program of talent enrichment in financial sector
in Malaysia will be the proof of his commitment. In one of his
speech also he emphasized on the mastering of English language in
young mind to cope up with the new generation of business. His
belief is that in this new era there are various new ways of doing
business waiting to be discovered and applied. Not only that, he is
also involve in a non-profit organization to analyze the past
political leaders in Malaysia to be used as reference in the future.
He claims that he is not cut out for politics so he would not pursue
any position in the political system. Basically we can say that his
mission in this area is to train the young generation to be a great
future corporate leader.
The third corporate life mission would be to give back to the
needy. In this context, there are a lot of charities organization
either registered under his name or he is involved with. He believes
that everyone deserves a good life and he will try to help in any
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way he can. A lot of donation made for the extremely poor family
and he feels like it is the time to give back to the society. Think
that the gap of poverty and the gap in income distribution should
been eliminated to achieve the Malaysia‟s vision of 2020. Aside
from that, he is also either member or chairman of foundation like
cancer‟s foundation and liver‟s foundation. He is using his
leadership skills to lead those organizations towards better
performance thus it will increase the people they will be able to
help in the future. In this context, his corporate life vision would be
to use his skills and wealth to help and share with people in need.
In conclusion, Tan Sri Dato‟ AzmanHashim is an excellent leader
who loves life very much and he is also willing to share his wealth
with others. He is a man of great vision where he cares very much
about the future of his country. He is continuously involved in the
process of breeding leaders in corporate world. Always have love
challenges he continue to work in corporate life seeking more
challenge. It is the challenge in the new era that intrigues him and
made him stay in the corporate life. His past achievement is the
proves that he is a great leader in corporate.
Leadership Leader Usually Suggests For Malaysian Corporate
Houses
Tan Sri Azman Hashim suggests several types of leadership for
corporate leader in Malaysian companies. For starter, he suggests
that Malaysian corporate leader should use the transformational
leadership style. Transformational leader will motivate his team to
be effective and efficient. In this type of leadership,
communication is very important because leader will act as a
change agent or in other words catalyst for change. This will
require effective communication skills on the leader parts. In this
sense, leader must make sure that changes are well adapted and the
resistance is minimized in the group. Empowerment is usually a
method used under this style of leadership. The leader will portray
the picture and the goal of the team, make sure that the goal of an
organization and each individual shared the common goal. The
leader will provide the road on how the tasks should be performed
and the subordinates will performed them as they see fit.
Tan Sri Azman Hashim also suggests that Malaysian companies to
emphasize on the balance task and people oriented leadership .
Task oriented leadership is the leader who emphasize on the task
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and how they should be performed. In people oriented leadership,
the leader will emphasize on developing the relationship with their
subordinate .They will get to know their subordinate and find a
better way to lead them. This is because each individual is different
in their needs, wants, motivational trigger, behavior and attitudes.
In this sense, it is the role and responsibility of a good leader to get
to know each of the subordinates personally in order to adjust to
the differences. He also suggests that a good leader should not treat
the employees equally because of the differences mentioned
before. It is very rare to find a leader who would do this to their
subordinates and it is one of the reasons why they cannot advance
in leading their people. Aside from that, he also emphasize on
spending more time with the excellent employees performer
because the leader can give compliment on the success and at the
same time plan for more advanced goal/performance measure. This
is because when they target their performance and they achieve it
then there would be no more challenge so to avoid this, the leader
should be able to come up with new higher target for that staff. By
doing this also would motivate the underperformed staff to
perform more to be in the good side of the leader.
The singing banker also suggests that Malaysian leader to use the
charismatic leadership style to lead their people. The characteristic
of a charismatic leader is that they love life, they give hope and
they share themselves with their subordinates. They lead by
defining the character, describe the happy ending, describe the not
so happy beginning and describe the action need to be taken by the
subordinates. In describing the happy ending, the leader would ask
the follower to imagine what they would feel if they achieve their
goal. The on to describing the not so happy beginning, the leader
would have to explain that in achieving the shared goal, there
would be struggle especially in the beginning of the process. Then
the leader would put the guidelines on what are the action needs to
be taken to achieve that common goal.
In conclusion, the singing banker also suggest that the leader in
Malaysian corporation to use full leadership rather than partial
leadership. Full leadership means that they use all three elements
of head, heart and guts. In applying these elements the leader
should know how to read the situation which mean that there is
time to be task oriented, time to be people oriented and there is
time to be strict in leading the organization towards its goals and
objectives. The ability of the leader to align the goal of individual
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follower with the goal of the company is also emphasized. Las but
not least the leader should be able to treat the followers they way
they want to be treated not the way he want to be treated because
of the differences in nature and attitude.
CRITICAL EVALUATION ON LEADERSHIP
The leadership of Tan Sri Azman is not questionable because he
has able to transform two small banks into large banks and in
doing that there are several struggles he had overcome. The
struggles mentioned was very crucial which were the property
breakdown and the Asian economic recession. The quality of
leadership he displays was the key in bringing the subordinates
together and working towards the common goal together. Also,
after he survived the tragic accident which almost claims his life he
did not falter and break down but instead he becomes stronger.
Enough about that, his leadership styles are mostly originated from
the traits he has which resulting from the wisdom imparted by his
parents. His development since he was a child is very important
contributors to his leadership quality today. He loves his job, his
life and his subordinates which makes him adopting several types
of leadership styles. The important thing is that he is a strategist
and he used all his leadership abilities and qualities to make sure
that the strategy he comes up with way to see it through.
He emphasizes on the combination of transformational, task-
oriented, people-oriented, authoritarian and diplomatic leadership
approaches. When he comes up with a strategy he will model the
way, inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, enable others
to act and encourage the heart. Modeling the way is including
putting the big picture into several smaller ones and devise method
to achieve the big picture. The next step is to inspire the shared
vision which is including picturing the success and what it would
feel like if they are to achieve the goal. The he will challenge the
process which is to put the devised method into a test and see if
they are feasible. In the next step, he would enable his subordinate
to act towards that common goal by various approaches such as
empowering and authoritarian approaches. The last step is to
motivate the subordinates to work harder in achieving that
common goal and this is where the relationship oriented leadership
is important because in order to determine each one of the
subordinates motivation triggers the leader should get to know
their people.
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Leadership is indeed important in determining the success of an
organization and also in personal development. It is very rare to
find a leader in everything and it is important to know that even a
leader have their flaws. This is because after all they are also
human being and they are bound to make mistakes. The important
thing to remember is how they react and amend to those mistakes
they made and this is what makes them different from the ordinary
people. Lastly, a leader should be more future oriented rather than
past oriented because the past is history and we cannot change
them. What we can do is to learn from those mistakes and avoid
making them in the future. Every leader is not the same; they do
not have the same traits, qualities, thought patterns and perception
towards things. It is true that there are leaders in everything and
this only means that leaders are not specific to only one type of
leader and segment. For example, Tan Sri Azman might be a
leader in banking business but he might not be a leader in
marketing or other functional areas in an organization.
Finally, Tan Sri Azman is proven to be a good leader in what he
does. From his leadership qualities, he has come a long way and
bringing the company he helm to the success one after another first
it was Malayan Banking then it is AmBank. To sum it up he was
raised to be a leader and then he was presented with the
opportunity to be a successful leader but not without struggles. In
this sense, we can say that to be a great leader there is another
aspect which is also need to be considered which is luck.
SUMMARY
In this assignment, the leadership traits such as conscientiousness,
persistence, honesty, reliable, hardworking, motivated and high
level of energy are identified and analyzed. Tan Sri Azman
Hashim has all of the above qualities and so far we have seen that
he has able to steer his organization towards success. Aside from
those qualities, there are also other qualities which are risk
acceptance, challenge seeking, the ability to empathy and
communication skills are important. All these abilities are
necessary to be a great leader. Some of these abilities are born with
but several of them are acquired through experiences and
environment. The importance of leadership is important but the
quality of a great leadership is more important in an organization.
This is because it does not matter how good the leader is, the thing
that matter is the matching of the leadership qualities and attributes
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with the organization environment. This might be why there is a
program called leadership change adopted in organization s
especially when they encountered leadership related problem.
Leadership change does not mean changing the leader per se but
changing how the leader led the organization.
Some say that leaders are born but that is not necessarily true
otherwise why would there be leadership development training.
Leadership development training is given to a leader when they are
climbing to another level of leadership. This means that leadership
qualities can be imparted to a leader. Take Tan Sri Azman Hashim
for example, he have been imparted with disciplines and wisdom
by his parents. What important is that the leader have deep interest
and personal value in doing the job chosen. For the singing banker,
he loves the challenges and the risk in doing business and the
satisfaction from solving the challenge. This is what makes him
great at his job and great in leading his subordinates. From all this
we can say that the combination of leadership and strategist is a
great combination and if they are properly led it would be a great
success. If we look at the leadership level, Tan Sri Azman Hashim
would be at least the third last level of leadership. Basically
leadership is an art of making people follow a person without
lifting a finger. It might sound simple by in doing this it is not
necessarily easy at all. We have seen corporations, organizations
and even giant corporate companies collapse because of bad
leadership. True that most of them come from financial fraud but
this just show that their leader fail in influencing them to work
towards the same shared vision.
Overall this paper has helped to get in-depth understanding in
leadership. It is one thing to learn about theories but to see one
applies the theories in real life and excellent at it is another thing.
This assignment has helped me explore the leadership quality,
leadership approach, leadership styles and leadership development.
After doing the study on Tan Sri Azman Hashim, I have learn a lot
from leadership and how the lead their company to success. Also
by doing this assignment, I have gain confidence and motivation
learning from the success of a fellow human. If he is able to be a
successful person in what he like to do why not me. This
assignment has stirred my deep interest in the leadership subject.
Finally, finding information in preparing this assignment is quite
difficult to be obtained. Some of the information is assumptions
based on the speeches and the company‟s annual report. I hope to
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learn more about the art of leadership and hopefully able to master
them and become a successful corporate leader myself. Lastly, Tan
Sri Azman Hashim also emphasized on English language mastery
because it is currently the business language and nowadays is the
age of globalization. This means that we will do business with
companies across border.
REFERENCE
Bass, B. & Steidlmeier, P. (1999). Ethics, Character, and
Authentic Transformational Leadership Behavior. The
Leadership Quarterly, 10, 181 –217.
Fanelli, A. & Misangyi. V.F. (2006). Bringing out Charisma: CEO
Charisma a nd External Stakeholders‟, Academy of
Management Review, 31 (4), 1049 –61.
Flynn, F.J. & B.M. Staw. (2004). Lend Me Your Wallets: The
Effect of Charismatic Leadership on External Support for
an Organization. Strategic Management Journal, 25 (4),
309–30.
Pickett, C. (2005) Understanding Ethical Leadership, ASBBS E-
Journal, 1 (1), http://www.asbbs.org/files/2005/PDF/Pickett
.pdf (Retrieved on 19.03.2012).

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