‘Leadership without conscience led to 1MDB fiasco’
PETALING JAYA: Many international scandals, including that of 1MDB Bhd, are the disastrous result of leadership without conscience, says Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail.
The Deputy Prime Minister said despite many regulations in place, scandals such as 1MDB happened because those involved had “no conscience”.
“In the United States, we have the Enron (financial) fiasco and the subprime (mortgage) crisis. Closer to home, we have the 1MDB scandal.
“In all of these failures, there were regulations in place, government mechanisms and reporting systems.
“Yet they all failed because all of those individuals behind these crises stopped listening to their conscience and succumbed to greed,” Dr Wan Azizah said in her keynote address at the Asean Corporate Responsibility and Sustainable Development Summit here yesterday.
The multi-billion dollar 1MDB scandal has spawned worldwide investigations, with United States officials saying more than US$4.5bil (RM18bil) flowed from 1MDB through a web of opaque transactions and shell companies.
Former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak is at the centre of the investigations, although he has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing on his part.
Dr Wan Azizah said people often expected their leaders to do good, but more often than not, the leaders
failed their people.
“They allow their personal interests to override common interests and use their wealth to buy influence.
“Unfortunately, there are some among us who become willing followers of these bad leaders, who have no moral compass,” she said.
She urged corporations and individuals to support leaders who
were constantly guided by their “moral compass”.
She added that it was unfortunate that the pursuit of key performance indicators (KPI) often created leaders who were “myopic”.
“They are only concerned with meeting KPI and anything else not included is seen as irrelevant and of little interest to them.
“Our business schools teach
future leaders how to achieve more efficiency, how to generate better returns on investment and the net present value of investments, but they give less attention to the role of conscience in leadership,” she said.