Secrets to great leadership
A professor and consultant talks about what makes Thai leaders worth following
asin Graduate Institute of Business of Chulalongkorn University professor and CQ Leadership Consulting CEO and author Larry S. Persons spent seven years researching the cultural and social capital of Thai leaders. The fruit of his thorough study is a book titled The Way Thais Lead: Face As Social Capital, which was published in 2016 by Silkworm Books. The book explores how “face” functions as social capital for leaders in Thai society and also examines the anatomy of Thai face, ways to gain, lose and maintain face, and its power. Addressing leadership, power and the importance of having true moral strength, Persons led an in-depth seminar session titled “The Way Thais Lead” at the National
Director Conference 2019, recently held at the Athenee Hotel, Bangkok. The seminar itself wa sbased on the book he authored. “It’s one of the few books that describe Thai leadership from the bottom up, not based on other leadership theories, but based on solid ethnographic research,” said Persons, a leadership development expert specialising in multi-cultural contexts. He has been helping leaders in Thailand navigate successfully between cultures to increase performance, productivity and financial stability. “The idea for my research came ab as Iwas talking to a number of leaders from many provinces during the past 10 years. Putting them through training programmes, I kept hearing some of the same words, as I asked leaders to say, ‘What is it about you that makes people follow you?,’ ‘What you need to have is what is indispensable for people to have a feeling that they want to follow,’” he said. “When they gave me answers, these five Thai words usually popped up — saksri [honour], kia [authority] chue siang [public acclaim], baramee [moral stren h], and nat [face]. And so I decided to dig deep with leaders on those five words.” shows a v ual model he came up with: a shape that looks like a cone. It unpacks the five keywords, of which he said the word “saksri ” is the foundation o all Thai face. “Saksri is basically honour inside of us. Or the more technical term would be endogenous honour,” he explained. “It is the amount of honour that we think we have.
“And it is the one kind of value that society cannot and does not afford us. We
don’t get it from society. It is within us, it’s within us from birth. And we have a sense as human beings that it becomes greater or lesser as we go through various experiences in our lives.” The next word is kiat, which means “authority” or “the honour piece”. The word is a lifter, because the more you have kia in society, the higher we are perceived as being. And if we might call it legitimate power, that is tied up with position, title, status and legal code.
“Public acclaim, or chuesiang, is how big your stage is. If you’re great or broad
at something, or if you holda certain pos - tion, and people know about it, then your reputation is good.” Next is moral strength. It is the absolute pinnacle of honour in Thai society. Persons said there are many successful leaders, but not everybody has true moral strength, or baramee.
“My point is that if the tip of the cone that is our honour in society is glowing with goals, that might mean moral strength is growing in our lives,” he said.
Persons said that in Thai society, the last word, which is nata, or face, usually comes with money and resources. Money buys respect, money buys influence, money buys convenience, so yes, it is an extremely coveted research resource.
“But what we need to know is the most superficial form of Thai face. And it is not tied to virtue whatsoever,” he said. “An so I call this prestige, or simple presti a period when you’re worthy of honour, is what nata gives you. But it doesn’ tgo directly to the source of your true honour.
Persons believ s that if we want board leadership that is truly sustainable, perhaps
focusing on maximum profit is not the bottom line to success.
After talking about Thai face, Persons also looked into social exchange, and deeply into the words boon koon, or favour, and baramee, or moral strength, where he saidthat he discovered two very distinct models of exchange between leaders and followers. They look almost identical, but the outcome is starkly different. “When the leader does something good for the follower, but the leader does it with strings attached, or looking for something in return, he doesn’t sayso,” he said. “But the follower gets the message and the follower has to respond. And so this idea exchange goes on. And this is not just a model for the mafia; it is the model of many, many leaders who consider themselves to be good leaders.”
The second model looks exactly the same: the leader does something kind to the follower, but does it with no strings attached. Persons said it’s impossible not to mention the late King Rama IX, who had both obligation and kindness, and exercised them so wisely and righteously.
“He was such a consistent example over many, many decades. Someone who had a great deal of power, but used power for the good of others and for the good of society and did not live selfishly,” he said.
“It is the most stable and enduring form of our entire society. The more you show you have moral strength, the more people give it to you. It’s amazing. It is empowerment, both for the leader and the follower. But the tricky thing about that is, well, most leaders in Thailand have a deep, deep devotion and respect for his example. But many decide that it’s impractical to follow his example, in the real competition of life.”
Prestige doesn’t go directly to the source of your true honour