Honesty and integrity, hallmarks of a good professional

The superiority complex with I, me, mine concept should be replaced with honesty and integrity to be a good professional was the advice from a top notch professional to the graduating Chartered Accountants at the Convocation of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (CA Sri Lanka) held last week at the BMICH.

This advice came from Mahendra Jayasekera, Managing Director, Lanka Walltiles PLC, as Guest of Honour.

At this Convocation, 291 were graduated to be Associate Chartered Accountants and 62 were elevated to be Fellow Chartered Accountants.

Mr. Jayasekera said: “The concept of you know everything and others know nothing would fail you as professionals but you must have faith in people.” He stressed that every religion has one thing in common – the supremacy of human potential.

While every religion indicates that it is extremely difficult to achieve the ultimate bliss they preach of, the human potential could make them achieve it. But, he cautioned that there is no stricture in these religions to say that only the educated or the talented could reach this bliss.

So, he said “When you leave this door, after graduation and to taste success as a professional, leave the superiority complex out of your mind.”

He said that though every professional tries to excel in excellence, the clear and bigger purpose of professional education – whether they be accountants, lawyers, engineers, architects or whatever- is to be of service to the people and to achieve justice and fair play. The service has to be with extreme truthfulness and highest integrity, he asserted.

Lasantha Wickramasinghe, President, CA Sri Lanka, in awakening the young professionals to the present day realities of the burst of knowledge and impending machines taking over the day to day administration work in companies, said that at least more than 50 per cent of the routine work of the accountants and lawyers would be taken over by the machines with 99 per cent accuracy.

Thus, he said that the professionals have to be always relevant to the global and local trends as every second things are changing.

He said that the value addition, respect and reputation of older companies of 40 to 50 years of history are fading compared to companies of five to six years of existence such as some courier companies, Google and software companies, adding: “So be ready, you got to think out of the box and work hard and it is challenging like nothing”.

Rishad Bathiudeen, Minister of Industry and Commerce and Chaminda Weerakkody, Minister of Skills Development and Vocational Training were the chief guests at the occasion.