Influential Global Leaders - Mahathir Muhammad - Prime Minister of Malaysia

Mahathir Muhammad is a politician who had served as Prime Minister of Malaysia for 22 years from 1981-2003. The longevity of his term proves how he was well liked within his country. He is the longest serviced Prime Minister within the country of Malaysia and the most loved. He is well known as a great leader as he was in touch with the countries needs economically versus being selfish in power and control.

He was brought up in a large family that was very poor and had to work hard for their needs. With the upbringing of this lifestyle this was a huge attribute to his connection to the people as he was empathetic and wanted to move Malaysia in the positive direction economically and to increase the moral of the Malaysian community. His leadership ability to have the empathetic connection with the Malaysian people was what helped him become very successful along with the passion of what his beliefs where. Drawing those experiences from his childhood and common place of a huge population of Malaysian people he created innovated ideas to bring economic growth and most importantly, focus on education to ensure literacy was predominant throughout the country. Although Malaysia is still considered as a third world country he vocalized his economic vision for Malaysia to become a fully developed country within 30 years, Vision 2020. With his visions and the counterparts needed to achieve, he's developed many educational programs and economic projects to provide Malaysia a go forward process to possibly achieve this goal soon.

In reviewing past articles between Asian business leadership styles in comparison to US, one of the main differences culturally is the center focus of family. Like Mahathir his upbringing and family was the biggest life experience that was so relatable to the Malaysian people. He was able to empathize and effectively vocalize his vision that provided hope and positive results to the people. In comparison to the US, America is such a melting pot of diversity that it is hard for us to have a leader that can relate to every type of family within. Leadership within the US is listened when there is a directive, participative and empowering figure that effective expresses their ideas that can be well understood by the general population.

Some qualities that are common in leadership between US and Asian leadership are conviction, integrity, and decisiveness. Today it is seen that Asian leadership styles are becoming more like the West but there are always going to be cultural differences that will remain continuously. Ultimately a great leader must be focused on creating positive moral, create effective tools and programs to assist in vision, and vocally express direction in order to achieve success.

References

Mahathir Muhammad of Malaysia: Great and selfless leaders always focus on the development of their nations and not on their personal wealth.