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Anknowledgement: Personal Development (Mgt543) Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim As My Idol
Anknowledgement: Personal Development (Mgt543) Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim As My Idol
Anknowledgement: Personal Development (Mgt543) Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim As My Idol
ANKNOWLEDGEMENT
Not to forget, I would also like to thank all my friends in BMB3F for giving me
moral support and share some few ideas which are required for this assignment. Without
them all, I might face many problems which will slow down my assignment making
process. Also to both of my parent in Terengganu because burdening themselves for
sending me some books that I can use as source of references for this assignment. With
their help, I was able to make this assignment without any difficulty.
_______________________
(FARIQ BIN ABDULLAH)
An idol can be any person from the walks of life. The idol can be anyone, from
our own parent, teacher, superstar to politician. In the simple words, anyone can be
choose as an idol as long as he fits with certain quality that make him deserved to get the
title.
From my point of views on idol, an idol is an individual that able to influence the
behavior, thinking or act of those who idolize him. To have such kind of ‘power’, that
idol must have the high level of personal quality which is become the core value to
become an idol. Quoted from “Enhancing Personal Quality” written by Ranjit Singh
Malhi and Robert W. Reasoner, “personal quality is a the degree to which an individual
expresses positive attributes, practices good human relationships and exhibits superior
work performance”. Therefore, I personally believe that an idol can serve as a function
that can be a guideline to those who want to enhance their own personal quality.
Every one of us (including the subject matter that I will focus on in this
assignment), has the capability to enhance our level of personal quality regardless of our
age, lineage, experience or academic qualification. That is why; I would like to
strengthen my argument that, we can use our idol as a role model to be followed if we
want to get ourselves involve in personal quality enhancement’s processes.
The quality of an idol can be judged based on many criteria such as his
interpersonal characteristic, traits behavior, his contribution to the society or his
achievement in his career. We might not be able to follow exactly hundred percent of our
idol’s footsteps, but we can take some parts of the elements from our idol’s ‘success
story’ to become our guidelines for improving our own personality.
As for my assignment for Personal Development course (MGT 543), I choose the
most controversial politician in Malaysia’s political arena. Although there might some
people that are not comfortable with the idol that I will focus on, it won’t make me to
look behind because this is the person that I most idolized and respected. He is Malaysian
Opposition leader – Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
Anwar was invited to join the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), the
ruling party, and the government in 1982, by then Prime Minister Mahathir
Mohamad. His rise in the party and in the government was meteoric. He was elected in
1984, as Leader of UMNO Youth and in 1986, became a Vice-President of UMNO. He
served as Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports in 1983; Minister of Agriculture in 1984;
In 1993, Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim was appointed to become Deputy Prime
Minister of Malaysia. He also served as Minister of Finance for Malaysia from 1991-
1998. Highly respected for his principled stance against corruption and his skillful
management of the Malaysian economy during the turbulent period of its financial crisis,
Anwar is also viewed as one of the forefathers of the Asian Renaissance and a leading
proponent of greater cooperation among civilizations. He is ardent supporter of
democracy and is an authoritative voice bridging the widening gap between East and
West.
POSITIVE
PERSONAL
ATTRIBUTES
SUPERIOR GOOD
WORK HUMAN
PERFORMANCE RELATIONSHIP
When a person becomes a politician, he or she will be unable to run away to run
away from having certain elements which are very important in their career. One of the
elements is having the positive personal attributes in them. Positive personal attributes is
important because it is a core that influence an individual’s performance in their life or
career.
Let us see in the case of Anwar. Even since he was still young child, he already
has the positive personal attributes within him. One of the attributes is self esteem.
Usually, people with high self-esteem are generally confident of themselves, self
directed, decisive, eager to express idea, loving and lovable. This situation can be related
to Anwar’s life. During his school life in Malay College Kuala Kangsar (MCKK), he was
the President of Persatuan Bahasa Melayu where he also active in debate and oral
speaking activities. Such activities required to have high self-esteem in order to involve
such activities. Here we can conclude that Anwar is definitely having the self-esteem’s
attribute.
Apart from having self-esteem as a positive personal attributes, a politician must
also have to maintain self-discipline. According to from “Enhancing Personal Quality”
written by Ranjit Singh Malhi and Robert W. Reasoner, self discipline is essentially
focusing one’s attention on important activities, which contribute towards the
attainment of worthwhile goals, without distraction until they are completed. Indeed,
some politician has their own ultimate goal. To achieve the goal, they need to maintain
their discipline. This include in the case of Anwar. His primary goal is to achieve the
mutual coexistence between the East and West civilization. He was working tirelessly to
bring this ideal into reality. He has organized many conferences and forums around the
world in order to spread his words about the meaning of harmonious coexistence between
two civilizations. Indeed, all these efforts requiring him to maintain his discipline.
Lastly, one of Anwar’s greatest positive personal attributes is the desire to learn
new knowledge and skill. When Anwar in his university days, he was not really good in
academic (because he spent too much of his time in extra-curriculum activities rather that
study). But, the desire of seeking knowledge was strong within him. That is why, his
intellectual capability never deteriorate at all. Another perfect example, Anwar did not
have any formal Economy or Finance education when he was a student. However, he still
able to become a great Finance Minister because of the desire of learning in Anwar.
Anwar Ibrahim is a politician who always maintains his good relationship with his
current supporter. This is to make sure that his supporter will feel so close to him and feel
appreciated by him. He is also have high family value. He is a loving husband and father.
The bond between him and his family is really strong. His wife, Wan Azizah and his
eldest daughter, Nurul Izzah fight along with his in national political stage.
The most challenging part in the issue of good human relationship especially in
politics is the cultural diversity. As we all know, Malaysia is consist with wide variety of
races, ethnic group and language. Each of Malaysian has a different perception and the
way of thinking influenced by their own cultural background. In order to gain support
from other race than Malay (Chinese, Indian, Iban, Bidayuh, Kadazan etc.), Anwar has
learn their cultural background to enhance his understanding about the way they think.
This is to make sure that he able to break the cultural barrier to create good human
relationship with them.His past involvement in youth movements has enabled him to
meet and fraternize with people of diverse backgrounds, races and beliefs. This has
imbued in him not merely a strong sense of tolerance for others but a sincere and fervent
belief that all of us belong to only one community and that is the universal community of
mankind.
Anwar is really good using his orator skill in order to gain influence his
supporters. There is a proverb said “words can be the most powerful weapon than
sword” and it is indeed true. Anwar has equipped this ability since he was young student
in MCKK. It is not easy to be a good orator. One need to master the uses of language and
able to use body language perfectly. Every time Anwar does his speech, he will deliver
his speech with a full energy in the front of audiences.
A politician not must only have the orator skill. He is also need to be
knowledgeable. Knowledge is important for a politician because it can be used as a
“weapon and shield” in the political arena. Many of our previous politicians were loss in
the national political arena because they lack of this crucial element. Anwar has been
prioritizing in seeking knowledge for his own benefit. That is why he reads a lot. Even
when he was in prison, he didn’t sit there doing nothing. He filled his free time in the
prison by reading a lot of books! Indeed, knowledge can be found in any condition no
matter what situation you are in.
Anwar is not only a good politician. He is also a great financial planner during his
tenure as Finance Minister. When he was in that position, Malaysia enjoyed remarkable
prosperity and economic growth and able to compete with other Asian countries such as
Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan and South Korea. Anwar’s impact on the economy was
Summary
As a conclusion, I dare to say that Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim is one of his kind in
the world. He is a unique politician in Malaysia’s political arena nowadays. Each of his
life chapters has inspired so many people including myself. Being a politician is not an
easy job. There was once a politician told me, “Politician becomes a politician since he
was born into this world. And if he failed in politics, meaning that he will lose
everything”. The factor that influences the perception of the voters toward politician is
the personal quality which comprise of three main ingredients: positive personal
attributes, good human relationship and superior work performance. And it is really hard
because a politician need a certain degree of level in their personal quality within them.
They must really able to maintain the positiveness in their personal quality in order to
maintain the support from their voters.
Reference
Wray, Ralph, Luft, Roger, and Highland, Patrick. (1996). "Fundamentals of Human
Relations: Applications for Life and Work". Cincinnati, OH: Southwestern Publishing.
http://www.anwaribrahim.com