A distinguished blog: The age of toxic personalities

It was a hazy Sunday afternoon here in Kuala Lumpur , API index > 250 and staying indoors seemed to be my best bet. Whilst sipping on Spritzer, I tuned in to Radiotunes and chose my favourite jazz station “Smooth Nova Bossa” and ironically Maria Augusta’s track “Smoke gets in your eyes” was being aired, an expression of my exact thoughts, live from my android app, technology is indeed advanced just like the automated store i visited some days back, as it shouted- hey charming!

: Trendy County Automated Store @ KLIA

I moved over to my subscribed readings and came across an interesting article; “8 toxic types of people you should keep out of your life”, and you probably are able to guess the types, however for the sake of clarity, I am summarizing it as below:

Those who are judgmental
Those who are envious
Those who are control freaks
Those who arrogant
Those who are victims
Those who are negative nancies
Those who are liars
Those who are gossipers

Without reaching out to my crystal ball, my gut tells me that you are in agreement as you gently nod your head. From a personal stand point there are 2 more types that we should ideally stay away from:

Those who fail to keep their promise (subset of liars)
Those who only think about themselves

Now let’s focus to somewhere closer to my heart; Malaysia, a land of approximately 30M people comprising of 3 distinct cultures, a former British colony; strategically located in South East Asia, rich in natural resources like crude and palm oil and has been boasting a GDP growth of 4 to 6% in the last 10 years mainly arising from service, manufacturing and the construction industry. Sounds pretty impressive doesn’t it? On the flipside, Malaysia also had its fair share of scrutiny from the media and west; three most prominent topics were as follows:

The iron fist former prime minister – Tun Dato Sri Mahathir Mohd with his radical views and his infamous debate with George Soros who apparently single handedly devalued the ringgit in the late 90’s
The infamous quota system to protect the majority from the minority
The sodomiser – Anwar Ibrahim

In 2014, Malaysia probably became the first country in the history of mankind to have 3 crises in the aviation industry which was not only a disturbing experience but a very tormenting one for many. One can only imagine the mental torcher the family members of the victims went through, as the coverage during the MH 370 crisis was not only poorly delivered but was inconclusive and vague in a very Malaysian way. To the common Malaysian, it was probably another instance where things were handled the “Malaysian Way” similar to the elections in 2013, but to the global media, investors and prospective investors it sent a very different message. A message, that reflected poorly on the leadership regime in Malaysia. This was further amplified in 2015, by allegations of USD 700M corruption which was responded to as “Donation” by the country’s political regime and the USD 10B operational losses from 1 Malaysian Development Board whose primary objective was to establish long term strategic objectives that later was known to have gone horribly wrong ! With such allegations and very little effort of retaliation by the incumbent prime minister, it only suggested the obvious, resulting in a moment of remorse for most of us in Malaysia.

This did not end here, allegations of corruption, leadership incompetency, racial disintegration amongst a small group of individuals, near shallow comments released by the incumbent government officials and the recent hire & fire of righteous government officials are just one of the many different ways, Malaysia invited her self into more trouble to an already troubled Malaysia.

It is time for a reform, not just any type, a political reform to get things back on track. We have come this far and there is no turning back. More importantly from a principle standpoint, the future and fate of 30M people can’t rest in a handful of people, definitely not in this time and age.

It does not take much effort to imagine what the incumbent regime is probably thinking, “give it time and we be back on track”. That’s certainly one way of solving the problem on hand, worked in the past but i am doubtful it would work this time. The last thing Malaysia needs right now is another fluff.

Now returning back to the earlier part of this blog, the “ 8 toxic types of people you should keep out of your life”, well if I am to take the shared examples as the gospel truth, the shared examples suggest behavioral traits of point 3,7, 9 and 10.

Many are in the view that there is a meaningful relationship between personality and values, and frankly my experience being in the corporate world suggests the same. To define this whole relationship between values and personality, let’s break this to meaningful chunks and let’s try to understand it well.

“Values” are defined as principles or behaviours that one believes in and “Personality” on the other hand is a combination of qualities (derived from principles and beliefs).

It will begin to get apparent that values and personality are linked and a critical ingredient when it comes to leadership, let it be leadership at home, school, office and more importantly in the context of leading a country.

When I was much younger and when I first heard about the Lewinsky scandal with Bill Clinton, I did not really see the hype, being a teenager I quickly got back to listening to “The man who sold the world” by Nirvana with the thought that Bill was a good leader , gave US the boost it needed in terms of an economic perspective, and that was really what mattered most. It was years later whilst in the final year of my undergraduate degree, I reflected and soon realized why it was not socially acceptable and frankly , could not bring myself to readily accept the conclusion i made on this subject years ago.

Value based leadership would need to be theme for Malaysia in the next elections by 2018, in my many years of employment, performing various roles, I have met and spoken with many leaders whom I felt practiced, value based leadership suggesting there is no shortage of such individuals in Malaysia. Interestingly, when I observed the players in the political regime, such individuals are scarce and often overshadowed by individuals who speak but not their minds, but to appease others to garner more support for a personal agenda and ignore objectivity altogether.

The opposition party in 2013 whose main objective was to bring “change”, was unsuccessful to win the majority vote, however successfully narrowed the gap with a 40% win. Today 2 years later and with Anwar Ibrahim back in the cell unfortunately for sodomy, the party gives a very a dim hope on "change". At best the opposition party is able to challenge the ruling party but any ability to bring a significant change is limited to how the constitution has been written by the incumbent party, that is to indirectly to provide a handful of individuals sole authority. Without authority and allocation of funds, it is almost impossible even for a marvel character hero to bring any meaningful change when it comes to the political playing field.

What does this suggest? A doom and gloom situation? Certainly NOT. There is definitely hope, one should never stop hoping however it is a call for action, a call for Malaysians like you and me to step up and do our part to make a difference. For those of us, who believe that they have what it takes to get things on track, now is your time to make that difference and take on the role, for those of us who are opinionated, start sharing your opinions on channels where you can be heard and for the rest of us who like reading blogs and being on social media please use your influence to promote individuals who demonstrate the right behavior.

Whilst you are doing that and about to fly out of Malaysia for a short holiday to reflect on this blog but find your mobile phone running out of charge, do check this innovative store – Trendy County Automated Store and you may meet its founders who are also very passionate about Malaysia.