I attended a Global Leadership and Mentoring Congress in August at Ritz Carlton Hotel. CEOs and founders of public listed companies were invited to share their leadership experiences.
All the top management have their own definition of what made a good leader and blah blah blah. When Mr YY Wong, Chairman of the Wy Wy Group, was speaking on the subject that leaders are made and not borne, alot of thoughts floated in my mind.
He mentioned that Warren Bennis, a guru in leadership studies, has said that it is a dangerous myth to say that leader is borne. If you subscribe to the notion that only some "blessed" ones can become leader, you are making an assumption that DNA exists -not quite right for someone whose faith is at odd with this.
Personally, being a practitioner and researcher of Bazi study, I hold my firm view that one must carry certain elements in him to become a great leader. May I remind you that it does not mean that one does not need to go through training and development as long as he has the DNA. Mr Ho Kwon Ping, Executive Chairman of Banyan Tree, Chairman of Mediacorp and SMU said that leadership quality needs to be "pushed" out from oneself. I agree.
Human beings are not homogeneous. We are made up of different molecular structures. We are borne on different days, time and location.
If you think that everyone can become a leader one day, why did some remain as followers of leader? Why did one become a leader later than his counterpart? Why only a select few are groomed to become the leader? What is the differentiating factor?
Why some people can never become leaders no matter how hard they work? During the session, Banyan Tree co-founder, Ms Claire Chiang, mentioned a chinese phrase which I thought is crucial in the making of a great leader that people respect - 天时地利人和.
What makes a great leader? I think some of the basic attributes are to have certain level of IQ, analytical power, far-sightedness, courage and the list goes on. I discover that the leaders who presented during the congress have something in common - articulate and the ability to capture your attention. They are really charismatic people. If not, how to get your buy-in?
Back to Bazi.
So, if you are to come to me one day and ask me to help you to pick a date (for C-section birth) to design a baby that you hope will become a leader one day, I will need to ensure the presence of certain stars in the baby's destiny chart. I will tell you here what are the must-have's, the good-to-have's and the should-not-have's.
First and foremost, I believe a leader must be courageous, brave but not foolhardy. A very important star that we would want to see in the bazi will be Officer or 7 Killing (官杀）or collectively known as Authority star. Its location, its strength and whether it exudes the desirable attributes that we want are something we should consider.
I would want this star to be revealed in the heavenly stem; and not goes into the graveyard - in bazi sense.
Hey, there are different types of leader right? You can have the diplomatic type like Bill Clinton; otherwise, you can choose to be the authoritative type like many Army Generals. There are those non-conformist types and martyrs and noble leaders like Jesus Christ.
All these depends on what bazi structure the person has. Favourable output elements coupled with good authority will make you a personable, humorous and respectable leader.
Overwhelming authority stars which are negative in the chart with no Resource or Output elements are people that are likely to be very impulsive and aggressive. They can be ruthless and very extreme in their leadership.
But are they bad leaders? It is a matter of perspective.
