Ryan Ho's Entrepreneurship Blog

Just like the leadership picture above, “The leader always sets the trail for others to follow”

In the recent ongoing Thailand flooding news, Yingluck Shinawatra the new Prime Minister of Thailand is immediately being placed in a position to be tested for her leadership and ability to take Thailand and move forward.

Being faced with the sudden flooding over increase rainfall and poor water dam management system, lack of governor support from Bangkok, she shares the same fate of any politician across the globe and suffered a recent drop in satisfaction in the country survey with her as the Prime Minister.

Looking back at how she became elected, most critics would clearly comment that it was her brother Thaksin Shinawatra who has elevated her status over close ties due to family bonding. Just as Yingluck was elected into the office, she had a minister office meeting with Thaksin on the video conference to advise the cabinet ministers on the exact steps and instructions on how to run the country prior to the flooding, so as to enforce a pillar of support drilling down into the cabinet ministers who are all guys to listen to Yingluck, as she can’t shake away the gossips of her being the puppet of her brother.

As to why Yingluck won, it’s clear to anybody who’s got concerned and knows the importance of network, connections to those individuals who has both power and ability to run a country where some ministers still trust Thaksin and not Yingluck.

Abhisit Vejjajiva the former Prime Minister on the other hand got to power by primarily having merchants and investors support on his side to climb up to that position, but it isn’t long before the truth is revealed as he also has got news reports of bribing or favoring investors more over country’s political laws at the expense of the poor.

Abhist got kicked out from the cabinet due to the almost similar method that he used on Thaksin, which is to favor the rich investors for support, but what he failed to do is to win the support of the poor too, a move that Thaksin did extremely well, at least when it comes to the Red Shirts.

If you were to follow closely to how Thailand’s change of leadership over the last few years where news surface and reasons contributing to their downfall. There’s a couple of reasons to why strong leadership is critical towards a success of a nation.

Strong leadership is important for the following reasons:

1. To lead and improve the living conditions of the masses (majority)

This is evident during Thaskin era when he was still the Prime Minister, having the support of both the Red and Yellow shirt party.

Red shirt support comes in the form of the poverty majority, whereas Yellow shirt comes in the form of silent support from the Thailand King who maintain a neutral position when Abhist was trying to topple Thaksin down, thus the Yellow shirt didn’t make much noise when he was at the top following the loyalty to the King.

2. To go against the views of the ill-informed (poor mindset individuals) who are making the wrong decisions to push forward against the tide to make reforms for the better future.

As much as Yellow shirt dislike Thaksin, could be due to wrong information, disagreements in how the country is being run, thus the strong opposition, but time has proven Thaksin to be clean and still holds influential support in terms of bilateral ties. Yingluck appointed a former Thaksin entrusted minister to fixed the strain ties between Cambodia and Thailand over the historical temple parked directly on the border of both countries and got the matter fixed.

Unlike before when Abhist was still in office, Thailand and Cambodia was like kids fighting each other just to win for the pride of their own ego just to prove their point in not backing down despite repeated agreements to cease-fire to return peace to the civilians living near the temple.

That said, connections is extremely important, as Countries and Businesses alike, they only work with people they like. Period.

3. Win the support of the majority to have a large bargaining chip to  to reach a mutually beneficial agreement on both sides internally within a country.

Thaksin has won over the hearts of many people, at least within the red shirts, the poor, middle class and even the high social status individuals including the ministers over proven track record of delivering results and profits for the benefit of the country.

The only thing he didn’t do is to cut all ties from his personal business when he is in office as a Prime Minister, thus causing the backlash and giving his political competitors an opportunity to use it against him placing himself on the chopping board.

4. To win the support of external players (foreign countries support for aid in times of need)

When Thaksin flew global and went into self-exile, many countries were willing to lend him a helping hand, it is solely because of his knowledge and experience in running a country and producing consistent profits and most importantly (proven results), strong support from home country despite his lack of physical absence, his popularity is still consistent and didn’t drop, but rise on the other hand. Something that other countries’ Ministers cannot achieve.

5. To balance and neutralize the poisonous intoxicated thinking of the poor over time in proving that the leadership roles taken by the Prime Minister is correct and ultimately win the support of the very people who are initially against him/her.

The most difficult part of leadership is also at times having to force down a bitter pill down the throat of the supporters for their own good even if they don’t see it that way. While Yingluck has just assume office in the cabinet, she has got more obstacles standing in her way than the other earlier prime ministers.

Only time will tell if she is up to the role as prime minister.

In terms of business, running a company is also like running a country, just that the roles and responsibility is somewhat smaller due to financial asset and the impact it has on the country.

But like any leader, the person running the company must have strong leadership skills and many different resources, network and flexible enough to solve problems when they do surface and making sure the problems do not repeat itself again in future.

Singapore did a good job in this aspect avoiding the most financial woes of US, and Europe as she learn her lessons not to be overdependent on foreign nations.But as much as Singapore is trying to avoid the effects of foreign woes, it will still be affected due to long term positive working relations that will affect the economy.

United States of Amercia (USA) on the other hand is still suffering the losses in financial market since the downfall of Lehman Brothers and without a huge bank occupying the leadership role, the side effects of a no leader situation is clear, where unemployment is high, made worse following most recently rogue trader with a $2.3 billion of trade loss adding to the unemployment woes.

In terms of Europe, it is primarily due to uncooperative to nation as Geek lets the people decide their own fate to accept foreign financial aid or not on condition they tighten their budget and make changes beneficial to foreign countries that will be painful to Geek civilians at least in the immediately short term.

It is clear that being at the top isn’t a simple task and is constantly under pressure to delivery, thus strong leadership skills is crucial if success at the top is what each and everyone of us are looking for.

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Tension is a strained relationship between both parties between individuals, groups or nations. It is the disagreements which both parties fail to come up with a mutually beneficial terms causing the relationship to be stretched and the bonding goes from thick to thin with each escalating issues surfacing.

It creates emotional strain, intense anxiety among everyone among those affected by the disagreements.

Tensions are everywhere, from average person walking on the streets to businesses, and even nations. All the way from the smallest average people like you and I to the biggest most powerful nations, all of us are living in a tensed up society these days with lots hidden unhappiness stored inside each nation waiting for eruption like a volcano. Each new failed or sour business relationship between two countries is like the sill of the volcano, the unhappiness among both countries is like the large magma chamber.

When a failed sour business caused relationships to take a slight turn for the worse, causing job losses in businesses affecting large scale especially among different countries, a parasitic cone is formed with lava flowing out from the parasitic cone slowly increasing the damage as it waits for the magma chamber to erupt with time.

There are so many examples to look at among different nations.

First up most frequently appeared in news media is China US bilateral ties issue which goes a long way, and is made worse with white house support Google from getting bullied by Baidu who is protecting the China identity at home and online.

Next up is US versus Iran, the quest to sweep the root of the terrorist clean and flush them out but it still has a long way to go. USA once missed the chance to plug out Osama Bin Laden as reported in one of the news reports last time, wanting to silence the ring leader, father of the terrorist who was personally trained by the US themselves.

Up next will be Thailand politics chaos situation, with the red shirt versus the yellow shirt. Former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra who made billions upon using his politics influence to increase his wealth, avoided paying tax and accused by current prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva who is constantly digging for new evidence to upset and reduce his influence in Thailand wanting to silence the opposition the red shirt but has yet to see any improvement, in fact he made the Thailand economy worse following the recent demonstration just in front of the Thailand airport causing it to be closed for a day, out of business suffering huge losses.

Up next closely is Korea, North and South Korea always appear in the news yearly due to tensions between cross-border with communist and democratic country respectively with the display of their military might and protection from strong nations from Russia and US respectively as backing.

The rest that follows are just minor national tensions purely for profits and tourism competition that not as important as those above.

Tensions arise for many reasons, without early antidote, it will escalate bigger and bigger over time like a volcano, once erupted, serious damage will be felt and casualties and business losses of people who live around the volcano area suffers.

Tensions are just identical to our health. A cold may be a minor issue which can heal and thus often overlooked, but it is leaves any after-effects, it will lead to serious complications, as cold, flu and cough are the minor symptoms.

Health is the core problem for individuals. Business tensions is the core problems for countries while politics and military related concerns affects the whole world if not at least the surrounding countries when there’s a surge in military might with purchase of weapons.

The next time you get into any disagreement, solve it instantly if not as soon as possible, else it will escalate into another business war whereby companies lose, profits reduced and only the consumers benefit from business battle. If it’s individual, sooner or later there will be more stares, arguments before turning to catfights or business sabotage depending on the genders.

So handle any arguments addressing right to the root of the problem, look at what caused the problem, don’t solve it only from the surface which will not help.

If you need examples: Look at hospitals around the whole world, the patients get sicker and more illness especially terminal and expensive illness find their way onto the patients increasing their burden. Have you ever heard of patients suffering from TCM, not even once at all since history?

Look at the difference, which medical practice should you seek help from, answer is obvious, if you want to save more money, choose TCM, but start early, and it will save you mountains of money bit by bit starting from young as TCM is all about healing all weakness of the body that cause a illness to surface, while western drugs only help heal the illness which has surface and not the root of the problem.

Understand the cause and effect, and entrepreneurship will be a breeze for those who understand it, building a strong mind with the right foundation as basics.

Good habits start from young.

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