Beyond Boundaries: Reflection from SMU Leadership Symposium

I was honored to be selected as one of Indonesian delegates for SMU Leadership Symposium 2018 held by Singapore Management University (SMU) under the theme of "Beyond Boundaries" from December 11th-13th, 2018. Selected from 300+ applicants together with 79 other participants from 11 countries (including Australia, India, and South Korea), I met a lot of wonderful new friends there, including my compatriots from Universitas Indonesia and Universitas Airlangga.

I learned a lot of fresh perspectives and spectrum of leadership issue, including leading a diverse teams and leading in digital era from keynote speech, workshops, self-reflection session, site visits, and group projects. We also have a special "Learning Journey in the City" session on Day 3 to do site visits on several different parts of the city-state and present it to other team, concluded with Farewell Dinner on the last evening.

The best part of the program? I won a SGD80 Starbucks gift card (almost 1 juta Rupiah!!!) as a winner of the social media competition!!!! So I share the gift mith my groupmates in Group 8 :D

Here is the self-reflection post that I write earlier at the program (we do write 150 words each day to become a 500 word reflection at the end of the program). Enjoy!

Mochtar Riady Auditorium is so HUGE!

DAY 1

One word that really reflects my journey today in the workshop is eye-opening. It is related to my main goals of joining the program is to compare and learn the best practice of leadership and how is it like to be a leader in Singapore and all over the region. I was really moved by the whole session because they really give me explanation and reasons why we need to lead and how we act as a leader.

Perhaps the most exciting part is when Mr. Tan Chuan-Jin said that he does a routine weekly volunteering to this old-care hospital while he is currently working as a Parliament Speaker. I was really surprised because the Indonesian counterpart are focused on keeping their popularity instead of doing this contribution. This really proves that leadership quality is not about the title that someone holds, but it’s on an individual basis. It really motivated me to be the best version of yourself no matter what leadership position that I hold.

Workshop by Toshin Sequeira, Schwarzmann Scholar and SMU's School of Economics final year student

DAY 2

A word that reflects today’s session is determination. All the panelists that I heard today are having this huge determination and professionalism in their own area of expertise and doing their own role in leadership. Ms. Indranee knows everything about the country especially in finance and international relations, Mr. Toshin gives his best while assuming his term as a president in SMUSA, and the panelists know exactly what they want to be and surviving any failures. This example really proves that it takes us a determination for us to be a successful leaders and create a good impact and change for their own surroundings.

MARRRINAAAAA! (Cheers for our trip group lol)

DAY 3

One word that reflects my learning journey in the city is change. This is related to three main part of my journey that we went today; past, present, and future. First and foremost I really embrace Singapore for really remembering the past by conserving the historical palace, and tried to convey the message and lessons learned from the pastime as we went to a walking tour through Chinatown. Then we went to see the current Singapore by having a bicycle trip around Singapore River, where I could see these huge skyscrapers, green areas, and people are fulfilling this city-state. The interesting part was that the change isn’t going in an instant way; it takes a lot of time and efforts for the local government to do this development, as we also learned them in Singapore City Gallery.

After that, we went to Marina Barrage and Singapore Sustainability Gallery where we learned how Singapore are dealing with these issues coming in the upcoming years by using cutting-edge innovation and always collaborate them with a sustainable principle. As we went through the whole journey, I learned that changes are needed, but sometimes we also need to look back and embracing any positive things that happened in the past and learned from them.

Presenting our learning journey in Chinatown, Singapore River, and Marina Bay

OVERALL

If I need to pick one leadership lesson that I got from the symposium, it is a value-driven leadership. This really matters to me because before this program I lead some teams without any value; what I know is “Okay, I have this goal to achieve, I have this people in my team, and I have this amount of time to perform”. But I never put any value into what I had done in the past, as I didn’t know anything about this term.

But when I stepped into this symposium and heard a lot of personal leadership journey from many experienced speakers, I realized they were sharing one common things; they always lead with value. They always know which values that they are really embracing, why they do so, and how to apply them into their own leadership journey.

I have applied them as soon as I learned! For example when I learned about value-driven, I immediately applied them by talking to my inner self and said “Hey Afi, you know what? That’s the missing link that you have at the moment. In every situation, in every challenges, and in every choices that we made, we need to face them by considering value at the very front. Try to ask yourself, ‘which one is better?’, ‘are this decision going in-line with the value that I believe in?’, ‘are you sure everyone will be benefited by this?’”

And I strongly believe that positive changes should start in no time, and it starts within ourselves.

Thank you SMU for this whole wonderful leadership journey. It really motivates me to be a better leaders in the future.

BONUS: Photos!!