Datuk, what is your view on the present Buddhist leadership in Malaysia?

Buddhist leaders have come a long way, especially if we compare it with the situation 20 to 30 years ago. Then, only a small group of people know about Buddhism; not many people were exposed to the teachings. Over the years, through the efforts of many teachers, one of whom was the late Chief Venerable K. Sri Dhammananda, the youths got themselves organized into societies. In our case, a group of Buddhist graduates truly wanted to do something for the community. So, we got together and started a society called the BGF.

We can see that Buddhist leaders are of much better quality now. We also have better run organizations presently. But having said that, there is still much room for us to improve. Although we have made progress, maybe we should say that the progress is not good enough. For us to establish a very dynamic Buddhist community, we have to do much more.

Could you please share with us your concept of visionary leadership?

Let us look at the word ‘vision’. Vision is the ability to ‘see’ what the picture is like in the future - what the ideal situation will be like. It is the ability to visualize. The second part of visionary leadership is the ability to communicate. So, if you have the vision but you keep quiet, it is not going to help anyone. When you communicate that idea and other people begin to think it is good, they then accept that vision as their vision. Then it becomes a shared vision.

This vision could actually be his own or it could be the result of interaction with other people. If someone is able to get people to work together in order to move the idea, I call him a visionary leader. We can see the example of the Buddha himself. He himself had found the way of release, and he has experienced the joy, the bliss, the freedom of Nirvana, and then he communicated that. And his communication was so persuasive that many other people came to join him. And the impact is that even though it has been 2,500 years since his passing away, the traditions that he established are still here.

Sometimes the goals that people set for themselves are not so high. So the visionary leader lifts them and see things from a much larger perspective. This is something that we actually require for the Buddhist community.

What do you reckon are the qualities of a visionary Buddhist leader?

I guess one of the qualities is the ability to look at the current situation, and see that maybe the situation at present is not completely satisfactory. Having identified that, we need to imagine and visualize the condition we want for generations to come, both in the short term and long term. Thereafter we need the ability to communicate this vision for the future and to work with other people, so that it becomes a shared vision. And of course, as a Buddhist, one should be grounded in the Dhamma. His actions and thoughts should be based on the highest ethical values so that he becomes a role model to others. If his behavior is un-Buddhistic, he is not going to inspire a lot of confidence. So basically, I would say that one of the important things is the ability to inspire confidence and to be able to get people to work with him.

In your view, can visionary Buddhist leadership be cultivated or moulded?

As in many things, leaders are actually ‘gifted’. There are some people who seem to have this kind of ability to ‘see’, for example Dr. Mahathir or (Singapore’s) Lee Kuan Yew. These are not the leaders that you can actually “build”. Unfortunately, not many of us are “born leaders”. As an alternative, visionary leadership can be developed if like-minded people were to gather, discuss and throw ideas around, and then work together to find solutions to a particular problem. So, try to get a group of people to visualize and break boundaries. This is more like the result of group effort.

Are there any pitfalls a visionary Buddhist leader should avoid?

There is a pitfall for any leader. A leader is somebody that people look up to. He must not be too carried away, to attribute too much to himself, thinking, “Oh, this success is actually because of me”. Leaders must not allow themselves to be carried away and lose their original intention. Sometimes when people start something (off), they always start it so well and with the purest intention; but along the way, because of human weaknesses, they tend to get side-tracked. This is not the way that we want Buddhist leaders to be. I think whatever we do, we must always see ourselves as basically an instrument of the Dhamma. It is always important for us to have that right perspective in whatever things we do.

What do you see as the challenges faced by Buddhist leaders in the future?

We need a mechanism or system in order to promote Buddhism and also to create a better condition for all beings. We also need the ability to work together. Looking at our organizations, there is no one organization that can do everything. If we look within the Klang Valley, we see there are some organizations that tend to be strong at certain areas. And maybe what we should do is to complement each other. For example, Nalanda is strong in certain areas whereas other organizations might not have that kind of strength. BGF, BUBS and SJBA might have certain other strengths. Different centres can focus on their respective strengths, but we need to be able to get our acts together. If we do things right, I would imagine in the next 5, 10, or 20 years, we are going to have a fresh crop of Buddhist workers, Buddhist speakers and Buddhist leaders.

This is how we should move forward. But most importantly, we have to begin to think in a new way. It is fine to go on with what we have been doing, but we should always think ahead on how we can develop the potentials of Buddhist workers. We see this done effectively in other religious traditions. They are able to develop their workers. In the case of Buddhism, we are less effective. We have got to rectify this situation.

But there seems to be many activities such as camps to recruit and train our community...?

Indeed we do, but our programmes are not specifically designed to produce leaders. As a result, we do not produce enough missionaries (to serve our community). This is something I find wanting. We have also not developed the mechanism and system for producing Buddhist workers in a way that will ensure the continuity of our tradition. We have had leaders who emerged with some skills, but no system to further develop their talents. Thus we now need to have a better system and mechanism to train, cultivate and develop our (future) leaders.

You spoke about synergies between organizations as we have different strengths. But then we often hear comments that when representatives from different societies come together to form committees, that is when things stop working well. What is your take on this?

I notice that, within the Klang Valley, we are very fortunate because Buddhist groups basically can and do work together. I find that for instance, in the case of Singapore, Buddhist groups there tend to be happy just working within their own temples or societies. When we organize joint programmes, realistically we need to bring in just the right number of organizations. If the group is not too big, then it is easier for us to work. The bigger the community is, the greater are the chances that the message will not get through. There are also coordination problems; if you do not coordinate well, it may lead to disagreements and conflicts; and that is a situation we want to avoid.

Basically, we use this inter-organizational approach to run large scale programmes such as the Global Buddhist Conference. And there have been some other activities which we (the BGF) jointly organized with Nalanda that were very successful. We invited organizations which we felt we could work with. This is how we (start to) build synergies among societies. At other times, we need to be more inclusive and work with everybody. It does have advantages but it is sometimes a bit more difficult. So, it actually depends on what you want to achieve at the end of the day. If you want a lot of quick actions, then you would probably want to work in a smaller team. The key to working effectively together is in choosing the right team for the right purpose.

How important an element is integrity in leadership?

I think integrity and credibility are always important. We should also realize that leaders are humans after all, and sometimes they do have their failings. So, even while we admire leaders, we must not imagine that they are perfect. This is sometimes the fault of the followers. We may have too much dependence on one person, so much so that the person can hardly handle it.

As a community, we should try to make sure that we have a system of checks and balances. If we have this, then leaders will not be completely carried away, especially with their sense of self-importance. A leader may begin to think of himself as more important than he actually is, and gets carried away with his own decisions which he thinks are legitimate because everybody admires him. I think that is wrong.