Individual Family Community Nation World បចេ្ចកបុគ្គល គ្រួសារ សហគមន៍ ជាតិ ពិភពលោក
Mind is the Leader, Mind is the Source of Good and Evil "All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become" - Lord Buddha
Leadership is about Empowering Children Just little thing, all Cambodians should consider to practice, please teach your kids or others the best things as you are the actors of role model.
The Conflict of Generations of Cambodia Leadership In Cambodia, those post-baby boomers are known for their conceptualization on the Politics of the United Nations, Human Rights, Democracy, Free and Fair Election, and Freedom. They have lived through time of political reconciliation, non-violence, culture of dialogue, democratic elections, economic liberalization, social injustice, social gap, minimum wage and jobs seeking, and contesting leadership of two party state of Cambodia. They were not divided by monarchy and anti-monarchy, political violence of systematic atrocity and revenge, but experienced the Vietnamese military presence in Cambodia. They are not xenophobic, paranoiac, or irrational in general. They are more into conflict resolution than conflict revolution.
Leadership skills that fit your traits There are many leadership skills and competencies that, when combined and applied, go toward making you an effective leader. You have the ability to develop each of these skills within yourself. Read on for specific ideas on how you can improve your leadership skills!
Change Yourself - Good Luck LEADERSHIP is for everyone. Leadership is not solely accountable for King, President, Prime Minister, CEO or school superintendent etc. Individual requires effective leadership to handle with all his or her daily activities. Buddha said “no one save us, but ourselves; we are our own savior” is the indicator of important leadership starting from ourselves. As a member of family, one needs to manage their family’s well-being effectively. As a member of neighborhood and community, one must nurture their network and relationship effectively. As a member of a nation, one must stand up to safeguard the collective interest of the nation with courageous, striving and perpetual commitment. Nation means ourselves! As a member of the globe, one must step beyond their frontier to challenge with the world changes. Most mornings we turn a door-handle and walk out into a larger world. We move across our world, at least across a tiny section of it. This is the society of which we are part.
Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower Steve Jobs advised that potential leadership stems from potential innovation. If one has no innovation, he or she would be a follower, not a leader. For Ralph Nader, he repeated that “I start with the promise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers”. David Gergen deepened into a tangible theme that “What they must have are: inner mastery; a central, compelling purpose rooted in moral values; a capacity to persuade; skills in working within the system; a fast start; a strong, effective team; and a passion that inspires others to keep the flame alive.”
Leadership in Education Citizenship in learning: Exercises democratic rights and responsibilities within the learning community, -Demonstrates respect and appreciation for diversity, -Works and communicates effectively with others. Personal Development through learning: Sets and works towards learning goals, -Demonstrates confidence and autonomy in learning. Character in learning: Engages in learning with initiative, persistence and integrity, -Treats others with respect and compassion, - Makes responsible decisions.
Working as team to solve conflicts in working places I am more inclining to task-focused than people-oriented. I believe in tidiness, compliant, well organized, set-policy and punctual. But I might miss parts of sense of humor, people sensitivity and social outgoing etc. To handle both conflicts, I was ready on positive emotion, integrity, understanding the internal regulations as well as code of conduct, pre-destining the consequences and laying down appropriate assertiveness. It is essential to comprehend on good paper theory and actual onsite operation; they are two contradictorily items in which require wisdom, experiences and flexibility to attain it. Conflicts are happening every moment of livelihood. Workplace is one of the frequent sites to be bombarded by differences and conflicts.
Modern definition of the state and failed state in political leadership Those scholars argue that if a state failed to implement good governance, effective bureaucracy, judicial independence, social justice, people’s freedom, social equity and the enforcement of the rule of laws, the outcome of political leadership of those states shall prevail in the manner of “failed state” or “predatory state”. It means the powerful or the top leader has gained nothing beneficial under their “leadership” to build the nation of the future. He/she has gained only for personal interest and family clan. Buddha said that such leader has been deceived by greed លោភះ and ignorance អវិជ្ជា.
Theories of Political Leadership Oksenburg, who was specialist in China and former president of East West Center, laid out some idealistic formulations on leaders and leadership that include: A lot of lust for power Absolute ruthlessness Vision Many followers
Self-Cultivation to be an Effective Leader Self and relationship with nature according well-known scholars Both Mechanical Universe of Isaac Newton and Quantum Mechanics of Albert Einstein have clarified that self or individual is very essential to respond to the whole society, world and universe under a certain natural law which called original interdependent or inner relativism. Buddha is the first researcher who found this theory and taught everybody about this inner relation and pointed out the way of middle path, self-savior and enlightenment.
Critical Thinking is an Essential Source of Leadership An effective critical thinker: consider all relevant evidence develops criteria for making reasoned judgments make judgments on the basis of these criteria works on developing the character traits, or habits of mind that promote effective decision making You make choices every day — at school, at home, with friends, and at work. You may, for example, need to decide wheter to join an after-school activity, whether to support a friend in school elections, or how to plan your courses for the year. Using criteria to guide your decisions will help you succeed in school. But the benefits of using criteria to guide your decisions go wel beyond the social studies classroom. Developing effective criteria will ensure that you make the most effective choices when faced with challenges in all aspects of your life.
This part (45), Mr. Sophan Seng dedicated his analysis towards newly changed in political landscape of Cambodia.
While the cooperation (non-confrontational or culture of dialogue) between Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) and Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) is transformed into confrontation as usual in over-night political rhetoric, the term of heated up political conflict in Cambodia has been tensely criticized. Heated up because of the changing political attitude between government-led party and opposition party has rarely happened in developed countries (both communist and democratic countries). But Cambodia has experienced exotic political culture. Whenever, there are conflicts between different political parties, Cambodian people are under fear, investors are under threat, and foreign direct investment (FDI) are under uncertainty. This phenomena is indicating that Cambodia has no political institution that belongs to the nation. Cambodia has proven herself as a fragile state of few leadership like what Aristotle pinpointed it “led by few” or “autocrats”.
In conclusion, political maturity through think tank-led leadership is imperative for Cambodia. While the CPP has been hopeless in its reform to bring back popularity among voters, the old approach of confrontation has been visually undertaken; thus the CNRP must work out harder and clearer within their points of “culture of dialogue” through workshops and workshops, conferences and conferences, to build up policy, think tank, and pragmatism etc.
This part (44), Mr. Sophan Seng continued to analysis the wrong direction of education reform in Cambodia. As he repeatedly referred to, education is the backbone of this nation, but this
Scene view of Cambodia Students during Exam 2015 – photo courtesy of MoEYs facebooke page.
sector has been really neglected by the government. Beside of approving less annual budget for this sector, the intermingled family and community based educational development is remained a sensitive concern.
When the fame of education has become worse and worse, the measure to strictly undertake high school exam is just a short term and trivial measure to answer to the true reform, and this measure is seen as a political agenda, not the education agenda.
Just one stunning example of screening students at the entrance gate and proctoring from all directions by the proctors during exam, does mean to bog down the self-confidence and self-oriented mentality of the Cambodian students. Those screeners and proctors should spend time to monitor corrupt officers, traffic laws offenders, and other legal violators etc., is better.
This part (43), Mr. Sophan Seng continued to analyse the Education Reform in Cambodia. This time, he keenly criticized the measure of strict exam of high school students (grade 12) during 2014 and 2015. The strict exam was only aiming to divert the attention of students’ parents who have disappointed with the inability to curb the rampant corruption inside the school compounds particularly during exams. Thus, these two years strict exam doesn’t translate the “Education Reform”, but it has translated something else outside of the core reform.
Further more, the strict exam and measures to monitor all activities of students including scanning from toe to head to search students’ sheet(s) and proctor in each room by watching from all directions. Policemen are also dispatched. The other government unit such as Anti Corruption Unit (ACU) has also taken in charge to reprimand, arrest and punish those cheated during exam.
Scene view of Cambodia Students during Exam 2015 – photo courtesy of MoEYs facebooke page.
All these are just part of Cambodian education version that has no deep knowledge about the impact on students in a long term human resources building. Psychologically speaking, students have lost self-confidence that could help to produce self-correction and self-realization. Students are eagerly waiting others to enforce them. In term of law enforcement, students should not be the target. Those violated the traffic lights should be paid attention more than students who have learnt to gain knowledge, not to pass the exam without having knowledge.
This tactic of reform will not lead Cambodia to gain genuine reform but to serve the interest of political campaign. Cambodia’s education reform must not focus on strict exam, and strict exam should not use for the grade 12 exam, but it should be used for high professional competitions or privileged universities entrance etc.
This part (42), Mr. Sophan Seng continued to analyse on the Reform of Cambodia Education. After the wake of war, education has remained important factor for this country to leapfrog herself from post-cold war country to peace and developed country, or from revolutionary-socalled country to democracy country equipped by Rule of Laws and Fair Share of National Wealth according to sustainable development pragmatism.
Again, Mr. Sophan highly articulated on quality of education system and quality of school teachers. In Cambodia, besides of fundamental concept of “better knowledge persons to teach less knowledge person” has remained omnipresent presently existing in Cambodia modern school compounds, the teachers’ pedagogy is seen out-of-date omnipotently.
For instance, this likely pro-violence country has not yet trained teachers to be anti-violence agents at schools at all. Teachers, in Cambodian concept, they are the second parents of all Cambodian children. While children are affected by violence-parenting style of ingrained traditional home-raising parenthood, teachers are not well trained in handling domestic violence in schools at all.
Recent incident of a school teacher commanded a male student to unclothe a female student in front of the roommates in the way to punish her because of her inability to answer assignment question, is one of the thousand punishment ways Cambodian teachers have always used to teach them in schools.
This sexual violence is among other four domestic violences ie. physical violence, verbal violence, financial violence, and emotional violence. School teachers are not taught to handle with all these violences and most of time they are the violence perpetrator rather than a violence stopper/investigator/observer.
Those teachers are not different from public politician figures whose education credentials are not counted to getting their way into those important public servants and high prestigious public posts. As the matter of fact, Cambodia education has been mocked by the no education or less education persons have become a player of role model in the public eyes of Cambodian people. Currently, many top officials including Premier are not graduated high school. Currently, majority of teachers are counted by training teachers graduates, they have not completed post secondary education at all.
When this important strata of social fabric are remained weak, the future of Cambodia is deems murky.