Top leaders recall LKY's leadership style

Top leaders speak about former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew's leadership style at a conference, "The Big Ideas of Mr Lee Kuan Yew", organised by the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. Here are some excerpts.

From the day he took office, he seemed to know how to lead us as a people and bring about change. In doing it, he brought to bear the qualities of his personal character, making observers feel that he was born to lead.

From the time he came into our lives, he has engaged our dreams, mobilized our energies and led us as if promising to lead us to the 'promised land'." - Former president SR Nathan

"Mr Lee's favourite question is, 'So?' If you update him on something, he will invariably reply with, 'So?' You reply and think you have answered him, but again he asks, 'So?' This 'So?' question forces you to get to the core of the issue and draw out the implications of each fact.

His instinct is to cut through the clutter, drill to the core of the issue, and identify the vital points. And he does this with an economy of effort." - Education Minister Heng Swee Keat, who was principal private secretary to Mr Lee from 1997 to 2000

"I've always found him intellectually honest. If you can come up with a contrary view, you can argue your case cogently and persuasively, he's prepared to listen and prepared to change and modify his views.

An example that comes to my mind is the months of discussion we had in Cabinet, informal or formal, about the elected presidency.

The younger ministers had a particular point of view, he had his point of view. But he said, 'Look, you guys will have to run Singapore. You have to be in charge. You have to implement this.

So you better let me know what you're comfortable with.' And finally, the shape of the elected presidency reflected the younger ministers' views. And he went along with it." - Former senior minister S. Jayakumar

"The disciplined clarity of his thought and expression was one of the primary sources of the influence Mr Lee wielded, disproportionate for the leader of a small country like Singapore.

His views were valued because they were unvarnished and gave a fresh and unique perspective. He said things that leaders of much larger and more powerful countries may well have thought and may have liked to say, but for one reason or another, could not themselves prudently say. And so he made Singapore relevant.

His support for the Vietnam war at a time when it was politically unpopular -- a war he believed unwinnable but nevertheless vital to buy time for non-communist Southeast Asia to put its house in order -- being a case in point, as was his support for the US presence in East Asia long before it became fashionable in our neighbourhood.

In 1981, at the International Conference on Kampuchea held at the UN, the US was poised to sell out Singapore's and ASEAN's interests in favour of China's interest to see a return of the Khmer Rouge regime.

The then Assistant Secretary of State in charge of China policy even threatened our Foreign Minister that there would be "blood on the floor" if we did not relent. We held firm. The next year, Mr Lee travelled to Washington DC and in a meeting with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, described America's China policy as 'amateurish'...Word rapidly spread.

As the young desk officer who took notes for that meeting, I was bemused by the spectacle of the Assistant Secretary frantically scrambling to find out what exactly Mr Lee had said.

I don't know if it was coincidental, but the very next year the Assistant Secretary in question was appointed Ambassador to Indonesia; an important position, but one in which he no longer held sway over China policy. And when his new appointment was announced, the gentleman anxiously enquired through an intermediary if Mr Lee had told then President Soeharto anything about him.

He was reassured and served honourably in Indonesia." - Ambassador-at-large and former Ministry of Foreign Affairs permanent secretary Bilahari Kausikan

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