In the award winning fiction movie Saving Private Ryan, US Gen. George Marshall orders his staff to establish a special unit to bring back home Private James Francis Ryan after he reads three condolence notices to be sent to Ryan’s mother, stating that the soldier’s three other brothers were killed in the war.
Ryan is the only son left in the family.
The film shows a compassionate general, yet one with the guts to order a special team to risk their lives to take Private Ryan back to his homeland as millions of brothers in arms are fighting in the war in Europe.
As a general that commands millions of soldiers during World War II, just like other generals, he must have confronted tons of situations that require his decision, yet he aptly chooses a moment that enhances his stature as a role model and boosts his leadership among his subjects.
Similarly, as a president of more than a 230 million population with different backgrounds, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is often trapped in the same situation.
Being a president, his main job is to make decisions. Day by day, he has to deal with tons of problems, proposals, events or situations that need his decision. Given the large amount of events that he has to address every day, the President has to be very selective in choosing which events he should deal with.
There is no criteria in the issue selection but the President usually relies on his instinct and experience in confronting it. This is the art of leadership.
Generally, since he was elected president in 2004, Yudhoyono has shown that he is a master in politics.
Backed by a strong public relations staff, the president has been savvy enough in responding to issues that have become the center of people’s attention.
Unlike president Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid whose comments were often unpredictable and stirred unnecessary controversy or president Megawati Soekarnoputri who often failed to comment or act when the public desperately required it, our sixth president has been generally correct in handling situations where his leadership is badly needed.
His comments are mostly measured. He was apt in choosing events to comment so that the public often commended him for making the comments and in the end, it helped him maintain his popularity among the public.
He is known for being concerned about his image before the public and therefore, he builds skills in this field, and in the course of his presidency, he has proven himself competent in boosting his image.
However, problems often occur when he is too obsessed with his image. In general, people putting much attention om image tend to over-react when they are criticized. When they are being attacked, they would eventually give a response out of proportion and in the end, it costs them their image.
The case in point here was related to critics against Yudhoyono’s motorcade, expressed by a resident living near the President’s private house who was disturbed with the way the police and presidential guards treated him.
The citizen wrote a letter to influential Kompas daily, and after it was published, the Palace quickly responded with a barrage of measures.
A police spokesman and a presidential spokesmen who happens to be from a military background wrote back letters to the daily, and explained at length the chronology and how they would deal with the case.
On top of that, the President’s office stated it was considering improving motorcade standard operating procedures and during a President’s working visit to an industrial area in the outskirts of Jakarta, the convoy was reduced so that people assumed that the President was serious in addressing the complaint.
To some extent, the string of measures was lauded as it showed that the President listened and cared for the well-being of people, but to another extent, it has raised people eyebrows that the President’s handling of the case was too excessive.
The other danger of being too obsessed with image is that Yudhoyono would be a safe player when it comes to contentious state affairs on the fear that if he reveals his gut feeling and is wrong in his judgment, it could produce a backlash.
And it already occurred in the development about setting up electricity rates, an issue that is supposed to be substantial and needs his leadership, but sadly, he failed to exhibit it to the public.
He rarely appeared in public addressing the issue, so that his leadership was hardly felt, and instead he let his Coordinating Economic Minister Hatta Rajasa seize leadership in it.
Failure to take leadership on such an important issue easily draws suspicion that the President is a safe player, which ultimately is a loss to his image. Back to Gen. Marshall, president Yu-dhoyono might learn that balancing compassion and his gut feelings is essential to being a leader.
The author is a staff writer with The Jakarta Post.
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