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Sight beyond sight: Perceiving graft characteristics

After sparking controversy due in particular to the delays in the announcement of his Cabinet, 34 names from various backgrounds were finally selected to assist President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo in carrying out his duties

Hendi Yogi Prabowo (The Jakarta Post)
Yogyakarta
Sat, November 22, 2014

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Sight beyond sight: Perceiving graft characteristics

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fter sparking controversy due in particular to the delays in the announcement of his Cabinet, 34 names from various backgrounds were finally selected to assist President Joko '€˜Jokowi'€™ Widodo in carrying out his duties. The delay was mostly caused by the Corruption Eradication Commission'€™s (KPK) assessment of the integrity of the ministerial candidates as requested by President Jokowi himself.

After President Jokowi'€™s announcement of the Cabinet, the KPK stated that it could not guarantee that the selected ministers would not be involved in corruption cases in the future.

According to the 2014 global study by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), in relation to employment records, 81.7 percent of fraud offenders have never been punished or had their employment terminated and, in terms of criminal records, 86.6 percent have never been charged or convicted.

This simply means that everyone can be a cheater regardless of their past. In the case of President Jokowi'€™s newly appointed ministers, the KPK'€™s statement does make a lot of sense. As a form of fraud, corruption can be perpetrated even by those who have no prior criminal or bad employment records

In a national leadership-selection process, identifying bad leaders is just as important as identifying
good ones.

The 2013 survey on election integrity by the KPK suggested that generally the Indonesian people still do not fully appreciate the importance of potential leaders'€™ integrity as an important leadership quality.

Only 6.31 percent of the surveyed respondents from 10 major cities in Indonesia believed that such a quality was necessary in a good leader.

Additionally, the people also appear to have failed to recognize the importance of a modest lifestyle as a measure of a good leader.

Only 5.9 percent of respondents thought that a good leader should be accustomed to a modest lifestyle.

This lack of awareness may be among the causes of unqualified politicians being elected people'€™s representatives in the legislature.

Many corruption cases involving public officials could have been prevented had the Indonesian people known about how to spot and identify behavioral symptoms in the first place.

After numerous corruption cases involving, among others, House of Representatives (DPR) members many Indonesians regretted having voted for the corrupt politicians.

The high number of corruption cases involving high-ranking government officials in the executive, legislative and judicative institutions suggests that the current leadership-selection process (i.e. elections) remains ineffective in producing leaders of integrity.

In practice, comprehensive information regarding potential leaders may not be readily available to the public during election time.

For this, the voters have to rely on the visible behavioral indicators of leadership candidates to judge whether or not they deserve to get their vote.

In reality, during campaign periods, politicians will use various means to promote their images to the public. Common examples of such means include activities such as religious travels (i.e. haj pilgrimage), social activities, appearances on national television, just to name a few.

Uneducated voters commonly become the primary target for these campaigns due to their lack of awareness regarding leadership quality.

Studies from all over the globe show that there is overwhelming anecdotal evidence suggesting that during an election campaign politicians generally promise more than what they are willing or able to deliver once elected.

Among the numerous signs of bad leadership, by its nature, narcissism is among the most visible. Narcissism is essentially a state of being the center of a loving world where one may act merely out of desire in a spontaneous way.

Often considered as a form of mental disorder, narcissism is associated with a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration and a lack of empathy.

According to a leading behavioral scientist, Robert A. Emmons, narcissism consists primarily of four core dimensions: authority, self-admiration, superiority and entitlement.

The authority dimension is related to one'€™s desire to be seen as an authoritative figure and thus a center of attention. The self-admiration dimension is related to one'€™s preoccupation with how extraordinary one feels.

The superiority dimension is about one'€™s belief that one is better than others and thus overestimating one'€™s own abilities.

The entitlement dimension concerns one'€™s belief that he or she deserves more than what he or she actually accomplishes, which is often associated with one'€™s interpersonal exploitativeness (i.e. enjoying manipulating and exploiting others while expecting favors from others). Studies suggest that narcissistic leaders are more prone to the temptation of fraud.

For example, a narcissistic company CEO will tend to set their goals unrealistically high, which often drives them to take risky actions that may lead to the occurrence of fraud within their organizations such as financial statement manipulation.

In Indonesia, many high-ranking public officials are often seen exhibiting traits of narcissists such as the thirst for power, compensation and exposure which, according to experts, can be associated with the four core dimensions of narcissism. Many of these public officials are now in prison for corruption.

Through mass media, people often see their leadership candidates'€™ behavioral red flags but generally do not pay enough attention to them.

For this, the media has an important role in '€œeducating'€ society by providing information on leaders and leadership candidates.

Despite the fact that some media outlets are arguably subjective in presenting the news, when properly analyzed, it may actually uncover behavioral red flags of bad leaders.

For example, the public may see how often a media outlet owned and supported by political figures excessively covers the life of a certain politician to make him or her look far better than he or she actually is.

In the end, our awareness of the signs of narcissism as well other indications of bad leadership will help us to decide who will become our leaders and diminish the risk of corruption in Indonesia.

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The writer is the director of the Center for Forensic Accounting Studies at the Islamic University of Indonesia Yogyakarta. He obtained his Masters and PhD in forensic accounting from the University of Wollongong, Australia.

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