Naewna on July 7, 2018

Situation makes leader: The Case Study of Chiang Rai Governor

Thais and people all over the world have been following the news of 12 football players and a coach trapped in Tham Luang Nang Non Cave. Heavy rain trapped them in the cave for nearly 10 days.

Many countries and several groups of Thais such as army, civilians and volunteers synergized to rescue them. Media and most Thais were greatly impressed with Chiang Rai Governor, Mr. Narongsak Osotthanakorn. He worked well as a good leader who could control the situation and make the proper commands. He got acceptance from Thais and foreigners. In this kind of situation, the lack of strong leader can confuse the staffs.

3-4  weeks ago, I met this governor. I invited him to be a panelist of the panel discussion on synergy to develop networking capital and society organized for 60 participants of King Philosophy and Leadership Development for Thailand 4.0 Era Project Phase 2 during the study visit to Doi Tung Development Project based on the Royal Initiatives, Chiang Rai.

He told me that he joined and played active roles in all projects regardless of project sizes. He did not do it for reputation. He mentioned about network creation especially in smog reduction in Chiang Rai. He told me that he has been following my concepts for a long time. It showed his interests in all areas.

He came from Department of Lands. He got degrees in Engineering, Management and several fields. He said that he would be moved to Phayao. I was still in Chiang Rai because he had not got officially endorsed by the King yet. 13 people were lucky to get help from this governor.

He said that he worked with difficulties because he could not stand several problems. The examples were local political influences and illegal land invasion.

Without this situation, Thais may not know this government because he works on backstage. We have a lot of good people in the bureaucracy. This situation helped him become recognized. They helped us know that there were a lot of capable and good people in the society and they should be honored.

I called him as a “Situational Leader”.

There was a past example. In Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat’s era, anti-cheating mob in Field Marshal Plaek Phibunsongkhram’s era was stopped. Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat said that he would be responsible for everything.

This week, I continuously work on the program on “MWA Leaders of the New Decade in 4.0 Era”. I also receive a great honor from Rajamangala University of Technology Krungthep (UTK) via Dr. Prattana Srisuk for inviting me to teach the students from UNSIKA Karawang, Indonesia. It is interesting that Indonesian Master’s Programs have policy for their students to study in Thailand in very interesting topics as follows.

1.Managing the uncertainty

2.Strategic Management and Business Policy

3.Toward Global Sustainability

The strength is that every year, Master’s Program students from Indonesian universities come to study in Bangkok as continuous projects. One impression is that all of them study in English. Their English is not good. They are better than Thai Master’s Program students who are afraid of English.

My way is to stimulate to think and share ideas. Then, they present in English. They have not done well but it is a good tendency. They do workshops. I stimulate them to think that how this learning help them adapt to be the future businessmen or civil servants. Most of them propose to do business with Thais.

Besides academic activity I am responsible for, Rajamangala University of Technology Krungthep (UTK) teaches Thai culture, Thai language, culinary and religion. Then, the Muslim Indonesians and the Buddhist Thais can proudly live together. Indonesia is a large country with more than 250 million of Muslim population. They are large education and tourism market opportunities for Thais.

I am glad to stimulate them by using Chira Way as the learning methodology. They apply Chira Way concept to explain several principles and to study. They like 2R’s, 3L’s and 3V’s.

2R’s

Reality

Relevance

3L’s

Learning from Pain

Learning from Experiences

Learning from Listening

3V’s

Value Added

Value Creation

Value Diversity 

Prof. Dr. Chira Hongladarom

 

Source: Learning from Reality with Dr. Chira Column. Naewna.

             Saturday 7 July 2018, p.5

Please click this link to see pictures.

https://cdn.gotoknow.org/assets/media/files/001/300/935/original_eng_naewna_07072018.pdf?1531226970