Eric Sautedé
Thanks to Linkedin, I sometimes get to read articles about management in general and human relations at work, in particular, that I would otherwise simply brush aside for lack of substance and meaning. Many a time, scholars who specialize in the management of people in a working setting are failed businessmen, lack the broadness of mind to embrace economics, miss the point of power politics and are too short in scientific rigor to engage in psychology. When they focus on cross-cultural interactions, it often gets worse: culture gets reified and learning how to communicate gets truncated into imperfect lists of dos and don’ts.
Linkedin describes itself as a “business-oriented social networking service”, so it cannot really be blamed for endlessly publishing postings, papers and quotes about what to expect from a manager. Clearly, this is a network for people who think of themselves as decision-makers, and are always eager to grab a new opportunity—“losers find excuses, winners find solutions” reads one, “you create your own opportunity” reads another.
Yet, listening to the new team of secretaries in Macao addressing for the first time the legislature in the past few weeks has made me reconsider a classic dilemma that scholars in the field of human resources never fail to examine and cross-examine: the one of leadership versus management. The artificiality of the boundary between one and the other is obvious, and depending on the scale of the operation, it is often impossible to make a distinction. The head of a small organization usually has to be a leader as well as a manager as there is no way things can be delegated. Also, competing characteristics can be complementary even though the idea that one set of features cannot exist without the other is fallacious: a so-called manager can continue to operate even though the leader has no vision and an institution can continue to strive even though the vision of its leader is completely distorted—absurd visions being only bearable as long as they are not instantly lethal, especially when it comes to public administration.
In the case of Macao, I would argue that what inspired the clean slate approach of a brand new government last December after 15 years of more or less the same was having too many insulated managers and no leader. Contrary to what I believed for a long time, the absence of leadership was more consequential than essential: the burdening legacy of the previous leadership appears to have acted almost right from the start as some kind of tantalizing, paralyzing and lurking influence. Social disgruntlement coupled with a looming economic recession and a wider political shift in the mainland precipitated the need for change.
Because of Easter and Qingming, the addresses by the secretaries have been dragging far too long. So as to give an even greater sense of efficiency – the one virtue that had been lacking in Chui I – everything should have been wrapped up in a week or so instead of starting March 23 and finishing April 16! Yet, with maybe the notable exception of Sonia Chan who has yet to prove herself, the secretaries have displayed a remarkable sense of commitment in restituting the daily operations of their portfolio together with the challenges—being true managers—and a commendable capacity to project their work and priorities into the future—being true leaders. They have done so with an amount of resoluteness and power of conviction not often seen in this polity. Sometimes even with humor, as when Alexis Tam Chon Weng retorted to legislator Fong Chi Keong who had quoted the most famous poem of Qu Yuan (“The way ahead is long, and I do not see any ending, yet high and low I’ll search with determination”) that he hoped he would not have to drown himself if he failed to implement his “Glorious five years’” policy! With an additional promise of accountability, let’s hope that they will be able to now work as a team to confront the many vested interests that have marred the city far too long.
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