Chapter 3 The Contextual Background
3.1. Indonesian Leadership
3.1.2. Effective leadership in Indonesia
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49 family. Additionally, to be effective, the Indonesian leader should also know the source of power to lead, that is by factionalism, favors and moral influence.
Regarding the local government performance, we have not found any study which examines the values discussed previously. We would argue that only Blunt et.al study might represent the study between the community values and the performance of healthcare and educational services.
Therefore, in this current study, we try to examine patronage practice and local culture of the selected regions. We believe that regions have different community characteristics. In other words, the regions might differ in their culture, hence their local government performance also differences.
3.1.2. Effective leadership in Indonesia
Irawanto‟s (2009) study of national culture and leadership practices in Indonesia found that the characteristics of effective leaders in Indonesia are different from Westerners in which Indonesians emphasis collective well-being and show a strong humane orientation within their society. Paternalistic leadership style is also identified in Indonesian organization culture. Employees expect their leader to not only be a manager, but they are also a protector, a mentor, a father and must be responsible for them and their extended family (Widyahartono 2007, Gani 2004). A leader is expected to behave wisely and honestly which in return this will repay with gratitude, obedience, respect and identification from their followers.
Moreover, leaders favor toward civilian supremacy can be an effective strategy to legitimate their authority when pressure was great from the political opposition and civil society forces (Kim, Liddle and Said 2006). This favor can be inferred as supporting behaviors of effective leadership practices. As in Indonesia‟s
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case, the choices made during the presidency of B.J Habibie were constrained and enabled by the characteristics of Suharto‟s New Order and by the circumstances under which Suharto fell, which included mass protests and substantial public pressure for reform. To pacify the crisis, one of the important actions taken by Habibie is to organize the presidential election within a year. Some new political parties were formed and newspaper licenses would no longer be revoked for political reasons.
Habibie‟s decision to transform Indonesia into a genuine democracy created a context in which the armed forces were constrained to follow suit. To pursue this, he worked closely with Armed Forces Commander General Wiranto to gradually discontinue the dual functionality doctrine of the armed forces from the electoral arena. Although Habibie‟s presidency cannot be maintained after Abdurrahman Wahid and Megawati won the election, his preference on goals, strategies and tactics for achieving those goals during his presidency is assumed to be effective. In the crisis situation Habibie preferred to accommodate the civil demand and yield his interests in order to gain trust from the people. This strategy is effective when the conflicted issue is not too important for either the conflicted parties (Sunyoto and Burhanuddin 2011).
Furthermore, Sulaiman‟s (2008) study of Indonesia foreign policy during Sukarno‟s presidency showed two criteria for a successful leader. The first and most important factor is the leader‟s ability to harness and to solidify their political resources, enabling them to keep pushing the constraints and to increase their freedom of action. Sukarno was able to transform his popular appeal into political capital and also able to balance competing interests in Indonesia, even though theoretically he was constricted by his role as the figurehead president. He also managed to harness international issues from the Irian Barat question of the Cold War, transforming political constraints into his assets, and further solidifying his position as the
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51 unassailable leader of Indonesia. The second important factor is the leader‟s ability to check the power of the opposing side. Struggle for power among various political factions were occurred during Sukarno‟s presidency, however, those able technocrats involved within the struggle were unable to transform their potential power into political resources due to Sukarno strategy to isolate them through others party domination.
Other lessons can be learned from Sulaiman‟s study is first, the perception of threat matters and makes a huge impact in the decision-making process. Second, power matters and leaders are interested in gaining more power at the expense of political rivals. Third, sometimes leaders are chosen because they are the least offensive of all the options, while the more competent ones are shunted aside in order to prevent them from gaining more power. Fourth, not-so-great leaders can have an impact on the structure. Finally, effective leader such as Sukarno could have a great impact on both domestic and international politics. Even though Sukarno was quite incompetent as an administrator, he excelled in manipulating public support, balancing competing interest groups in Indonesia in order to get what he wanted.
Finally, the last effective leadership characteristics in Indonesia can be illustrated by the act of the former Solo city Mayor, Joko Widodo. Most people knew him for his humanize approach when dealing with street vendors. He conducted dialogues for almost six months until the street vendors are finally willing to remove.
Indeed, within the dialogues, things are negotiated between the Mayor and the vendors such as a route for the public transportation to pass the new location and improve the road conditions to be accessible. In the end, the street vendors finally
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agree to move to the new area without violence and even they celebrate the movement4.
The preceding discussion indicates that the most effective leaders in Indonesia are those who perform influence behaviors dominantly during the leadership process.
Accordingly, it shows ideal characteristics of the leader in a collectivist society. In the context of effective leadership behaviors, it seems that the influence behaviors are manifested or realized through supporting, recognizing and personal appeal.