Our nation is currently entering its "new age" as we officially have a new leader, a new president, elected directly by Indonesian people. Many people are hoping for new breakthroughs under his leadership, many people are hopeful for improvements of the nation. In less than one third of his first quarter of governance, the new president has caught us attention through various stories and headlines, particularly on his composition of cabinet, named Kabinet Kerja, literally translated as Working Cabinet.
Susi Pudjiastuti has became the most talked about person in the nation since the day Mr. Jokowi announced his cabinet and assigned her as Minister of Marine and Fishery Affairs. Many critics and cynical comments were being addressed to her, given her educational background and other personal matters. The assigned minister is a high school dropout whom on the other hand has been a very successful entrepreneur in the field of fishery and aviation. This is probably a rare type of case. Hard work, correct strategy, effective leadership, and probably luck are the key factors which has brought Susi Pudjiastuti to where she is now, a successful businesswomen of two companies with billions Rupiah worth of assets. Before, many people may have not known Susi Pudjiastuti and what she does. Despite of negative comments on her background, Susi Pudjiastuti has raised a positive story, which hopefully, encourage others. Her story tells how anyone can be successful, by being a hardworking and empathetic entrepreneur. A successful example of a leader.
Being elected as the first female Minister for Marine and Fishery Affairs, Susi Pudjiastuti's model of leadership, experience and knowledge is to be tested in a whole new level. Given her background as a high school dropout, particularly, has always been challenging for her to gain trust and acceptance from others. This may also applies during the earlier period when she was just starting up her business. What constructs her success? How was her leadership established and maintained?
In his interview with Harvard Business Review, Daniel Goleman explained how effective leaders are able to functioned through three types of focus: inner focus, other focus, and outer focus. With inner focus, one will be able to give constant effort and gain continuous power to achieve goals, targets, and put their vision into realization; with other focus, one will believe that they are doing good cause, because it is also affecting other people and thus adding strength and confident in achieving goals; and with outer focus, one will be able to place themselves in a bigger context, and they have role within that larger context which enables them to moderate their effort in achieving targets through strategies, networks, etc. With the three focuses working in parallel, one will be able to practice an effective leadership which most likely will lead them towards success.
The above mentioned theories may have been implemented by Susi Pudjiastuti in running her business. At the core basis, she knew she had to survive by the time she dropped out from school. She was leading herself to start her own small business which happened to continue growing as she gain more experience. Her experience and visions enables her setting bigger goals. She started gaining reputation and trust, which enable her to include other people in her vision and to have them impacted by her business: families, local fishermans, foreign pilots, etc. By doing this, she generates more resources which helps her business to grow. In a wider context, she need to develop strategies in order to have her effort and the people impacted by her business to be put into effect, there's a product or outcome that is recognized by the market. With USD 40 Million of revenue in 2014, it is not too vague to say that people are satisfied with the product, adding more wealth to her company, both material and non-material.
Susi Pudjiastuti is one of many example of extraordinary individuals who shared similar success stories. New Challenge is ahead of her in developing Indonesia's vast potentials in the field of marine and fisheries. As Daniel Goleman explained, to become an even more effective leader, one need to develop their focus through practices. Realistically, different context have different consequences on the degree of practice that is being done. Supposedly, those practices are drives and motivations for effective leaders.
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