How to prepare our students for future leaders

It is a part of university’s roles to prepare its students for being future leaders. If we pay attention to all changes around us, there will be many forms of educational activities of prospective leaders (students) that we can develop. To be able to map out what areas should be our focus in the development of student activities, it’s a good idea to map the priorities, which are still very important to be mastered by our students. 

First, intellectual activity. This activity is directly related to the ‘core business’ of university institutions. In the ‘core business’ this is the real power we have. Therefore, the most important concern we must give is to build an intellectual tradition among students so that they can hone their continuous, systematic intellectual abilities. Activities related to this are discussions, seminars, workshops, colloquiums, general stage, scientific writing, journalism, tabloids, student journals, art appreciation, surgery, and review of books or literature. 

Second, skill activity. This activity is related to fertilizing understanding and skills to organize,  govern and manage student association.  Prospective students must be given sufficient ‘education and training’ in a variety of ‘student governance’ management skills. This kind of activity can be in the form of management skills exercises, financial management exercises, team work exercises, effective communication exercises, negotiating exercises, exercises in managing the exchange of interests, exercises in ‘resource sharing’, exercises in understanding and respecting others, exercises in leading trials, exercises in respecting the rules of the game and all protocols related to the organization, exercises leading the implementation of vision and mission, exercises in utilizing resources, exercises in formulating policies, exercises in implementing policies, exercises in administrating activities, exercises in practicing the ability of each activity, competing exercises on the basis of ‘in search for excellence’, exercises in managing thoughts and ideas on the basis of data, confidence-building exercises, exercises in the use of technology and others. 

Third, space mastery activities (geographical). The activities in this group are in the form of a leader’s ability to know clearly about the culture, culture, customs, customs, traditions that exist and develop around us. University culture, for example, is different from the culture of society outside. The university culture is more critical, egalitarian, participatory, accountable, speculative. The culture of the world outside the university is completely different. Government culture, for example, is highly bureaucratic, more feudalistic, less egalitarian, hierarchies, strict or rigid. A thorough understanding of the various cultures that exist around the institution led, as well as understanding the culture of the organization itself, becomes the main condition in building leadership. 

Fourth, the activity of ‘being a citizen of the world’. These activities concern the development of self-awareness, personal awareness that can create flexible attitudes or behaviors in dealing with various problems. Therefore, this activity is also related to the availability of each prospective leader to ‘be a lifelong learner’. He must always learn, improve himself, increase his capacity, so that he is able to get along with others equally. One of the main keys of this ability is that there must be activities that foster, train the ability or skills in persuasion in the composition of cross-cultural societies. 

Fifth, activities related to cross-regional collaboration, cross-institutional collaboration. This kind of activity is very useful for building networks, maintaining relationships, building and maintaining ‘customers’, so that activity also has many implications. Besides it serves as an ‘image building’, but it can also metamorphosis as a medium to maintain customer loyalty, serve customer satisfaction, build a ‘trademark’.  

Sixth, participation widening activities. This activity is related to the global trend in which almost all sectors of human life are strived to achieve a democratic life. Efforts to understand and train prospective leaders to be able to act as a democrat become very decisive patterns of relationships between individuals in community life. Skills in democracy, promoting democratic values such as open, participatory, respecting human rights, accountable, flexible, respecting plurality, become one of the keys to achieving achievement of achievement. Therefore, democratic education activities are a very high priority. This is in line with the demands for the life of mankind which moves towards the dominance of liberal-capitalistic ideology. 

The six groups of activities such as the above will provide a lot of ‘global’ colors for every activity of leaders (students), so that the development of such programs and subjects will provide a solid foundation for the preparation of prospective leaders for the future. Staying, now, we formulate a more real form of activity, which can energize the lives of prospective leaders (students) moving forward, not stagnant and broken by narrow pragmatism. Narrow pragmatism that serves only hedonistic attitudes, finished origins, poor idealism, and segmentation mentality on the basis of group hegemony. This kind of narrow pragmatism will give room to the emergence of ‘me’ attitudes, which then put others as ‘you’, so that the other person (‘you’) does not become part of (campus) life together. This form of society is a form of society that is easily ‘breakdown’, a society that is vulnerable to conflict, insinuation and less responsibility. This is the characteristic of a transitional society. A society in an anomalous situation, lacks adherence to common rules. Rules are built only for the sake of a moment and a particular group. Such transitional societies are, of course, incompatible with modern (global) societies that until recently were references to the life of mankind. 

Future leadership, as we consider the characteristics and demands of its requirements, requires three elements of leadership that are the main foundation for the development of a good leadership model. The three essential elements are (1) good technical excellence, (2) have a capable ethical orientation, and (3) have a commitment to be able to work fully, ‘all-out’ (full engagement). With these three forces of leadership elements, prospective leaders (students) can make themselves ready to face the dynamic changes of the ‘future’, both caused by the movement of globalization flows, strong pressures that come from ‘market demands’, otherwise we want to call it a demand from all ‘stakeholders’. 

Technical ability in ‘student governance’, lately, causes a lot of problems. We often see that our would be leaders, even our political leaders, seem a bit confused in the governance of organization. That’s why, we also often see that many policies are taken unfounded to reflect the ability to control organizational governance. Such policies, then, have an impact on overlap, both regarding the enforcement of the rules of the game, and on the distribution of responsibilities. The result then is that many policies have uncertainty value. Uncertainty concerns where exactly the territory of policy authority is located.  

We recognize that organizational governance will have a lot to do with a more definite determination of the authorities, so that it can regulate the flow of responsibility. Technical ability in regulating the flow of responsibility and distribution of authority will make leadership provide certainty of management to all those involved in organizational interactions. 

While the element of commitment to be able to work fully, pay full attention to the implementation of responsibilities, related to the commitment to provide services, build tolerance, foster maturity in the implementation of leadership, so as to encourage the emergence of a culture of hard work, carry out work with precision and a level of accuracy that can be accounted for. Hard work, tolerance, mature, are important values that determine the success of leadership implementation in the future. 

Then instead, the ethical element will provide the basis for leadership that can be held authentically, displaying a humble mood (humility), mutual affection or love (compassion), full of patience, giving each other trust. Values such as the above will give a strong color to the establishment of ‘role models’ of service for all who will be involved in future leadership. 

The three elements, as mentioned above, strongly characterize the leadership building of a candidate for leadership. At the very least, the three elements of leadership will build inspiration for prospective leaders to transform the organization they lead, the institutions they manage, into organizations and institutions that are ready to enter the ‘world of the future’, even be able to ‘create a future’ that becomes a common ideal. Such efforts must always be encouraged so that we can make enough space for the formation of a future ‘leader society’ that gives real hope for our better, more prosperous, fairer, and more prosperous lives.