■ Molly Yeo
Head of human resources
ABN AMRO
Personally, I think HR leaders can be made because I don’t think anybody was born to embark on an HR career and become a very good HR person. What is most important for HR leaders is if they are blessed with emotional quotient (EQ). HR professionals would be more effective and successful if they have good EQ, because you are talking about the people business and EQ comes in very useful in that aspect. This quality would definitely help HR professionals in becoming more effective and successful. The greater question is whether EQ can be nurtured or is it up to nature.
The other quality is the ability to adapt. HR people need to be very adaptable because we work very closely with the CEO of the organisation and organisations are always evolving. As HR is always in the midst of all these changes, an HR leader has to be very adaptable first. Once you are adaptable, you can lead the organisation and guide the CEO to go through changes.
One must also have the passion to be very successful. Qualifications and technical ability are usually taken for granted, but when everybody has gone through the HR programme and obtained a masters degree, how do you differentiate the highly successful ones? That is what I mean by having passion, EQ and adaptability – the three qualities which will differentiate the HR leader.
■ Maurice Chua
Regional human resource director
AES Asia & Middle East
HR leaders are made, never born. HR is an art, not a science. Good leaders, I strongly feel, have had to experience many different situations to lead effectively. Paper qualifications are less important than experience. They are necessary but qualifications alone will not make a leader. Working through things, especially crises, is more important. To me, the true test of leadership is during a crisis situation.
Experience, both good and bad, count towards making a person better equipped to handle future situations. To be better leaders, one would have to experience many different situations. It is difficult to envisage anyone born with an innate ability to deal effectively on hugely diverse people issues.
I’ve seen HR professionals with well qualified paper credentials do badly with simple day-to-day HR discussions with employees. But over the years, with more experience and guidance, they become much better.
In the field of human resources, doing it well is not an end state of the matter. People issues have a way of coming back with more complications. Sometimes, an issue is over only when an employee permanently leaves the organisation because employees’ expectations are more difficult to manage. It is unlike a leaked tap where a few turns with the wrench will do the trick.
Understanding psychological theories is well and good for scoring great grades in examinations. It is the appropriate application of these well researched theories to situations in the workplace that makes the difference. Paper qualifications are important but that alone does not make a leader of someone. It is also not a strong predictor of someone’s leadership capability.
I firmly believe it is all down to experience. There are a few philosophies which I hold true, and use to pick out potential leaders.
• A potential leader is one who has the conscience of the job
• A potential leader is one who seeks out solutions to problems, rather than wait on their manager to direct them there
• A potential leader does not lament about a crisis, they try to find solutions so everyone could get out of it
■ Sherine Toh
Head of HR
City Developments Limited
I think a HR leader needs to be very caring, intuitive and very responsive, because when you manage people you have to know and anticipate their thoughts. Somehow people in HR, whether it is an operational or strategic role, female or male, would tend to be very sensitive about needs. They would also know and understand the human psyche and behavioural sciences.
While knowledge is a very important platform for the HR practitioner to perform, more importantly, it is the characteristics of the individual. Hence for me, HR leaders are born and not made. There are people who just have the warmer personality that relate better to people. It is also the upbringing of the person that adds to the quality he or she brings to the HR role because the formative years are what defines people before they became HR practitioners.
Other than individual characteristics, education and training are important for any HR practitioner. Unlike specialised professions such as engineering, law or medicine where proper accreditation is required, someone joining the HR field can always acquire the technical knowledge on the job, through seminars, part-time education or simply through the years of practice. You can also be an engineer and move into the HR function later in your career. Ultimately, whether the person is a born or made successful HR practitioner boils down to how much common sense that person has.
