Leadership as Competitive Edge

Soft skills lecture in the 4th session with the theme of Why Am I here? Leadership as Competitive Edge has been held on Saturday, January 16, 2021 at 09:00 – 11:30 WIB online. The event was attended by Chemical Engineering students, especially batch 2020 and alumni. In the first part Dr. Widiyastuti, ST., MT as the head of the department gave a speech as well as opened the event which was moderated by Dr. Tantular Nurtono, ST., M.Eng. This event presented 2 speakers. The first speaker was Mr. Ir. Elijas Pudjianto (alumnus of Chemical Engineering, K26), he is the President Director of PT Jasatama Petroindo (BP Trading & Supply Indonesia). The second speaker was Mr. Ayok Nugroho, ST (Chemical Engineering alumnus, K40), as director of supply chain and operations, GMD Asia, Pepsi Co.

Leadership ability is undeniably one of the important abilities for college graduates, including ITS Chemical Engineering graduates. Mr. Ir. Elijas, who is usually called Cak Ilijas, conveyed to students that the important aspects of leadership are communication and synergy. About how to communicate ideas to colleagues or classmates, both peers and seniors, need to be trained since students. Because according to him, the implementation of leadership is not only always for subordinates, but also for fellow classmates and seniors. Relations between people also need to be considered, considering that everyone has a culture that can be different. Cak Ilijas provides an example of the cultural differences between Americans and British when it comes to talking about other people. British people find it common to talk about other people, but not with Americans. Building a leadership spirit is needed since students, if one day they are appointed to be leaders, then they are ready and we should try to work as well as possible. In dealing with others, having different views is sometimes unavoidable. With a good leadership spirit, we should not hate people who have opinions, but rather test the ideas presented. If the ideas conveyed are good for achieving common goals, then we must also be encouraged to accept the idea. This is important considering that they will meet people with various characters. Cak Ilijas has served as a Shipping Manager, which incidentally is not in his field. He then built a team, where the team could build him too, always open to listening the input from the team. Leadership styles differ between people, the most important thing is to be yourself, as long as we can contribute. Cak Ilijas also added that a person’s career success is not only determined by academic ability, but also by the ability to interact socially.

The second speaker who is usually called Cak Ayok, also conveyed that an important aspect of leadership is communication. Ideas need to be conveyed well and use different communication methods according to the other person. Therefore, sometimes it is necessary to use the language the other person wants. However, it is necessary to convey the truth in a good way and pay attention to the culture of the interlocutor. Cak Ayok explained, for example, in a meeting, the matters that would disturb the other person, should be conveyed in good language. Cak Ayok sees that communication is an art, so it is better not to hurt other people. Students need to have a spirit of “respect someone and has no fear”. Basically, students and their colleagues are all as a team, who will help each other, because the spirit of leadership is the spirit of influencing. Another important thing is adaptation to multi-culture, this can be trained by getting used to interacting with multi-background people.

This fourth session is the last session of the soft skills course for new students in the first semester. A series of other soft skills courses will be held in the upcoming semester. (ANS)