July 2025 Issue

True leadership is a gift as well as a serious responsibility. It’s so powerful it can make or break people, companies or countries.

Quite coincidentally, I recently I picked up Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. In it he speaks about principle-centred leadership as opposed to personality-driven leadership. Principle-centred leadership emphasises one’s core character and ethics as a leader and is built on a foundation of timeless principles such as integrity, fairness, and honesty which ultimately builds long-term trust as a leader and reaps long-lasting impact. Personality-centred leadership, on the other hand, relies on one’s charisma and persuasive personality which can be regarded as quite shallow and can quite easily fall apart when the going gets tough. It is truly a book that I recommend that every leader should read or re-read!