The theme of this week’s lecture is about Leadership and Mindset. Additionally, we had the opportunity to listen to some inspiring stories from Mr. Heng Swee Keat, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore. If you are new, this is a continuation of the IT2900 Weekly Reflection series, where I shared my answers to the weekly assignment of this course.

The previous week’s blog post was titled “Learn About Yourself Before Learning How to Be a Leader.” You can take a look if you later find this article interesting.

What was most insightful / thought provoking / inspiring for you from today’s lecture? Explain.

This week’s lesson has been my favorite so far in IT2900, although there are only two lessons now. I hope the future lessons will adjust the tier lists I have in my mind. As usual, I think we have gained a lot of insights, but this time, from a person who is very experienced as a leader.

Overall, I am honored to sit in front of the former Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat and learn about Singapore’s history and ideology from a man who played a significant role in the country firsthand. As a foreigner, I also gained a better understanding of why a young country like Singapore is more successful and well-reputed compared to my home country.

The way I see Mr. Heng is a leader who is strategic, compassionate, and can adapt fluidly to various situations and crises. With all those good traits, he is also a man who is faithful to doing the right thing for the system or the country in general.

Personally, the key point that still stuck in my mind, even after waking up this morning, was about the importance of leaders talking to the people on the ground. With a more complex and strategic organizational structure in the modern world, which would benefit them in allocating people to work efficiently, I believe we sometimes waste or miss an opportunity for senior-ranking people to come down and work closer to the people underneath.

Regarding this matter, Mr. Heng shared an example where software developers at Microsoft went down to talk with elders using the products, to see how they could improve in such a way that is beneficial to the users. It was interesting because it also changed Mr. Heng’s view on how they could better spend their time coding. The question raised was, if they keep coding, who will take the time to understand the users? I found this to be an inspiring story that will shape how I build things in the future. Although I always ensure I comprehend the User Persona, I feel the level of compassion to understand people in this example is on a different level. I will adopt this sympathy to understand the people I am working with and for, so I can thoroughly see them and develop a better strategic plan in building any projects.

In this section, Prof. Ben also mentioned the AI Chasm of Death and, in short, encourages us to work harder to move forward faster to the right of the curve and surpass the capabilities of AI. Although I heard about this before during CVWO, I think I am now internalizing the idea better after thinking about it again. Slowly and steadily, I began to use AI less and put more work into the thinking process. The area I have been using AI in is writing, only for grammar correction. However, I realized that I also want to learn English and rely less on AI! Therefore, for the first time, this post is entirely written by me and a grammar checker without any help from LLMs. It takes a lot more time, but I somewhat believe it is worth the effort.

Given the scenario below, choose 2 mindsets that you think are most appropriate for the situation.

You have been assigned to take over and lead a high profile project which you do not have enough experience in. The previous lead had already come up with a project plan and have shared it with you. Your performance in this project will be seen by a large community of people. You have a small group of people working on this project with you with varying experiences. Which two mindsets will you choose to help you proceed? How might the chosen mindsets influence the decisions or actions you will you make or take? Explain how your beliefs and values influence your choice.

1. Learning mindset: I put this mindset first because I believe it is the most important one in this context. As many people mentioned in the previous lesson, a good leader should have competency, or a great understanding of the projects in general. Therefore, it is beneficial to adopt this mindset and develop my abilities throughout the project. Since the team comprises people with varied experiences, it is essential to encourage this mindset in the team. This approach helps them grow faster and take mistakes as feedback rather than failures.
2. Deliberative mindset: I also agree that this mindset is significant. As I don’t know much about what I am doing, it is crucial to make small decision steps at a time and carefully analyze things to make sound decisions. When solely focusing on implementing deliverables and getting things done, the work may be incomplete and require unnecessary extra work in the future. Therefore, I should enforce the thinking system number 2 instead of 1 in this project. When I use the learning mindset and become more proficient, I can focus more on implementation. However, in the beginning, slow is steady and steady is fast. I need to ensure I am doing the right things rather than just implementing them directly.

Answer this by putting in your own assumptions and context.

Supposing someone is fearful of failure, what might they really be afraid of? What might failure mean to them?

This prompt is indeed an interesting question that I once had a couple of weeks ago. Although I could not find resources suggesting my following points anymore, what I deeply remembered is that people are afraid of failure, not because of failing to achieve the desired outcomes, but rather the emotional consequences of them.

For example, I am afraid of failing exams, not because I am strongly attracted to the A+ grade or I don’t want to waste the hours I spent studying, but rather the sadness I may get or how others will see me as a dumb person. To elaborate on the latter, I might not be afraid of people seeing me as a dumb person, but rather how I feel when that happens. In short, I believe that our brains have some functions that prevent us from wanting to be in those emotional states, and that subsequently force us to be afraid of failures.

What strategies might be used to overcome or navigate their fear of failure / what they might really be afraid of? List at least 2 things they can do.

About the reasons I suggested in the previous question, I think the most effective ways of overcoming the failure are as follows:

1. Changing the views on the emotional consequences of failures. Although this is quite abstract, I think if we can tie the emotional consequences of failures to happiness rather than sadness, we would never be afraid of failing again. This action is related to adopting a learning mindset and aiming to develop mastery from feedback, rather than being favored by others, which may lead to negative thoughts more easily.
2. Starting to ask the right questions could also help in overcoming the fear of failure, although not directly. When we encounter any failures, instead of asking why we fail, focus on asking “What are the learning values and how can we adopt them in the future?” Additionally, when afraid of starting something because of failures, stop asking ourselves what can go wrong, and focus on asking what we can do to ensure the right thing happens. I believe these two pointers will address most of our concerns about failures and help us overcome them, eventually.

What would be the consequences of changing or not doing anything about it?

Allowing the fear of failure to take over your decision-making can severely limit the opportunities in your life. Many people who are currently in their poor positions could be talented. However, they may be overly associating the negative emotions with failures, and lack the initiative to change their lives. I believe changing this thought and overcoming the fear of failure could help them move faster in their careers and generally enjoy doing new things and their lives more.