The information era has brought a lot of changes not only in the First World Society but also in our society. Social values in our society have been shifted toward those that are believed by more modern societies, such as in the United States, United Kingdom, and other well-developed countries. These changes in our society, in turn, have forced almost all kinds of businessess and professions to adopt values and norms that are highly demanded in the society on which they should reform and restructure their organization in such a way that they could get survived and competitive in their businesses. TNI as one of our national’s assets has to be aware of such a condition. Internal reformation and internal restructurization are inevitable for TNI if respect and support from the society should be maintaned.
Sullivan and Harper in their book, Hope is Not A Method (1996) point out that “team building empowers people with a sense of responsibility so that the momentum for growth and transformation originates throughout the organization, not just from the top. Therefore, effective leadership is not about controlling from the top; it is about unleashing the power of people” (p.115). After serving in the Army for twelve years, I had to say that the Indonesian officers need to pay a very close attention to this issue if we want our armed forces to have a better performance. The way we value leadership have been centralized in an authoritarian-style of leadership. Leadership lectures in our military schools have been continuously using general theoritical approach of leadership. In the real military live, as a young officer, I have seen a lot of leadership styles from senior officers, which is typically an authoritarian leadership. This fact, in turn, tends to discourage initiatives of the lower ranking officers within the Unit, which after years, makes them incapable of taking decisions. The military culture does not trully allow diversity, even in regards to discussion between superiors and subordinates. What happens is, in many occasions, as young officers who stay with the Unit’s members most of the time, we have difficulties to make instant decisions while we are away from the Officer in Charge. As a result, quite numerous times we had to wait and, thus, wasting time for nothing. Therefore, I agree with Sullivan & harper (1996) that “leaders live and lead others through the power of teams” (p.113). Leaders have to encourage and delegate the authority to their subordinates whenever needed in order to make the team powerful and functioning properly.
Some may argue that an authoritarian leadership style remains needed in the armed forces, since the nature of businesses we are dealing with are sometimes unpredictable and need to be done as quick as possible. I do not argue in this case. An authoritarian leadership style remains needed as we deal with military operations in which casualties are sometimes inevitable if the plan is not well reviewed. However, what I am going to say is that the prefered authoritarian leadership style must not violate human rights of the subordinates in such a way that we enforce law and order without necessarily hurt them, both phisically and psichologically.
Another point that the Indonesian Armed Forces should pay more attention is an intellectual foundation of its officers. Sullivan & Harper (1996) argue that “without a solid intellectual foundation upon which to rest training, education, leader development, equipment modernization, and organizational design, the Army could easily have become disoriented and unprepared” (p.97). In this information era, classical problems such as space and time are not critical anymore, since the technological development of information shortens space and time between units. Such development will absolutely bring a lot of changes in regards to the way the military organizations run the works. The organizations’ work will be more and more effective and efficient. However, are we ready with such well advanced technological development? Do we have such capacities to keep up with the development? Do we have enough skills to run the programs ? these are good questions to be asked to ourselves before we can actually get involved in such a business.
Human resources is critical in this case. The only way to keep in touch with technological development is by doing it. And in order to be able to do it, we have to know how it works and the like. Therefore, intellectual foundation is required by future leadership so that the military organization will be able to take advantage from technological development. In order to build an intellectual foundation of the officers, the Indonesian armed forces should provide a foreseeable educational and training programs for its officers. Foreseeable programs mean that the Indonesian armed forces should provide budget and good will so that these programs can be projected as a long term strategic plan of the armed forces. However, one thing should be kept in mind by the top leader or other senior officers that such an investment is to build the better armed forces in the foreseeable future.
Preparing future leaders for TNI is critical if its strategic role in the society is to be maintained. In this reformation era, we had no choice but to transform our organization, our leadership, and the way we work in such a way that the society will feel that we are part of them.
