Indonesian president's transformational leadership in the critical era

• Published date: 01 December 2022
• Author: M. Rosul Asmawi,Mohamad Ali Fulazzaky
• Date: 01 December 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2715

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Indonesian president's transformational leadership

in the critical era

M. Rosul Asmawi

1

| Mohamad Ali Fulazzaky

2

1

Postgraduate Program, Syekh-Yusuf Islamic

University, Tangerang, Indonesia

2

Water Chemistry and Microbiology, Djuanda

University, Bogor, Indonesia

Correspondence

M. Rosul Asmawi, Postgraduate Program,

Syekh-Yusuf Islamic University, Jl. Maulana

Yusuf No. 10, Tangerang, Banten 15118,

Indonesia.

Email: mrosul@unis.ac.id

Leadership research tends to focus on the importance of transformational leadership

in normal times; there have been few studies to date on transformational leadership

in a crisis. Leadership effectiveness was identified as the most important mechanism,

particularly in times of crisis. This paper aims to reflect on the President of

Indonesia's crisis leadership model in order to generate transformative leadership

characteristics to deal with the situation. This study showed that Indonesian presi-

dents generally exhibit strong idealized influence and inspirational motivation, but

they were often weak in intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration.

What is currently needed by Indonesia in facing a crisis is a transformative leader

who always strives to advance the nation and avoiding to prioritize their group for

the sake of national unity and sovereignty, understands the problems faced by their sub-

ordinates, motivates them to seek new approaches in performing their duties, organiza-

tional tasks, listens attentively to input from subordinates, and especially willing to pay

attention to the needs of subordinates. During a crisis, transformational leadership is

necessarily required to manage the economy, politics, and society in Indonesia. This

study compared transformative leadership from previous presidents towards the present

president, Joko Widodo, through literature studies and examined the presence of leader-

ship style for each president. Five indicators of successful transformative leadership must

be accomplished, including strives to advance the nation and avoiding to prioritize their

group for the sake of national unity and sovereignty, understands the problems faced by

their subordinates, motivates them to seek new approaches in performing their duties,

organizational tasks, listens attentively to input from subordinates, and especially willing

to pay attention to the needs of subordinates.

1|INTRODUCTION

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a severe global impact on health,

economy, and social aspects. This challenge requires the appropriate strat-

egy and leadership style to face and overcome it. Poor handling of the

pandemic, combined with the prolonged economic downturn that has

come in its wake test who can well lead this situation. Prolonged eco-

nomic slumps in large parts of South America, Africa, and Asia will fuel

public anger against incompetent autocrats. Numerous leadership theories

discuss the efforts of leaders to overcome various problems. One of the

leadership theories that has received a lot of attention is transformational

leadership. Bass (1985) defines transformational leadership as a process

that affects significant changes in the attitudes and assumptions of organi-

zational members and the formation of a commitment to the mission and

goals of the organization. Leaders are truly transformational when they

increase awareness of what is right, good, important, and beautiful;

whent hey help to elevate followers' need s for achievement and self-

actualization; when th ey foster in followers high moral maturi ty; and

when they move followers t o go beyond their self-int erests for the

good of their group, organi zation, or society (Bass, 1997).

Transformational Le adership has four elemen ts including ideal-

ized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and

Received: 11 September 2020 Revised: 17 March 2021 Accepted: 21 June 2021

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2715

J Public Affairs. 2022;22(Suppl. 1):e2715. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 1of10

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2715