RSOG Leadership in Action
Braveheart
with
Dr. Masliza Mahmod
When: 6 September 2018
Where: Razak School of Government
Guest Speaker: Dr. Masliza Mahmod
The framework of the Session
The heart is the number one energy consumer in the body, beating about 100,000 times each day, and pumps about 10 tonnes of blood around the body. The heart is one of the most important organs in the body and appears to be the epicentre to the evolution of humankind. Physically, humans are at a great disadvantage without a properly functioning heart. In 2016, the top cause of death globally was due to heart related diseases (World Health Organisation). Billions are invested worldwide to find ways to understand the heart and improve the life of people with heart diseases. Apart from technology, facilities, and research, more importantly cardiologists play a critical role in heart related discussions. What is the life of a cardiologist all about? What does it take to be in this enigmatic field? Are there any leadership lessons that can be learned by policy planners and decision makers? These are some of the potential focus areas that the Guest Speaker will discuss in this programme.
Key Takeaways from the Session
This year, the World Heart Day is celebrated on 29 September. The World Heart Federation is asking individuals, healthcare professionals, and politicians to make pledges to eat more healthily, to save more lives, and to implement a non-communicable disease action plan, respectively. This indicates that to care for an individual organ requires collective responsibility, from various levels, to alleviate the global number one cause of death. In the RSOG Leadership in Action session on 6 September 2018, the Guest Speaker spoke about her contribution in cardiovascular research, her motivation in this involvement and how the journey so far has unveiled some leadership lessons.
The study of cardiology deals with the diagnosis and treatment of heart disorders, along with parts of its circulatory system. It requires both problem finding and problem solving. The latter has been central to why grants are awarded and sought competitively, and the former requires unending curiosity and some form of trouble-shooting to identify the root cause before identifying ways to solve it. Curiosity is often identified as a crucial element in research. The Guest Speaker exemplifies this further as ones’ inquisitive nature remains as one of the important motivating factors of any iteration process through trial and error.
This element of curiosity is best paired with passion – being passionate in what one does. It is only natural to be curious about something that matters to ones’ heart. A final element that complements the pursuit of problem finding and problem solving is ensuring one is focused. Being curious about what one is passionate about is a potent intrinsic motivation to ensure one is focused on the issue, task, or responsibilities at hand.
The Guest Speaker is responsible for clinical trials and research that requires working with many people, some of whom come from various backgrounds and are not restricted in the medical fraternity alone. The exposure to collaboration helps in broadening ones’ horizon, increasing ability to see in other people’s perspective, and ensures one is open to options that one may not be able to visualise otherwise previously. Diversity helps in obtaining this outlook and it will be strengthened further when the medley of individuals agrees on shared goals and believe in collective responsibility.
A leader must also want to lead. It requires courage, stepping out of ones’ comfort zone as it prevents short-sightedness, relative comfort in ambiguity, and the ability to balance authenticity and adaptability. Referring to her research experiences, she relates leadership with having patience, being persistent, and being able to persevere. However, this is not in tandem with stubbornness as this inflexibility would not ensure one improves or innovates further. Instead, stubbornness would only lead to making the same mistakes repeatedly.
Another important element as a leader is people development. Growth can be encouraged by providing team members or subordinates with responsibilities to shoulder instead of seeing it as mere jobs or tasks to complete. Substituting telling them what to do with asking them what they think and what they will do based on the information and resources provided would be one of the ways to encourage growth.
More importantly, the Guest Speaker reiterated the famous saying that nothing is impossible. One must be confident in the risk one takes and while there would be external factors contributing to the successes or failures, it is what one has inside that would help steer the direction. While hindsight is always a clear view, whenever probed, the Guest Speaker remains resolute in her belief that anything could be achieved and if one fails at the first try, always identify ways to fall forward. As poignantly pointed by our national laureate, “sejarah ini milik kita seluruhnya: zaman kalah dan menang, musim rebah dan senang.” (history belongs to us in entirety: in victory and in defeat, through thick and thin).
Key issues raised
- Failures are rarely discussed around one’s leadership. This could be due to many factors, such as culture, whereby it is more acceptable to dismiss or shield failures away as it creates embarrassment and discomfort.
- In coping with failures, there must be a resolute mentality where one does not give up. There ought to be a way to overcome the problems that arise thus one must endeavour to fix it.
- High level meetings are always with clear objectives and focused on the next course of action. By having clarity in what needs to be achieved, more meaningful discussion can take place within a short period of time.
- Potential reasons as to why doctoral students, especially those sponsored by the government, struggle to complete in time or at all include lack of focus, superficial understanding of the subject, utilising the years abroad as a sojourn from work, and poor relationship or communication with supervisor.
- Emotional intelligence is one of the crucial virtues in plotting ones’ future trajectory of success.
About the Speaker
Dr. Masliza Mahmod is presently a University Research Lecturer and Head of Clinical Trials Group at the University of Oxford, Centre for Clinical Magnetic Resonance Research (OCMR), Division of Cardiovascular Medicine. She obtained a DPhil (PhD) in Cardiovascular Medicine from Oxford followed by a period of postdoctoral fellowships at OCMR. She is a member of the Royal College of Physicians (MRCP), London and holds a Master of Internal Medicine from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. She obtained a primary medical degree from Otago University, New Zealand. She sits on the Steering Committee of the British Society of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (BSCMR) Heart Failure Research Task Force.