Towards 21st century leaders
By Senuri De Silva
The success of leaders in the 21st century depends on their adaptability to modern-day technology, communication skills, entrepreneurial skills and the ability to be team players, according to top academics in the field of accounting.
Management and Science University of Malaysia, Dean of the Faculty of Business Management and Professional Studies Professor Dr. Abdol Ali Khatibi, delivering the keynote address at the inauguration of the 12th annual AAT conference that kicked off in Colombo yesterday, said: “We can analyse our productivity only when we are in the com
parative world. It is not according to where we are in the circle of this country but where we stand in the world today.”
Along with Khatibi, Guest of Honour Confederation of Asian and Pacific Accountants (CAPA) President Sujeewa Mudalige and Chief Guest Minister of Environment and Renewable Energy Susil Premajayantha spoke of how the new perspectives held by the younger generation should be taken into account by today’s business leaders.
The theme of the conference is “GAP – Governance, Accounting and Performance.”
Generation gap
Leaders need to be able to speak a ‘common language.’ Without good communication skills, productivity and performance in the organisation will be affected.
Khatibi illustrated how the generation gap has further aggravated this issue: “Our generation grew up saying yes to the bosses but now the younger generation always questions us asking why, why, why.”
As a result, leaders should constantly improve themselves by reading and updating their knowledge and work towards gaining a global perspective of the business environment.
New opportunities
A savvier younger generation is entering the work force and is constantly in search for new opportunities that leaders should be prepared to provide. 
“The manager looks to solving the problem and the entrepreneur looks to the opportunities. To them, they don’t need the manager because they have ‘doctor Google.’ They can solve all the problems. But Google can’t give them all the opportunities. We need to open our eyes and see how many opportunities we can find.”
Therefore leaders of the 21st century should read and be adaptive to new developments. Khatibi’s suggestion was to engage in reading about on goings in the world and utilise websites such as coursera.org that allow anyone looking to expand their skills set to follow a wide range of courses from the world’s leading universities.
Rising need for accountants
CAPA President Mudalige spoke of the rising need for accountants to cater to the rapidly-growing Asian region. According to him, a pessimistic estimation of the number of accountants Sri Lanka will need in the next decade is about 10,000 to 15,000.
Speaking of this emerging need, he said: “To achieve the Government’s set standard of 8% consistent growth, we need 35% investment to GDP and currently we’re below 30%. A bulk of this investment is to come from private sector. That’s where challenge is for us. Over the last four to five years the private sector adopted a wait-and-see approach. We have waited for the Government to improve infrastructure and I think the Government has responded. Now it’s up to the private sector to take and challenge and see how we are part and parcel to this success story.”
Financial professionals should be “on top of the numbers and be technically competent, understand the business they are in, understand the risk framework and be able to influence as well as be good team players,” Mudalige said, in harmony with the keynote speaker’s message as well.
Entrepreneurial skills have to be developed through the education system. Mudalige further added: “The youth looks at opportunities in a totally different ways.”
Therefore, according to him, the theme of the conference was “timely and extremely relevant in the current context’ as “they need to look at whether we have enough accounting professionals”.
Emerging economy
Minister Premajayantha also shared his thoughts on the rapid development the country has seen in recent times and what this means for the accounting field.
“We need middle-level accountants. It is reported that we have 40,000 students. We need more in the next couple of years. There are so many small-scale industries and enterprises starting. The younger generation doesn’t want to work under someone else. They want to start their own enterprises. “In education we maintain the highest literacy rate in the region. The school enrolment rate is 99% and the retention rate is on par with any developed country in the world. We are achieving our targets. Within two weeks the Japanese and Chinese State leaders came to Sri Lanka. The message we are sending the world is that Sri Lanka is an emerging economy in the world.”
Four technical sessions of the 12th annual AAT conference will take place at the Galadari Hotel today on topics such as “Tech Savvy Accountants’ by MAS bodyline (Pvt) Ltd Director Innovation And Consumer Insight, Ahmed Irfan, ‘Beyond Conventional Accounting’ by University Of Malaya Associate Professor, Dr Karuthan Chinna ‘Leadership Renewal’ by Brandix Lanka Ltd Headi Internal Audit Suranga Indunil and ‘Developing A High Performance Culture by ’Chevron Lubricants Lanka Plc Managing Director CEO Kishu Gomes.
Pix by Lasantha Kumara
