STATE executive councillor Chong Eng, who often champions for women to come to the fore, has expressed her desire of seeing Penang having the most number of women leaders in the country.
“We want your presence to make a difference. We want you to make an impact to the people of Penang and also to the state’s performance,’’ Chong Eng said during her opening speech at the ‘Lead-A-Ship’ workshop held at Olive Hotel today.
“I would like to see Penang produce the most number of women leaders in the country.
“Women are not less capable than their male counterparts. In fact, you can do better than them if you really work on it. You have all the potential.
“Moreover, women can multitask and are meticulous. These attributes are essential in determining the success of a programme.”
Apart from that, Chong Eng, who is also the chairman of Penang Women’s Development Corporation (PWDC), highlighted that leaders need to put the organisation’s interest before their own interest.
“In any organisation, if the people put their organisation’s interest before their own, then it will turn out to be a strong organisation.
“Of course, in the government we must put the government’s interest before our own because sometimes people might come to us and ask us to do favour for them.
“So, as a leader we must know how to handle this kind of people as we want a clean government. This is the basic principle of being a leader,’’ said Chong Eng, who also added that leadership requires the quality of ‘self-sacrificing’.
Chon Eng stated that more women need to be in the picture (leadership position) in order to realise Penang’s women agenda which aims at encouraging more women to be the decision makers.
“Always find the opportunity to empower women who work under you and bring them out to become leaders.
“That is why we are having this kind of workshops to enhance the leadership skills among the women leaders.
“We want women to have a gender perspective in order to cater to the different needs of the community,’’ she said.
A total of 25 women from the state agencies, such as the heads of departments, are taking part in the two-day workshop organised by PWDC and Othman Yeop Abdullah Graduate School of Business, Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM).
PWDC chief executive officer Ong Bee Leng, who was also present, said that the facilitator of the workshop is Claudia Cadena, the associate professor from UUM.
“We wanted someone who can understand and has the insight with regard to the leaders in the government sector.
“Cadena has worked with some of the government-linked organisations, thus with her experience I believe she is capable of delivering to the participants,’’ Ong said.
Story by Tanushalini Moroter
Pix by Noor Siti Nabilah Noorazis