major driver of these changes that are happening or still need to happen locally. competition in this rather hostile environment is the key. if you cannot compete, you perish. survival is paramount. leadership and hr management are therefore evolving in response to these changes. how do you lead a firm to financial and economic success under these conditions? to me the answer is simple – your human capital holds the key. it is also the answer to globalisation and competitiveness. even with the state - of - the - art machines and the best processes, without a performing hr, the firm will struggle. but sadly, as we all know, improving the performance of our people is perhaps the hardest thing to do in the universe. a host of factors need to converge to get the people loving what they do and doing the best that they can. leadership and hr management are at the heart of this pursuit for better performance. leadership leadership has generated a lot of discussions and research over time. i see numerous books on leadership advocating different types of models. one of the books on leadership that i read recently puts it rather interestingly that “ the secret to leading people and living and working with them is found in the space between their ears ”. the book went on to explain that leadership is all about training people to think. there is a lot of truth in what buddha once said that “ what we think we become ”. other leadership models advocate leadership by principles, servant leadership and others. but there are some traits of leadership that are common to all these models and we come across many of these in our careers. i will come back to these common areas later. leadership has evolved over the years. many, many years ago physical labour was predominant and the leadership model was more like “ just do what i say ”. there was a comment back then that when you come to work leave your brain at home! management was supreme. you just do what you are told – no questions asked. things have of course significantly moved on from that master - servant model. the computers have taken over the mundane routine work. internet is here. in this modern climate, the coercive leadership model in my view no longer works. why? i think that one of the major reasons is that workers are now better educated and better informed than they were then. they are also more independent. they know that they can take alternative options. the global job market has opened up. the modern leadership style needs to attend to these factors. leaders not

the most common one i have come across is that this is what we have been doing for years. only when they are out of their comfort zone would they be inspired. inspiration is the pinnacle of personal victory. i fully subscribe to a quote by a richard florida that says : “ people do not need to be managed, they need to be unleashed ”. related to this stretch targets is the situational leaders that i mentioned earlier. sometimes it is relatively easier to lead when things are rosy. but leaders are challenged most when things are tough. the saying that “ when the going get tough, the leaders get going ” is very appropriate. when the situation is tough, tough decisions needs to be made and there is a high premium on being level - headed, keeping emotions under control and being an optimist. for instance in this current crisis, i have been stressing to team rbf that we need to stay sharply focused on our vision and to be absolutely professional on how we approach our work. times are obviously tough in fiji now. our biggest economic challenge is to maintain external financial stability at a time when the economy is declining. without financial stability, the country will be in a much precarious position. i always stress to my colleagues that we have an important national mandate to keep at the reserve bank. therefore, the bank had to take decisive and proactive steps to protect our financial position. over the last four years, the bank had raised interest rates, reduced liquidity and tightened exchange controls. one thing we can be sure about is that raising interest rates and tightening exchange controls are never going to be popular. but unfortunately they are necessary. long term stability is always superior to unsustainable short term gains. we try as much as we can to tell the public why we do the things we do and i am pleased to say that our policies appear to be taking effect. foreign reserves are holding up well. another book on leadership emphasises that good leaders are those that teach others to lead themselves. at the end of it all, the team itself says that they did it themselves. i am a firm believer of this principle. danny cox in his employees handbook on leadership quotes “ the ultimate reward for a leader of people is to be able to say, “ i saw someone grow today, and i helped. ” i believe that the ultimate challenge for us leaders is to be able to effectively grow our people and being able to say, i helped someone grow today. when a