the consultants that many of the leaders interviewed exhibited strong competencies in the area of focus, drive, execution, negotiations ( and deal making ) and entrepreneurial drive. these are all competencies resulting from high achievement needs and high achievement values. there is also a high sense of national pride and desire to enable malaysia to meet the challenges of 2020. participants also displayed a strong sense of performance drive for excellence. there are areas of competencies that, however, require further development. the review detected some degree of performance complacency by some respondents, as reflected by a lack of drive to achieve and the lack of desire to benchmark against the global best. participants seemed quite satisfied with what they had personally achieved. in the studies of how joint ventures between multinationals and local firms sometimes fail, one of the main reasons cited was the misalignment of the ambitions of global multinationals and local partners. the results showed that while global multinationals had unlimited appetite for growth and ambition, fuelled mainly by shareholders ’ demands and driven by professional managers, local joint venture partners may have achieved their personal goals as professional managers and thus reached a plateau in their ambitions. another area of shortfall was in cognitive energy as reflected in the low desire to putting energy into the thinking process and to pushing the mental discipline when the issues gets a little more complex. another important issue was in the area of talent management. although the leaders interviewed spoke about the importance of leadership and talent management, there was little or no supporting evidence of action on this important area. also, there was a need for systems to be in place for constructive, honest and candid assessments about the capabilities and potentials of subordinates who may someday assume a leadership position in their organizations. such feedback is vital for the development of the intellectual capital and management capabilities of senior management to drive strategic direction and operational excellence in the industry to pave the way for the development of their future leaders in the industry. those observations and insights have brought to the fore the importance of leadership competencies in articulating the combination of essential skills, attributes and behaviours required by leaders for the successful and effective performance on the job. it is our hope that the iclif leadership competency model will be a constant source of reference, inspiration and impetus to our leaders in building a dynamic organizational culture and in meeting future challenges. in order to better position ourselves in this more challenging environment, one that is more globalised, more integrated, more competitive and more complex

, we need to play a more pro - active role in strengthening our own organizations, we need to prepare ourselves for difficult periods, we need to also contribute towards the development of the environment in which we operate, the markets and the financial infrastructure and finally and importantly we also need to invest in people, in their skills, to enhance our organisational capacity to bring about institutional development so as to enhance our respective organizational effectiveness. leadership is an integral part of this process. our investment in iclif hopes in some part to contribute to achieving these goals. alumni members, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, it is now my privilege and pleasure to officially launch iclif alumni association and iclif leadership competency model.