Truthfulness

When I was a Dean of OYAGSB, about 40% of our resident faculty members are foreign scholars coming from 8 countries, UK, Ireland, Canada, India, Pakistan, Yemen, Indonesia and Philippines. That made us unique though as a leader it was sometimes difficult to manage and lead people from different cultures. Some can easily adapt to the local culture while few others had a tough time adapting to it. As a leader I try to understand each of them. Once in a while we will have a chat talking about work and personal matters. Most of them are quite close to me. Dealing with them require different approaches. There are times when you need to be diplomatic, nice and kind. Some other times you just need to be right and tell them off. As a newly established school, there were lots of challenges we had to face. So it was very important to work as a family amd be more flexible and open with the constraints we had. Remember having a good chat with a very senior faculty from Canada. He was one of the few having difficult time adjusting to the local culture. Coming from the West, he was quite vocal in voicing his opinions and comments. He valued truthfulness and righteousness most. However, those values are seemed hard to swallow in our culture. Things that we really have to change if we want to move forward

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