Two Weeks in the Life of a General Secretary
Every now and then, I meet someone who could not hide his surprise upon receiving my business card. “Is there that much to do in the business of kindness?” is one of the questions politely posed to me. When I mention that there is so much to do that we need 20 fulltime staff to do it, the mild surprise turns into utter amazement. So what do I do as General Secretary of the Singapore Kindness Movement (SKM)? To begin with, I lead. A movement by its very nature requires someone to lead it. Since taking on this assignment at SKM, I have been featured in two books on leadership. Changing Lanes, Changing Lives by Richard Hartung highlights a number of private sector senior executives who left their profit-oriented businesses to lead not-for-profit organizations. All of us have a common passion, namely to “do good well”, to quote Willie Cheng who wrote a whole book about it, aptly titled Doing Good Well. I am convinced that leadership is even more...