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The recent arrest of Rudi Rubiandini, head of the Upstream
Oil and Gas Regulatory Special Task Force (SKKMigas), by the Corruption
Eradication Commission (KPK) is another blow for the nation, which has declared
graft as being one of the extraordinary crimes it will fight.
Rudi is accused of accepting S$127,000 and US$690,000, which paid in two blocks: $400,000 and $300,000 respectively. What surprises us the most is not the amount of money, but how such a respected, down-to-earth, clean and capable man like him could be tempted and caught in such a humiliating act of bribery, which he must have known would end his political career.
As usual, corruption cases, which very often involve high-profile figures in Indonesia, are a lucrative commodity for news media and political enemies. A blame game through accusations, shallow generalizations and sporadic comments becomes another euphoric and purposeless discourse in this country.
News media, politicians and political observers will mainly talk about the post-case analysis with little or no emphasis whatsoever on the prevention other similar cases. A discourse about who is to blame is far more prevalent than why bribery happens and what action we should be taking to prevent such incidents in terms of opportunities, pressures and internal drivers — the kinds of things that may have triggered a man like Rudi to accept bribe money.
The massive incidence rate of corruption in this country should lead us to certain lessons and/or comprehensions. In the US and the UK, there is an attempt to investigate the effectiveness of multibillion dollar anti-smoking campaigns through fMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaginary) scanning of the brain. One’s brain is scanned to gain a better understanding by identifying which part of the brain actually works in response to smoking bans and warning labels on cigarette packets.
Corruption is in some ways like smoking. Many people rationally reject the idea of becoming rich by any means or at the expense of other human beings. Yet emotionally, under some circumstances, corruption may have become so deeply ingrained in the hearts and minds of our people that it has become a habitual subconscious pattern. Our internal drivers that need to be recognized are the ones promoting higher status, greater success and more control over others, and they may be subtle issues lurking behind simple labels, such as opportunity and peer pressure.
Another thing to be elaborated is culture and leadership. Leaders actually create meaning in an organizational environment so they actually shape organizational culture. When good people are surrounded by corruption and a weak culture, which together make up a bad system, then they can get distracted. Good people who enter a bad system can end up becoming bad guys.
This situation is actually worsened by a lack of leadership development, which is dedicated to senior leaders within an organization. Most leaders within government institutions feel that the people who most need leadership development are those who are in mid-level positions. They often feel that they possess adequate leadership capacity to run the organization without proper training and development. They frequently think that their top positions indirectly mean that their capabilities are well beyond those of most other people within the organization, which is not necessarily true.
We should ask how many ministers, heads of political parties and senior officials in government institutions actually participate in systematic leadership development programs when they assume their formal leadership posts. The answer may be astonishingly low. There is no systematic leadership development program in place to prepare high-ranking officials for their leadership positions.
As a consequence, their initial sense of purpose and vision of leadership will sooner or later become distracted and saturated by the immense flow of existing practices. When meaning is gradually eroded by pointless routines, which are intertwined with meaningless bureaucracy, corruption begins.
We are actually putting our people and all this country’s stakeholders in jeopardy because we never really think how to equip our leaders with appropriate and adequate capabilities to surf the tumultuous challenge of a corrupt environment. ●
Rudi is accused of accepting S$127,000 and US$690,000, which paid in two blocks: $400,000 and $300,000 respectively. What surprises us the most is not the amount of money, but how such a respected, down-to-earth, clean and capable man like him could be tempted and caught in such a humiliating act of bribery, which he must have known would end his political career.
As usual, corruption cases, which very often involve high-profile figures in Indonesia, are a lucrative commodity for news media and political enemies. A blame game through accusations, shallow generalizations and sporadic comments becomes another euphoric and purposeless discourse in this country.
News media, politicians and political observers will mainly talk about the post-case analysis with little or no emphasis whatsoever on the prevention other similar cases. A discourse about who is to blame is far more prevalent than why bribery happens and what action we should be taking to prevent such incidents in terms of opportunities, pressures and internal drivers — the kinds of things that may have triggered a man like Rudi to accept bribe money.
The massive incidence rate of corruption in this country should lead us to certain lessons and/or comprehensions. In the US and the UK, there is an attempt to investigate the effectiveness of multibillion dollar anti-smoking campaigns through fMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaginary) scanning of the brain. One’s brain is scanned to gain a better understanding by identifying which part of the brain actually works in response to smoking bans and warning labels on cigarette packets.
Corruption is in some ways like smoking. Many people rationally reject the idea of becoming rich by any means or at the expense of other human beings. Yet emotionally, under some circumstances, corruption may have become so deeply ingrained in the hearts and minds of our people that it has become a habitual subconscious pattern. Our internal drivers that need to be recognized are the ones promoting higher status, greater success and more control over others, and they may be subtle issues lurking behind simple labels, such as opportunity and peer pressure.
Another thing to be elaborated is culture and leadership. Leaders actually create meaning in an organizational environment so they actually shape organizational culture. When good people are surrounded by corruption and a weak culture, which together make up a bad system, then they can get distracted. Good people who enter a bad system can end up becoming bad guys.
This situation is actually worsened by a lack of leadership development, which is dedicated to senior leaders within an organization. Most leaders within government institutions feel that the people who most need leadership development are those who are in mid-level positions. They often feel that they possess adequate leadership capacity to run the organization without proper training and development. They frequently think that their top positions indirectly mean that their capabilities are well beyond those of most other people within the organization, which is not necessarily true.
We should ask how many ministers, heads of political parties and senior officials in government institutions actually participate in systematic leadership development programs when they assume their formal leadership posts. The answer may be astonishingly low. There is no systematic leadership development program in place to prepare high-ranking officials for their leadership positions.
As a consequence, their initial sense of purpose and vision of leadership will sooner or later become distracted and saturated by the immense flow of existing practices. When meaning is gradually eroded by pointless routines, which are intertwined with meaningless bureaucracy, corruption begins.
We are actually putting our people and all this country’s stakeholders in jeopardy because we never really think how to equip our leaders with appropriate and adequate capabilities to surf the tumultuous challenge of a corrupt environment. ●
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