MORE WARRANT OFFICERS FOR SAF LEADERSHIP AND ORGANISATIONAL PROGRAMME

Together with 23 senior officers, four members of the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) Warrant Officer Corps walked away as proud graduands of the 4th SAF Leadership and Organisational Development (L&OD) Programme.

Conducted by the SAF Centre for Leadership Development (CLD), the 4th SAF L&OD Programme saw the graduands receiving their certificates from Chief of Defence Force Major-General (MG) Neo Kian Hong at the graduation ceremony held at the SAFTI Military Institute on 16 Jun.

The course, which was only attended by senior commanders and appointment holders ranging from Majors to Colonels previously, is now seeing an increasing number of warrant officers among its list of graduands.

The success of the first two warrant officers who graduated from the third instalment of the programme in June 2008 prompted the CLD to open up more vacancies to cater to the needs of the SAF Warrant Officer Corps.

Being the first and only lady from the Warrant Officer Corps to have successfully completed the SAF L&OD Programme, Military Expert 3 (ME3) Tamilarasi, a former Air Operations Systems Expert with the Air Force recounted her experience with what she considers to be one of the toughest courses she has ever attended.

"It was a very challenging course. If you don't do well for an assignment or if the instructors don't think you have given enough thought to it, you'll have to redo the assignment and the assignments can go up to 20 pages," she said.

The 15-month programme which commenced in February 2009 was led by two American consultants, Dr Daniel Kim and Ms Diane Cory, who were assisted by a Singaporean trainer.

Together, the trainers looked to hone the self-realisation and awareness skills of their students. Topics covered included the development of personal mastery, the building of a shared vision and the dynamics of understanding people.

Guest-of-honour Chief of Defence Force MG Neo Kian Hong (front row: ninth from left) bearing witness to the graduation of the 27 participants of the 4th SAF L&OD Programme.

Besides lectures, students were given internet-based assignments that required them to do a lot of readings and engage in self-reflection. The assignments were designed to encourage students to think through the course content and how think about how it can be applied to the SAF.

Students also undergo practical experiential learning where they get together in groups of four to conduct lessons among themselves for confidence-building. They will then record the session on video and send it for evaluation.

Thereafter, they progress to planning and conducting learning days for a bigger group of trainees from the SAF Warrant Officer and Specialist (WOSPEC) Corps such as the cadets from the Specialist Cadet Schools. This is conducted over two days.

As the students went through the course, they also had to concurrently conduct leadership workshops for the WOSPEC community. Now a leadership development instructor at the SAF CLD, ME3 Tamilarasi worked closely with her learning partner and fellow leadership development instructor, 1st Warrant Officer Jason Wong from the Army, to facilitate the running of the leadership components for some 50 servicemen at the Joint-Warrant Officers Course - the largest group she has ever managed.

To graduate from the course, students had to complete a quiz based on all the frameworks that they have learnt. It is a test of how well they understood the course and how the models learnt can be applied to the workplace.

When probed about her secret of success - with an almost perfect score for the final quiz - ME3 Tamilarasi told cyberpioneer that "if you believe in yourself, you can do it".

"It pays if you really put your heart and soul into the programme and I think you can achieve whatever you want!" she exclaimed.

For ME3 Tamilarasi, her graduation from the programme spells the beginning of a new chapter in her life.

"It just feels that the journey has just began for me because it's now more of how I can influence my own sphere of people around me, be a role model and develop individuals who are grounded in the SAF core values and military ethos and who know the deeper purpose of what they are doing in the SAF," she said.

Like ME3 Tamilarasi, participating in the SAF L&OD Programme was a life-changing experience for former course commander at the Signals Institute, Master Warrant Officer (MWO) Jude Sebastian Vincent, who is also a Leadership Development Instructor at the CLD.

"The one most important lesson that I've learnt is how to self-manage and be aware of my own thinking and perception. I used to be a very hot-tempered guy and I just jumped into conclusions, but now, I'm able to sit back and use those frameworks that we went through to help me be a better person," he said.

Ms Cory found the commitment level of her students to be most commendable and was full of praises for them.

"The hours that they toil are above and beyond their regular work. It is an additional responsibility that they shoulder," she said.

"We (the consultants) have the genuine pleasure of seeing their minds open and begin to consider all the possibilities that are available... and we watch them mature and develop in new ways of clarity and in new ways of purpose."