Business Leaders Need This Skill to Face Unexpected Situations
Jakarta – The ability to face uncertainty is an important quality in business leadership. Market changes and situations that do not always go according to plan require business leaders to think clearly and make sound decisions.
Major General Iwan Bambang Setiawan, Commander of the Indonesian National Armed Forces’ Peacekeeping Mission Centre (PMPP), said the ability to read a situation is an important part of a leader’s intelligence. Changing circumstances, he said, should not cause a leader to lose their composure when deciding what to do.
“In my view, the most important intelligence lies in the ability to read a situation, process information and adapt to change. In business as in the military, circumstances do not always go according to plan, so leaders must remain calm and be able to take the right steps to achieve their goals,” he said.
Iwan also emphasised the importance of turning the results of analysis into decisions and action. A leader’s ability to identify opportunities must be accompanied by the courage to assess risks and decide on a course of action.
“Seeing an opportunity is not enough. A leader must be able to process information, assess risks, have the courage to make decisions and turn those decisions into action,” he added.
When circumstances change, he continued, a leader does not have to stick to the same approach. What needs to be maintained is the direction and the goal.
“The approach can be adjusted, but the goal must be kept in sight,” he stressed.
Syamsul Safin, founder of SyaREA World, explored these ideas about thinking further in a presentation on military intelligence for business leadership. He explained that intelligence involves observing reality carefully and connecting it with one’s existing knowledge.
He stressed that intelligence is not simply a matter of formal education, but the ability to understand reality. In his view, it is the capacity to observe and connect knowledge with what is happening in the real world.
For entrepreneurs, this ability is necessary to ensure that decisions are not based solely on assumptions or past experience. They need to observe changes, build their knowledge, connect different pieces of information and turn their analysis into action.
Safin’s presentation also distinguished between the contexts in which military and civilian intelligence are applied. Military intelligence is used in defence and security, while civilian intelligence applies to social and economic life. Both, however, require rigorous thinking, continuous learning and the ability to find an alternative when an approach fails. In business, these principles make sound judgement part of an entrepreneur’s resilience in the face of change.