Charisma, Harmony, Unity Building, and Respect: Lessons from the Leadership of Sukarno, Indonesia

The leadership of Sukarno, the first President of post-colonialized Indonesia, stands at the center of this paper. It is commonly accepted that Sukarno played an important role in liberating Indonesia from Dutch colonialism. He was distinguished statesman and respected leader, a “magical verbalizer” and a modern millenarian figure in the Indonesian political cultural context. My purpose in this paper, then, is to analyze Sukarno’s major elements of leadership in order to learn from his biography how educational leaders could manage their educational institution more effectively, particularly in traditional developing nations. A biographical analysis of Sukarno’s leadership reveals four major elements in his leadership: charisma, harmony, and an open-minded view of reality, unity building, guided democracy, and respect. Practical implications for leadership development programs in education are suggested at the end of the paper.