Leadership Traits of Mrs Anastasia Liew
Mrs Liew takes pride in what she does and make sure that her products are of good quality since day one. She would buy fresh ingredients such as pandan and coconut rather than stint and bottled pandan essence or packet coconut milk for the cakes she sold to supermarkets in the 1970s. The efforts she put in paid off as people are willing to buy even though the cakes cost 45 cents more compared to the market rate of 30 cents. The company has used technology to replace some of the baking process which is still able to maintain the traditional taste. For example, Japanese encrusting technology is used to produce a thinner and even crust on its pineapple tarts, and air-mixers and depositors are utilised for sponge cakes. Custom-made revolving ovens and a rotating-steaming conveyor system were also installed for kueh lapis and kueh salat respectively. She always ensure that the quality of her products are consistent and investigate thoroughly should there be complaints on the food. For example, earlier in 2009, some customers complained that the butter she used in her premium pineapple tarts, which use a blend of top-grade butter from Australia and Holland, tasted too strong. She realised that the butter’s standard had dropped and immediately changed it. Furthermore, Mrs Liew does not allow her employees to be lazy and use short cuts. Even though she would tell them off, she is more than willing to show them the right way to do things when they make mistakes, for instance when the cake moulds were not cleaned up to her standard. She rolled up her sleeves and showed the workers how to do it.
Besides showing patience to her employees during work, she also trusts her employees by giving the heads of certain cake departments the recipes for products and putting them under their charge. Although Mrs Liew’s good faith was being betrayed a few times by her previous employees, she is still willing to place her trust in her employees. Her soft-hearted nature is what touches her employees when they encountered difficulty in their personal lives, for example, paying off their home loans or emergencies. She gave the money to the workers loans that are interest-free and they were repaid bit by bit through monthly deductions from their salaries. When busy festive periods end, Mrs Liew often rewards her workers by celebrating with them. During festive season such as Chinese New Year, she would invite her employees to her house and cook a feast for them. People usually describe her as an unassuming person who is able to relate to people from all walks of life.
Most importantly, Mrs Anastasia Liew has patience and strong perseverance to help her overcome all the challenges that she had faced before becoming successful today. These challenges had made her feel like giving up many times, especially during the first few phases when she first started out. Besides her business, she had to find time to interact with her children, who were very young at that time, and take care of the business. Every day, she could only sleep four to five hours and it was very tiring for her, both physically and mentally. However, it was her passion which motivated her and allowed her to press on. There was one occasion which she remembered vividly that tested her perseverance. It was an incident that occurred before Chinese New Year. As the process of making Kueh Lapis required huge effort, doing each layer one at a time, more time and manpower were needed. Furthermore, there were many undone orders. Mrs Liew asked the workers to work overtime and help out but they said that they were tired and wanted to go home and rest. However, there was one staff who was willing to stay back and helped out. With just both of them, they tried their best to complete the order. In the end, Mrs Liew wept while doing the Kueh Lapis as the orders were to huge and she was upset that she could not complete them on time. Fortunately, there were some considerate customers who understand her plight and agreed to collect the Kueh Lapis after their reunion dinner.
In addition, as during the initial years, her staffs did not report for work consistently and only turn up for work when they felt like it. Mrs Liew was quite vexed with their working attitudes and had to deal with store, both the front and and kitchen, herself and manage the store with little help from her staff. Despite the tough situation, she tolerated and pushed those negative thoughts to the back of her mind and bear all the problems, which shows that she is not a person who is easily defeated.
Leadership Styles of Mrs Anastasia Liew
Mrs Liew is a people-oriented leader from the examples mentioned above. She treasures her employees and makes sure that they are being treated fairly. Even though they are just staff working under her, she treats them like family members and lends a helping hand whenever it is needed. In order to comply with effectiveness and efficiency, she supports, trains and develop her employees so as to increase job satisfaction and genuine interest to do a good job. As Mrs Liew expects her products to be of high standard, she does not want her employees to be affected by personal problems and cannot perform during work.
Besides that, Mrs Liew adopts a leadership style of coaching to develop her employees’ strengths to improve performance of the whole team working under her leadership. She does not mind showing her staff how certain things should be done if she sees it being done incorrectly. Leaders who do not adopt such a leadership style usually start blaming the managers and in turn lead to the staff being told off by the managers which do not solve the issue.
In addition, Mrs Liew is also an authentic leader who desires to serve others through her leadership. She leads with purpose, meaning and value. When her son Henry is interested in continuing to build the business, she also passes him several key values which include knowing the products, being generous with the ingredients, remaining honest and sincere with customers, and staying fair to the staff. The key to their business is integrity. Mrs Liew stated that she never thought of making a lot of money or profit from this business. She takes pride in her customers’ coming back which keeps her going till now.
Summary on why Mrs Anastasia Liew is a Successful Leader to Us
In conclusion, I feel that Mrs Anastasia Liew is a very successful leader as she is able to start her own business from scratch with just the knowledge of how to bake cakes and kueh in the beginning. Something must be very different in her cakes and kueh that allow people from all over Asia to keep coming back for more and today, it became a popular pastry brand in Singapore. Even though many people also know how to bake, they do not seem to be able to make it as successful as Mrs Liew. I admire her perseverance and hard work from all the tough situations that she had been through. Putting myself in that situation, I would have gave up and blame myself for being too ambitious. However, Mrs Liew is very persistent and insists to continue what she has been doing. She is clearly passionate about her job and takes pride in her products. Successful leaders should have great passion in things that they do so as to constantly motivate themselves to improve and strives on.
Furthermore, I also feel that a successful leader should have high emotional intelligence as maintaining a strong relationship with the staffs in the company is important. They play in part in building the brand and they should be given recognition for the effort that they have put in during every day’s work. Even though they are being paid to work, they must have the motivation to report for work. A successful leader would create rapport with employees to ensure that they are happy and content working under him or her. Mrs Liew has also fulfilled this criterion as a successful leader as she is constantly thinking of her employees’ welfare, putting that under one of her key values.
If I were to have a chance, I would like to work under guidance and personally experience her leadership.