Exploring Mahathir’s Leadership Communication Attributes from Indian Community Perspective

Literatures proposed that culture does influence the success of leadership communication. Mahathir as the longest serving Prime Minister of Malaysia was criticised to be a leader who promotes the betterment of the majority community that he represented and marginalised the Indians. Despite of that, the Indians in Malaysia showed advancement in various sectors including politics, economy and social.Therefore, this exploratory study aims to bridge the gap by investigating the attributes that link between Mahathir’s leadership communication and Indian community. Data were collected through a series of intensive interviews with 15 informants consists of Indian political, non-governmental organisation and community representatives. Based on the thematic analysis, two main attributes that strongly link to Indian culture were identified: leadership communication conception (Sattava Guna) and characteristics of good leadership communication (Sattava characteristics). This study has contributed to enhance understanding about the leadership communication concept from the Indians’ perspective. It provides some insights on the Indian’s cultural conceptions of inter-ethnic leadership communication