Mahathir's leadership communication: Exploring the Indians’ political and non-governmental organisations experience

Abstract

In general, there were many studies have been conducted analysing leadership field from majority’s’ perspective but fewer studies were conducted from minority’s perspective. In Malaysia, many studies analysing Mahathir’ leadership were carried out however, limited studies focusing from Indians perspective. Therefore, this exploratory study aims to fill in the gap by investigating the influence of Tun Mahathir’s leadership communication from Indians perspective in Malaysia. The lived experience of Indians in Malaysia under the leadership of Tun Mahathir was explored. In-depth interview was utilised to get an insight of the experiences of Malaysian Indians on Mahathir’s leadership communication. Data were collected through a series of intensive interviews with 12 informants consists of Malaysian based Indian political leaders and representatives of non-governmental organisations. Thematic analysis was used to identify, analyse and create themes from the data collected. Based on the analysis, four themes were identified; characteristics of Tun Mahathir’s leadership communication, the impact of Tun Mahathir’s leadership communication, Mahathir as the Indian community transformer and the expected leadership qualities of Indians. This study has contributed to enhance understanding about the impacts of leadership communication from minority community perspective. Further, it was found that the Indians are significantly affected by Tun Mahathir’s leadership communication. Keywords: Leadership Communication, Social Change, Indian Community, Mahathir, minority