Raise Your Game: Leaders That Get Things Done

When Kimberly Clark's HR team approached us about bringing 47 foreign specialists to Malaysia for a critical manufacturing expansion, they expected the usual challenges: visa paperwork, regulatory compliance, and processing timelines. What they didn't expect was the leadership crisis that nearly derailed their entire project three months later. The work permits arrived on schedule. The expatriates settled into Kuala Lumpur. But by month three, productivity had dropped 35%, two senior engineers had resigned, and the local Malaysian team was requesting transfers. The problem wasn't immigration. It was integration. And it revealed a blind spot that costs Malaysian companies millions annually: the failure to lead across cultures.

Roshan Thiran and Lily Cheah of Leaderonomics, and Lee Ai Jin, Malaysia’s first female boxer, share their personal thoughts on what they admired most about Muhammad Ali, how he was an inspiration and what we can hope to learn from him.