ABSTRACT

Leadership plays an important role in guiding and orienting the development of organizations at all levels. Each level of leadership sets certain requirements for personality, the higher the leadership position is, the greater the personality requires. Therefore, each of the leaders themselves continually trains and strives to improve the personality at the request of society, at the same time responding to the specific requirements of leadership activities, ensuring that the leader successfully implements the role of those who create inspiration, vision and lead the organization to adapt to the changes for development. From that requirement, the article will focus on a number of issues on leaders’ personality in international integration and some suggestions for leadership personality training in Vietnam.

Keywords:

Personality, Leader, International Integration

1. Introduction

Vietnam is in the process of strong development after more than 30 years of renovation. In response to the demand for renovation, Vietnam needs to actively and actively integrate into the world, the process of international integration requires leaders with comprehensive, capable and qualified personality, with industrious lifestyle, overcoming traditional way of thinking, quickly adapting to international integration, visionary, independent and creative thinking, strategic forecasting, mastery in modern science and technology departments, successfully implementing the goal of “rich, strong, democratic, fair and civilized people” (CCCPV, 2018a) .

Becoming a leader is not a natural attribute, some people are born with the penchant to become leaders, but to become a capable leader, there must be training, experiencing both in the school as well as through empirical activities, because the success is accompanied with labor and enduring efforts. In terms of leadership, it is about the role of the leader who has the power, the ability to gather, concentrate the subordinates to participate in common activities to achieve the organization’s goals. This requires the leader to have a personality and quality that is consistent with the requirements of leadership.

So far, there have been many conceptions of a multi-component personality structure. Many Vietnamese psychologists believe that personality consists of two basic components, virtue and talent, or quality and capacity. Dr. Freud’s conception states that the personality consists of three components: unconsciousness, consciousness and super-consciousness, corresponding to the three components id, ego and superego (Bich, 1998) . K.K. Platonov assumed that the personality structure consists of four sub-structures that are sub-structures of biological origin (including temperament, gender, age and also pathological characteristics); substructure of characteristics of psychological processes such as qualities of feelings, perception, memory and logical thinking; the qualities of will; characteristics of emotion and affection; substructure of experience includes knowledge, skills, cunnings, competencies, ... and sub-structure of personality trends: needs, excitement, ideals, worldview, beliefs (Bich, 1998) . J. Stefanovic—Czech psychologist, considers the personality consisting of the five components: Positiveness, which is the motive system of personality such as trends, aspirations, interests, life plans; viewpoint—the value of personality that expresses ideals and views of life; actions of personality include knowledge, techniques, habits; self-regulation of personality including self-awareness, self-assessment, self-criticism; dynamics of personality expressed in temperament style. In terms of content and nature, the personality of the leader also contains all human personality aspects including some of these concepts.

The curriculum of the high level of political theory training of Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics offers a definition of “Leadership personality is a particular type of social personality, a combination of psychological characteristics and qualities suitable with the specific requirements of leadership to ensure that they can successfully fulfill their leadership and functions” (HCMA, 2018: p. 133) . This concept has emphasized a number of qualities needed for individuals to become leaders, including both genetic and social aspects with unique characteristics compared to non-leaders. The above definition does not distinguish any personality quality according to ideology and can be fully applied to the research and development of leadership personality in view of building the comprehensive personality of the leader in the international integration process of Vietnam.

2. Some Qualities, Personality of Leaders in the Current Period

1) Some genaral qualities and personality of leaders in Vietnam at present

On August 4^th, 2017, The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam of the Communist Party of Vietnam promulgated the Regulation No. 89-QD/TW on the criteria for titles, orientation frameworks for evaluation of leaders and managers at all levels; followed by the Resolution of the 7th Conference of the session XII on focusing on building a contingent of State officials at all levels, especially strategic, qualified, capable and prestigious ones on mission, and most recently No. 26-NQ/TW, May 19^th, 2018. On October 25^th, 2018, The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam issued Regulation No. 08-QDi/TW on examplary State officials, Party members, first of all members of the Politburo, Member of the Secretariat and members of Party Central Committee, raise some of the leaders’ requirements in Vietnam to meet the Party’s requirements and the process of international integration:

- Incisive revolutionary spirit

Facing the world with many rapid and complicated developments, temporary economic difficulties in Vietnam can make the officials fluctuate spiritually and ideologically. Therefore, the leader confronting any hardship should not be bewildered and must maintain the political viewpoint, absolutely faithful to the revolutionary ideals, with Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh’s ideology. Exemplary in implementing policies and guidelines of the Party, policies and laws of the State, always putting the interests of the nation: the people above personal interests; willing to sacrifice for the cause of the Party, for the independence and freedom of the Fatherland, for the happiness of the people (CCCPV, 2017) , without being materially tempted to maintain the morality, for the sake of the citizens.

In fact, in recent years, some leaders have not held their stance, followed the pragmatic lifestyle, fallen into social crises, corruption, and lack of knowledge and leadership skills causing organizations to decline prestige, losing personal image before people, colleagues, violating Party’s discipline and law. The revolutionary spirit helps leaders be aware of the missions and tasks that they are undertaking in order to strive, train, advance and consistently follow the Party’s guidelines but actively innovate their logical thinking.

- Wisdom and extensive cognizance

The Resolution No. 26-NQ/TW dated 19 May 2018 of the Seventh Party Central Committee focusing on building the State officials at all levels, especially the ones at strategic level to be qualified, capable and prestigious according to their mission levels has shown that the incapacity of the State official with several limitations, weaknesses and shortcomings in some aspects; many of them, including the high-ranking ones are lack of professionalism as well as working with inappropriate major and strength with limited foreign language and communication skills and the ability to work in international environment (CCCPV, 2018a) .

Leaders need to have the intellectual capacity to be able to judge, analyze, evaluate and generalize theoretical and practical issues. Wisdom and cognizance help leaders forecast and analyze domestic and foreign issues, potential issues related to industries and fields that they are in charge of and identify key tasks to plan steps in accordance with objective rules.

An intensive and extensive understanding foundation will help leaders assess, support, and train their subordinates. The more specialized knowledge and leadership skills are, the better they could be in term of serving the innovation or adapting to the change of context, and more effectively in using the team of experts to perform common tasks to achieve the leadership goals. The intensive and extensive understanding helps leaders to be aware of people properly, discover people with good capabilities and qualities to arrange and assign in accordance with the work nature and requirements, to foster for sources of replacement staff in the future.

- Initiative, enterprising and responsible

Some leaders hesitate to innovate, so there is a lack of creativity that stagnates the system, slow down the growth of people living. Resolution of Seventh plenum of the 12^th Party Central Committee, the section of tasks and solutions has affirmed that enterprising officials who have the sense of responsibility for the common good shall be protected (CCCPV, 2018a) . Therefore, being a leader means being proactive, innovative, and enterprising in working out difficult matters that others hesitate in order to overcome challenges and actively fight with bureaucracy, corruption, waste and pragmatic lifestyle. Those characters of the leaders contribute to improving their political position as well as the prestige in front of the people, to lead the people to complete the duties of the race and the nation successfully.

In the context of globalization and international integration becoming the inevitable trend, there are favorable opportunities, but also the integration process itself raises many challenges. If leaders are not initiative and enterprising, they shall miss the opportunities, lose their grasp on reality, not be able to make appropriate and timely decisions, and thus let themselves left behind the practical life. Therefore, in order to integrate successfully into the world, leaders need to train themselves to work professionally and scientifically, wisely, acutely, and take the work efficiency as a measure of leadership competency.

In addition, the proactive innovation of leadership methods along with a strong political viewpoint make the leaders be consistent with the ideal of the development of the society and the nation. Material temptations shall not corrupt their willpower. Leaders should boldly overcome challenges, always have creativity in all difficulties and complexities of reality, and dare to take responsibility due to limitations and shortcomings before the people.

The Communist Party of Vietnam asking the leader in its political system to have those above-mentioned high-requirement personality characteristics an important direction in continuing building, training and improving personal characters. Therefore, it is necessary to determine the essential personal characters of the Communist Party-oriented leaders to meet the requirements of the international integration process.

Those are common personality traits needed for leaders in every country. However, leaders in Vietnam need to have standards of personality that are affirmed in the Regulation on standards of titles of leadership and management cadres of all levels of the Central Executive Committee, No: 89-QD/TW, August 4, 2017, specifically:

2) Some leaders’ personal qualities in view of the Communist Party of Vietnam:

Political thought: adhere to the interests of the Party, the country, the nation and the people; persist in the Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh’s thought, the Party’s goals and ideals of national independence, socialism and renovated cause; hold firm political position, standpoint and will, not fluctuate in any situation.

Morality, lifestyle, sense of discipline: There is a bright moral quality; a lifestyle of honesty, modesty, simplicity, sincerity, industriousness, economy, integrity, impartiality. Being enthusiastic, responsible to works; not ambitious in power, not eager for fame; have spirit of solidarity, constructiveness, exemplariness; cherish comrades and colleagues.

Competence and prestige: Having innovative mind, scientific vision and working methods; have the ability to synthesize, analyze and forecast situation; being diligent, hard-working, dynamic, creative; daring to think, dare to act, dare to take responsibility and for the people to serve; trusted by officials, party members and people (CCCPV, 2017) .

The Central Executive Committee’s Regulation on responsibility to set the example of cadres, party members, first of all the Politburo members, members of the Secretariat and members of the Central Executive Committee, No. 08-QDi/TW, October 25, 2018 set out some personality traits for leaders:

a) Persisting in Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh’s thought

Wholeheartedly, utterly serving the Fatherland and the people, for the sake of the people, of the nation and for the revolutionary objectives and ideals of the Party.

Practicing the scientific style of leadership, democracy, in very close touch with practice, efficiency; be really the nucleus of solidarity, gathering, motivating and promoting collective intelligence.

b) Seriously practicing self-criticism and criticism

Maintaining principles, democracy, fairness, objectivity, openness and transparency in cadre work.

Constantly studying, fostering, training, cultivating revolutionary morality (CCCPV, 2018b) .

The general personality characteristics and personality traits of Vietnamese leaders are stated in Regulation No. 89-QD/TW, August 4, 2017 of the Central Executive Committee, The Central Executive Committee’s Regulation on responsibility to set the example of cadres, party members on October 25, 2018 is an important step that defines the leader’s personality needed. The reality poses to the leaders of Vietnam not only the above-mentioned personality traits, but also the qualities and requirements suitable to the context of international integration.

3. Some Essential Personal Characters of a Leader in the International Integration of Vietnam

1) An overview of Vietnam’s achievements and challenges in international integration

Regarding bilateral cooperation, Vietnam has so far established diplomatic relations with most countries in the United Nations and established trade relations with more than 200 countries and territories (Vinh, 2017) , signed over 90 Bilateral Trade Agreements (BTA), nearly 60 Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements, 54 Agreements against double taxation (Anh, 2011) .

With regard to multilateral cooperation, Vietnam has had a positive relationship with many international monetary and financial institutions such as Asian Development Bank (ADB), International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank (WB). In July 1995 Vietnam joined the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and officially joined the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) from January 1, 1996. In 1998, Vietnam was admitted into the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC). On January 11 2007, Vietnam officially became a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO). On November 12, 2018, the National Assembly of Vietnam voted to approve the Resolution ratifying The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and related documents.

Additionally, many links were shaped. December 17, 2018 Vietnam had for the first time had been a member of the Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) for the term of 2019-2025. Most recently, the 2nd US-North Korea Summit took place in Hanoi from February 27-28, 2019. Apart from these achievements, Vietnam will face many challenges: a) Being inconsistent, embarrassed and passive in dealing with the relationship between the positive and negative aspects of the process of international economic integration, between economic independence and autonomy and international economic integration; b) The competitiveness of the economy, enterprises and products, although improved, is still weak compared to other countries, including countries in the region; c) Activities of international economic integration and expansion of relations in other fields have not been implemented comprehensively and in a harmonious way with overall strategy; d) Training, retraining, building staff, especially strategic cadre, are not on the par with requirements of political task; e) Pressure to fully implement commitments on legal system transparency (Vinh, 2017) . To address these challenges, leaders in Vietnam must constantly train their political skills and spirit, but also improve their personalities, meeting the requirements of the international integration process.

2) Some necessary personality traits of leaders in the context of international integration:

The course of national reform and international integration process of Vietnam cannot be achieved successfully if the leadership team do not have all the essential personal characters. Leaders often associate with the context, and in the process of international integration of Vietnam, there are expectations and requirements that are different from the previous periods. Especially after Vietnam conducted the reform (Doi Moi), the personal characters of the leader must have higher requirements to adapt to the demands of reality. The Party’s viewpoint in the Seventh plenum of the 12^th Party Central Committee confirmed that State officials are the decisive factor in the success or failure of the revolution; personnel is the key part of Communist Party building and political system (CCCPV, 2018a) . In fact, there is no one single best personal character of a leader, but it is necessary to identify some of the core personal characters meeting the leadership requirements in Vietnam and effective international integration.

In order to be a successful leader, it is not just having some of personal characters but about a blend of many of them. Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum in the book “My vision: Challenges in the Race for Excellence” outlined 16 qualities of the leader, Napoleon Hill in his book “Think and Grow Rich” raised 11 qualities, John C. Maxwell in the book “The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader: Becoming the Person Others Will Want to Follow” indicated that a leader needs 21 qualities that are considered as golden qualities. There are many other perspectives on the qualities of a leader. According to the concept of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Regulation No. 89-QD/TW dated 4^th August 2017of The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam on the standard framework of titles, orientation of criteria for assessing leaders and managers of all levels of The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam has set the framework of title standards for leaders. It has shown the personality qualities as follows:

- Political ideology: having strong stance, opinions, political viewpoint and spirit; not wavering in any situations.

- -Morality, lifestyle, sense of discipline: spirit of solidarity, constructiveness, exemplary, care for comrades and colleagues.

- Qualifications: professional qualifications, political reasoning and state management satisfying the requirements and tasks assigned.

- Competence and prestige: innovative thinking, vision, scientific working methods; boldness in proposing appropriate, feasible and effective tasks and solutions to improve, promote or resolve; being dynamic, creative, enterprising and a sense of taking responsibility with the thinking of serving the people (CPV, 2016) .

From this orientation, some personal qualities of a leader in Vietnam in the current context can be drawn as:

- Political thinking: Consistency in leadership objectives, between words and actions.

The leader when facing difficult and complex situations must always be calmed and focused in order to overcome and archive (Son, 2017: p. 35) . Luu Thien, a Chinese researcher also mentioned 12 qualities of leader, which mentioned the quality of perseverance: harsh but still gentle, persuading others by gentleness (Son, 2017: p. 35) . Consistency and perseverance are not the same as the recklessness but contain creative thinking, certainty in making decisions as well as directing actions. Napoleon Hill pointed out that leaders must have courage and consistency, a strong sense of fairness and willingness to take responsibility for themselves (Hill, 2004) . This character was indicated by Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum that leaders must be qualified to face any criticism and consider self-confidence as a natural nature (Maktoum, 2016) .

The perseverance of the leader, in the case proven by the reality, means they can go against the majority to bring benefits to the people and the country. Therefore, they must have a firm will, a strong belief in strategic direction, a realistic steering ability. On the other hand, consistency always puts the leader in a proactive way to deal with either the internal and external relationship, not wavering when facing difficulties or being self-satisfied when achieving successes.

Vietnamese people have a strong sense of affection that is a starting point for carry out renovation from an agricultural country. Therefore, in the context of transition, there must be new institutions that require people to adapt to the prompt lifestyle means leaders must be active, responsive, motivated to innovate thinking and consistent between words and actions, guiding and orienting people and subordinates to act in accordance with the requirements of modern society. The leaders who waver in making decisions, taking emotions instead of reason shows that they themselves are not consistent enough to be able to lead the organization, subordinates come to succeed. Lacking of consistency cannot make a leader and cannot bring the country to integrate with the world.

- Ethics, lifestyle, sense of discipline: Solidarity and exemplary

American psychologist, Mc. Clell and said that there were two trends of qualities of a leader. Personalization trend: a leader would select a few people under his authority to follow him, every action is to please the leader and when the leader moves away, it can disturb the organization. The second trend is the trend of socialization of leadership, the leader gathers for himself a number of experts and experienced people in certain fields to act as the leading team to advise the leader in making decision as well as to share and listen to the associates, constantly learning from them, making them feel respected. Today, leaders need to consider the trend of socialization of leadership as an important quality to build solidarity in the organization, to build a commitment in giving important advice to the leaders so they can have more proofs for making decisions appropriating to the with objective movement. On the other hand, the spirit of solidarity makes leaders and associates maintain their stance, consistency, belief in the organization, considering the members of the organization as the most valuable asset in the development strategy of the organization. This is completely similar to the perspective of Mohammed bin Rasihid Al Maktoum that the leader must put the people’s interests first; dedicated to subordinates; is an example for the organization, especially for young people (Maktoum, 2016) . John C. Maxwell pointed out that the leader must have the quality of dedication (Maxwell, 2016) .

The spirit of solidarity, exemplary always increase the effectiveness of leadership activities and contribute to forming the culture of the organization such as a democratic and open working spirit between leaders and subordinates. Article 2 of the Regulation of Responsibility in exemplary specified that the leader must be genuinely a core factor of the solidarity, gathering, motivating and promoting collective intelligence (CCCPV, 2018b) . A leader who is lack of consistency and exemplary should be removed from the organization. It is difficult even for a good leader to be able to see all the potential opportunities as well as the risks of the organization, so the leaders should be always keen on building the spirit of solidarity, exemplary. That will help mobilizing the participation of associates, a team of experts involving in the analysis, evaluation, giving best vision and forecasts for the future that the organization needs to reach.

- Qualifications: Professional qualifications, political reasoning, national leadership

The process of international integration has brought Vietnam many opportunities to acquire advanced scientific and technological achievements of the world, and promote the process of international integration. The Government issued the Resolution 36a/NQ-CP dated October 14, 2015 on e-Government specifying the Party’s policy in improving the quality and efficiency in performance of state offices (GSRV, 2015) . The world is entering the technology revolution 4.0 requiring more from the leaders. Other than the strategic thinking, they must have a wide range of qualifications in many fields, a knowledge to be capable of leading the country.

Leadership always requires creativity, innovation. In addition, from the policy of building the e-Government in 2015 of the Government, Document of the 12^th Congress gave out a policy to promote industrialization and modernization associated with development of knowledge economy and proactive international integration (CPV, 2016) . In order to actualize these requirements, it highly demands the leaders in the entire political system to have the innovation in thinking, the method of scientific leadership, the dialectical thinking, the vision to lead the land to lead the country soon to the successful international integration.

In addition to improving professional qualifications, leaders must constantly train their own political qualities, standard framework for leaders and managers titles indicating clearly the requirement of political idea: Being faithful to the benefits of the Party, the nation and the people; steadfastly in the Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh’s thought, the goal and idea of national independence and socialism and the reform of the Communist Party of Vietnam; strong stance, opinions in political ideology, not wavering in any situation, resolutely fighting to protect the Credo, the Party’s guideline, the Constitution and laws of the State (CCCPV, 2017) .

- Competence: Strategic, independent vision and creative thinking + Strategic vision

Leadership means directing, having a wide vision, positively and proactively building the development strategy of the organization to reach the goals in the future. Even when the organization is stable and has achieved many positive results, the leader with his sensitivity, scientific thinking, creativity in awareness and action should still be able to visualize those advantages and disadvantages in the future. Therefore, they cannot be satisfied with the old thinking, but need to see the development trends of practice, to continuously have new perspectives and visions, because things cannot develop in the same framework of thinking (Van, 2016) . When talking about the thinking of the leader, author Dinh Viet Hoa pointed out: “The thinking of the leader can be much more developed than those of non-leaders on four key issues such as independent thinking, ability in learning new things, systematical thinking, and personal expertise” (Hoa, 2017: p. 66) .

The vision of the age is not only about recognizing the development trend of the context, but also in the ability to see people, using people with tolerance, humanity, and promoting the advancement of society. So an important quality of leadership in that vision is the detecting and training subordinates, “creating new possibilities that are not constrained by old models and forming for employees to think and the spirit of readiness to face the rapidly changing world” (Tan, 2015: p. 46) . John C. Maxwell thinks that leaders must be smart, eager to learn and have a vision (Maxwell, 2016) . So the training of staff becomes a regular task in any organization that creates the next contingent of staff with all the necessary qualities and when the leader moves away, it does not cause a disturbance to the team. Officials themselves always have top concerns to the development of the entire system. The perception of the ancients is that achievement or lost, glory or shame in defined not by the profession but by the practitioner, so the vision of the leader will regulate the direction of development as well as the success of the organization.

The right vision will create sympathy from the subordinates, thereby gathering the subordinates’ consensus to optimize the overall goal, from the personal vision of the leader to the common vision. It does not come from itself but the leader must share the vision. According to Peter M. Senge the highest attitude towards the vision is the commitment, followed by participation, complete compliance, normal compliance, reluctant compliance, non-compliance and the lowest one is neglect. Also according to Peter M.Senge, in fact it is difficult to discern between those who fully comply with the participant or the commitment, so by the art of leadership should be directed towards the highest attitude of commitment (Senge, 2010) . The valuable results and great dedication of leaders to build a society of rich, strong, democratic, fair and civilized people, accelerate the process of international integration requires leaders to have vision, discover the development trend of practice, sensitivity, determination to seize the opportunity to become a leader.

Together with the strategic visions, it is also set for the leader the ability to forecast possible changes in reality and in the future. Of course, with the rapid changes of the world as well as the ongoing domestic love, an accurate forecast is difficult, but it is also a challenge for each leader to have dialectical thinking, judgment, determine the direction in accordance with objective trends.

- Independent and creative thinking

The leader must rise above the non-leader in the thinking method, which is the independence, creative ability, dialectical materialist method, in accordance with the lifestyle of modern society, representing in sharp and fast thinking ability, flexibility, and creativity.

From a traditional agricultural society, with a sense of affection, slowly transforming into a new stage of development towards industrialization and modernization, leaders need to be aware of their own changes in thinking. It can be willing to overcome the inherent framework, thinking and doing things that others have not thought of or done before, not simulating the achievements that people has done. Creativity in thinking allows the leader to be able to prevent the ability to solve and implement leadership in the most stringent conditions. Creativity will foster the way of thinking, at the same time being the pioneers in favor of the new in accordance with progress, having critical thinking to fight against the backward, conservativeness to lead the organization to success. That always requires a leader with characters that meet the social value scale in the context of changing to a socialist-oriented market economy.

Independent and creative thinking breaks through the shape, overcome the old ones, explores and searches, discovers and proposes new things that are valuable for the people and the society. The leaders must play the role of the strategic planners to predict the future, mastering situations based on creative, critical and independent thinking to be aware of potential opportunities and risks ahead. Therefore, organizations, levels and sectors need to have the presence of leaders that are innovative, proactive, ambitious, visionary, respectful individuals, motivated, motivated god of subordinates (Huong, 2018) .

The above-mentioned personal qualities of leaders in the political system in Vietnam play an important role in actualizing the regulations that Vietnamese Communist Party has set for leaders to meet the standards framework of the titles of leaders and managers at all levels as well as in the forming of a contingent of State officials at all levels, especially at the strategic level qualified to be capable and prestigious prior to the level of duty. It also shows the responsibility of exemplary, a typical example of studying and following Ho Chi Minh’s idea, morality and style, has a comprehensive personality to lead the country to international integration.

4. Some Methods to Train Personality of Leaders in Vietnam in the Context of International Integration

Based on demand of leaders’ personality in the context of international integration, some methods are recommended to train leaders’ personality:

- Regular training of expertise and political quality

This is the regular activity for any position and title of leader in the political system. Nations worldwide have detailed and compulsory regulations for each leader position. Vietnam has similar regulation, yet it is not implemented strictly according to standard. The examination and assessment during training, education process is underestimated, and not in accordance with actual demand; it is difficult to recognize new quality and capacity of trainees. Resolution of the Seventh Party Central Committee points out solution for education and training to improve quality of the “loyal, honest, exemplary, pure, sophisticated” personnel officers to meet demand of the new era (CCCPV, 2018a) .

Under the leadership of the Communist Party of Vietnam, who takes Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh’s thought as the Party’s ideological foundation and compass for action, so all leadership decisions must be based on the ideological foundation of Marxism-Leninism and of President Ho Chi Minh, the leaders’ personality and qualities must be constantly fostered, the leaders themselves must have a sense of self-fostering and cultivating Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh’s thought. The document of the 12th Party Congress clearly indicates the state cadres and party members’ manifestation of being “lazy to study Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh’s thought, guidelines and resolutions of the Party, policies and laws of the State “at present (CPV, 2016: p. 28) . Directive No. 23-CT/TW of February 9, 2018 of the Secretariat on continuing to innovate, improve the quality and effectiveness of studying, researching, applying and developing Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh’s ideology in the new situation, has indicated: “Contribute to building and dressing the Party, enhance the organizational apparatus of Party’s leadership capacity and combativeness, build the cadre, party members, The party organization cleaner and stronger”(Central Executive Committee, 2018). Therefore, the program, the content of training and fostering for leaders in personality and quality need to attach special importance to Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh’s thought.

Presently, the content of training and retraining in professional knowledge and political qualities for leaders is determined by each title but in reality this is also spread. Content of training and education is determined according to each position, yet it is actually distributed. Therefore, attention should be paid to improving leadership skills, team work skills, skills of training subordinates and taking responsibility, skills of building vision, method of scientific thinking and dialectical thinking, and skills of building culture of the organization. Teamwork skills and skills of building organization’s culture of Vietnamese people are actually not appreciated. Furthermore, political quality should be improved, so that the people stand firm, proactively fight temptations and corruption, and be exemplary. Training and education content should be concise and proper for each position with examination and assessment according to output standard.

- Commendation policy is stipulated strictly.

Commendation policy will make the leaders self-conscious, and aware of their responsibility according to output of policy implementation, direction of leadership. They will rest assured that being assigned to the position means occupying it to the end of the tenure. Thought and action of the leaders which bring innovation into the organization must be praised widely, not only in the organization but also on mass media. Individuals without innovation, who only pay attention to management, should be replaced by new factors who can promote the organization. Organizations and agencies actually stipulate mission and function concretely. However, the leaders are afraid or incapable of innovation; as a result, they pay more attention to management to maintain stability of the organization. They lack creativity, and do not dare to accept new ideas and plans; they are afraid that subordinates can do better, and therefore do not put ideas into practice, which makes the organization stagnant. Resolution of the Seventh Party Central Committee specifies that regarding further innovation, improving quality and effectiveness of personnel affairs, regulations on dismissing/discharging must be completed; a leader can be higher/lower in rank, assigned to the position or relieved from the position (CCCPV, 2018a) .

Agencies and organizations must assess and review performance of the leaders annually. New progress and achievement must be measured by the quantity. If there is no new policy, or the new policy is not efficient, the leader should be replaced without delaying until the end of the tenure. As a result, the leader will be self-conscious and aware of innovation when making policy in accordance with objective requirements; they themselves also proactively learn new knowledge, improve their qualification and leadership capacity.

- Work performance serves as the meter to assess social value

The leader at any position must make contribution to the development of organization and society. Therefore, his/her success must be measured by their contribution. Their contribution to the organization can be improving spiritual and material lives of subordinates, training and education for the subordinates, developing the next generation, and building a learning organization.

If the leaders decide inefficient, wasteful policies, or recruit the improper staff, they will be evaluated and criticized strictly. The leader not only finds out solution, direction of the organization in the future but also has the capacity to forecast, to have vision of the organization and share that vision. Therefore, when the leader retires or moves, it will not disturb the organization.

In order to assess social value of the leader, there should be criteria of behavior culture and humanitarian environment in the organization; a system of norms and criteria to measure, assess leadership culture; socialization of elements serving as leadership’s components, such as publicizing criteria to select officials, personnel procedures to increase supervision of the people; policies to honor talented leaders. Furthermore, survey can be conducted to collect people’s feedback, vote and rank service quality as well as reputation of some organizations or leaders. It will be basis to assess their dedication and contribution to the society. The solution on further innovating, improving quality and efficiency of personnel affairs given by The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam under Resolution of the Seventh Party Central Committee emphasizes following points: Assessing officials thoroughly, continuously, multi-dimensionally with specific criteria, products and surveys; publicizing results and comparing with equivalent titles; reviewing performance of individual in association with performance of collective and performance of the localities, agencies or units (CCCPV, 2018a) .

- Build leadership style and reputation

Leadership style contributes to building culture, and sets discipline of the organization. There is no perfect leadership style; therefore, each leader should select a proper style for herself/himself in accordance with culture and development of the organization. Leadership style contributes to making and building reputation of the leader, and affects working relationship as well as working efficiency. Leaders who successfully develop their own style will be self-confident and not afraid of failure. They will be ready to do more, and do it better than the subordinates. They will do as they say, not greedy for power and strive to keep their positions at any cost, not blame the collective or the regime for their fault. The Party points out that there must be regime and measure to thoroughly check and timely replace the ones with limited capacity, low reputation in order to build a cadre of leaders who are “truly exemplary in terms of politics, ideology, quality, competence and prestige” (CCCPV, 2018c) .

In the context of increasing international integration, the leaders shall avoid being bureaucratic, conservative and authoritarian; avoid being; avoid building fake prestige with communications media as well as flattery, which undermine people’s faith in the government. On the contrary, the leaders should develop a style towards democracy, openness, teamwork spirit and cooperative spirit in work. They shall focus on the human, value human values and emotions rather than their tasks and objectives (Hoa, 2017: p. 49) .

- Building culture of the organization

Building a culture of the organization is common in the organizations and agencies. However, not all of them have typical culture and gain success. Therefore, as soon as the leaders take the position, they must think of stability and development of the organization, and consider building the organizational culture at the same time. The culture must have unique features, and develop so that every member of the organization sees themselves as an inseparable part. They work in the organization with the best spirit, attitude and working result as if they are taking care of their own work. It creates the cohesion, the synthesis of teamwork spirit and collective spirit for the common good, and creates a good working environment for everyone.

Integration does not erase the organization’s culture; on the contrary, it will boost the organization’s culture, produce a message with profound influence, create reputation of the organization and influence of the leader, and create a natural way to adjust to new context through the process of mutual learning from inside and from outside (Cuong, 2009) . Difference should be accepted to reach ceaseless innovation, creativity and catch up with countries in the region and in the world, so that Vietnam successfully integrate into the world. Based on building the organization’s culture, cultural value system and standard value system of Vietnamese people in the era of strengthening industrialization, modernization and international integration shall be built, according to Directive No. 05-CT/TW of Politburo on enhancing the movement of studying, following ideology, ethics and style of President Ho Chi Minh dated May 15^th, 2016 (CPV, 2016) .

5. Conclusion

This work makes an important contribution to pointing out the general personality traits of leaders in the context of international integration and leadership personality traits in the viewpoints and policy lines of the Communist Party of Vietnam. The leader in the new context not only builds and trains the personality in the view of Marxism-Leninism, the Party’s policy and guidelines, the policies and laws of the state but also needs to actively train the personality themselves to meet the requirements of international integration. In the training of cadres, especially in advanced program on theories of politics, cadres participating in courses on fostering future leadership at provincial and central levels need to attach more special importance to training and improving virtue and personality of the leadership to meet the international integration context of Vietnam. Science of Leadership discipline in the current high-level political theory training program of the Academy only mentions a very minor issue about leadership personality, including trend, character, temperament and ability. In order to build leaders meeting requirements of the cause of industrialization, modernization and international integration, the issue of the personality of leaders needs to be more concerned. Moreover, Resolution of the fourth Party Central Committee (XII tenure) also frankly admitted: “The task of political and ideological education for cadres and party members about Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh’s thought, teaching and studying the Party’s resolutions has not been properly respected” (CPV, 2016: p. 25) .

Aforementioned measures closely are closely connected with each other in building and training personality of the leaders in the new context and process of international integration into the world. It’s time to eliminate qualities like being passive, working half-heartedly, short-term thinking, pursuing short-term benefits, lack of vision, lack of independent and creative thinking, being unable to detect, use and train new human resources for the organization. Social value, being exemplary and contribution to the society are used to measure leaders’ personalities. The more social value and the exemplary characteristics they have, the more developed their personalities are. It will satisfy requirements for the process of building and developing the country, which the Party always cares about and realizes with regulations, thus building a generation of politically firm revolutionary officers and truly loyal servants of the people.

Vietnam is in the process of strong integration and development and success or failure of this process depends on good or bad cadres (Minh, 2002: p. 240) . The above-mentioned personality traits and measures for training the leaders’ personality to meet the requirements of the international integration process may be incomplete and do not yet reflect all the personality traits of leaders needed in the current period as well as the necessary qualities in response to the context of Vietnam’s international integration. Therefore, the topic of leaders’ personality in Vietnam needs to continue to be studied, supplemented and developed, in order to better deal with the challenges posed by practice.

Conflicts of Interest

The author declares no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.

Cite this paper

Thanh, N. H. (2019). Leaders’ Personality in International Integration in Vietnam. Open Journal of Leadership, 8, 23-39. https://doi.org/10.4236/ojl.2019.82002

References