From his childhood during Korean War to his second election as the Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr. Ki-moon Ban has demonstrated the leadership of resiliency, with which he was able to turn crisis into opportunities for his success. Moreover, Mr. Ban’s diligence, sincerity and warm-heartedness also contributed greatly to his rise, along with high performance capability. With such recognition, Mr. Ban successfully expanded his political network (both in Korea and in the organization of US) with apparent sincerity, great communication skill and sharp sociopolitical awareness. During the course of this paper, our group (“We”) will analyze and discuss how Mr. Ki-moon Ban used various situational conflicts as an opportunity to display and utilize his array of great characteristics to become the powerful leader.
Prior to his political career, Mr. Ban’s childhood was deeply affected by the Korean War, which caused his family to migrate to different parts of Korea. Despite of such instability and uncertainty, Mr. Ban started to grow his intellectual curiosity of English. Even as a child, he liked to ask and speak with American soldiers, showing great resiliency. Such interactions and intellectual curiosity allowed Mr. Ban to be a star student in secondary school (especially in English), earning him an opportunity to meet John F. Kennedy as a winner of the Red Cross Competition for international students with proven academic excellence. Meeting the late John F. Kennedy also provided career motivation for Mr. Ban, pursuing the political career as a diplomat.
It is worthy to look more closely into the economic and financial difficulties that Mr. Ban’s family faced when Mr. Ban was preparing for his college admission. As a first son of family, Mr. Ki-moon Ban felt responsible for taking care of his parents and younger siblings at such an early age. During high school years of Mr. Ki-moon Ban, Mr. Ban’s father guaranteed debt of his friend, who later filed for bankruptcy. That severely damaged the financial condition of Mr. Ban’s family. According to Mrs. Hyun Soon Shin, a mother of Mr. Ban, “Ki-moon never missed the top place in his class despite of such unfavorable circumstances. Ki-moon felt responsible to take care of his parents and siblings as a first son of the Ban family.”
Mr. Ban did not give up and used such downturn as personal motivation to get into the top school to take care of his family. For college education, Mr. Ban successfully earned Bachelor of Art Degrees in International Relations from Seoul National University, one of the top universities in South Korea. Upon graduating from the Seoul National University, Mr. Ban passed the 3rd Foreign Service National Examination to fulfill his dream of becoming a diplomat.
While working at the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Ban was able to earn sponsorship to study at John F. Kennedy School of Harvard University by his diligence and excellent performance. This allowed Mr. Ban’s career to take off and get on fast advancement track. One of Mr. Ban’s notable accomplishments was to aid the escape of Mr. Jang-Yup Hwang, the Secretary of North Korean Labor Party into South Korea. By actively visiting and working with officials of China and Philippine, Mr. Ki-moon Ban successfully completed such a magnificent task.
However, Mr. Ban faced the biggest threat of his political career in 2001, which ironically was the basis of Mr. Ban’s anointment as the Secretary General of the United Nations. During the conference between South Korea and Russia in February 2001, there was a mistranslation about limitation of the Russian Missile. Such miscommunication caused huge controversy between relationship of Korean and the US government (the Korean government made an official apology to clarify the misunderstanding). As a Vice Minister of the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Ban took the blame and resigned from the position.
Fortunately, Mr. Seung-Soo Han (whom Mr. Ban considers to be his “life-time” mentor) has been aware of Mr. Ban’s capability, diligence and humbleness. After the resignation, Mr. Han offered Mr. Ki-moon Ban the Chief of Staff to the United Nations position. Instead of viewing this position as “demotion,” Mr. Ban utilized this as an opportunity to expand his network, learn the UN, and achieving high performance to become the Secretary General of the UN in near future. Such resilience and positive perspective enabled Mr. Ban to be at his current position.
Throughout his career, Mr. Ban has shown energy, enthusiasm and “on-the-field” leadership. As previously mentioned, he actively engaged and visited China and Philippine to help the escape of North Korean official. During his tenure at the UN, he visited the civil war sites of Darfur, Sudan and Cote d’Ivoire. To address the climate change issue, Mr. Ban visited the Antarctic to raise awareness of the global warming. Since his anointment as the Secretary General, Mr. Ban is known to travel the entire earth on monthly basis. He strongly feels that in order to truly provide help where needed, actual visit would allow him to give more effective guidance and support. Mr. Ban’s famous quote, “Nobody can halt a diligent person with a stop sign,” echoes with his belief; in order to tackle complex world issues in the UN, his energy and diligence will be critical elements.
Another core strength of Mr. Ban would be his focus on transparency and mutual trust. Throughout his political career, Mr. Ban was known to have strong sense of self-discipline and self-regulation. He also emphasized on transparency to build trust among people and colleagues. For instance, as the Secretary General of the UN, Mr. Ban augmented the performance evaluation system of high-ranked officers of the United Nations to be more fair and transparent. He also led the disclosure of personal assets to public in order to build more credibility. Such focus on transparency and fairness allowed Mr. Ban to build stronger trust among member countries of the UN Summits. Each member could believe and share Mr. Ban’s vision and focus. Susan Rice, an American government Official at New York Consulate Banquet, said, “Mr. Ban’s leadership comes from his strong belief in universal humanity.” Mr. Ban’s emphasis on fairness and transparency yielded strong mutual trust among his colleagues and members of the UN.
Kindness and warm-heartedness are other exemplary aspects of Mr. Ban’s leadership. During his tenure as a regional ambassador, Mr. Ban personally showed his gratitude and appreciation to his employees at embassy by sending handwritten letters on special occasions and holiday. Mr. Ban famously said “one must learn the wisdom to lower myself; the greatest life-long wisdom is kindness.” Such kindness and empathy allowed Mr. Ki-moon Ban to look more personable and sincere.
Mr. Ban also utilized the trust to build powerful network throughout his career. He is often characterized as “a Man without Enemy.” As a politician, this is a remarkable assessment and shows great supporting network for Mr. Ban to continue his high achievement. Mr. Ban’s excellent English writing skill is well known. In addition, he is also fluent in French, Japanese and German.
Along with fluency in many languages, Mr. Ban’s intellectual curiosity in learning languages allowed him to be a great communicator. Along with his communication skills, strong consideration for others and “sense of balance” allowed Mr. Ban to build strong network. He was always considerate of others and his colleagues. Mr. Ban was also very aware of his surrounding circumstances. For example, as the Secretary General of the UN, Mr. Ban realized that the US contributed 20-25% of funding for the UN; by acknowledging the influence of the US on the initiatives of the United Nations, Mr. Ban could successfully tackle difficult issues such as climate change.
Ironically, these traits may bring negative evaluation on Mr. Ban. For instance, his acknowledgement of the US in the United Nations Summit raised some critics to label him as the US advocate. Moreover, his excellent communication skills can make Mr. Ban look like a “slippery eel,” who can talk his way out of any issues and mislead people on given circumstances. However, we believe that without such capabilities, Mr. Ban could not achieved most of his accomplishment; Mr. Ban would probably be blamed far more severely for dearth of such skills if he were to be lacking above-mentioned competencies as a successful politicians.
As Korean, we are very proud to share our thoughts and perspective about Mr. Ki-moon Ban. Throughout our research and analysis of Mr. Ban’s rise to the Secretary General of the United Nations, we were deeply amazed by Mr. Ban’s resilience throughout his political career. It would have been very easy and appealing to give up his political career after his resignation from the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Moreover, from his previous position, it would have been very difficult to start new career at the United Nations, which can easily perceived to be demotion to others. Instead of giving up, Mr. Ban was able to maintain positive attitude and make the best of given situation. In addition, his diligence, warm-heartedness, strong awareness of others and environment, and communication skills allowed Mr. Ban to build strong political network that contributed to his success, including the unanimous selection as the Secretary General of the UN for second time in a row. We are certain that Mr. Ban’s traits exemplifies effective characters of a powerful leader that were discussed during class.