Apart from hailing from Penang, these four have also topped the charts in the inaugural Reader’s Digest Trust poll conducted recently in Malaysia. Together with Dr Jemilah Mahmood, founder and former president of MERCY Malaysia, these top five people have similar traits that warrant public adoration: perseverance, simplicity, honesty and down-to-earth grit.
Above all, they are all self-made success stories that have put Malaysia on the world map.
This is just one of the things we found out from our Trust survey. For the first time ever, we have conducted a nationwide survey asking people to rate 50 influential Malaysian personalities on their trustworthiness on a scale of one (“Not trusted at all”) to ten (“Trust completely”). The list was presented in random order.
We then calculated an average score for each person and ranked them in order of perceived trustworthiness.
The list of people was chosen based on their public profiles; all are often in the public eye and are considered leaders in their respective fields.
The list is by no means exhaustive and is expected to be a general overview rather than a spotlight on specific individual achievements.
The top trusted people have managed to carve a name out of nothing. Plus, they have maintained humble and down-to-earth profiles despite becoming household names, evading excessive publicity (and scandals) and the temptation to make fast bucks via product endorsements. Where human credibility is concerned, popularity does not necessarily spell public trust.
“Popularity is pop,” says Paul Jambunathan, Consultant Clinical Psychologist of Sunway Medical Centre and Monash University Malaysia. “Trust is built on a slow and measured disclosure of thoughts, ideas, feelings and acceptance. The more consistent you are with what people believe you to be, the more likely they will accept and trust you,” he says.
Poll aside, do we trust people more if we know them personally? Yes and no, says Associate Professor Dominic Lau, Lecturer and Head of Applied Research at UCSI University. “People trust you when they believe what you offer has value to them. If it doesn’t strike a chord, even your closest friends will doubt your best of intentions.”
Take fengshui master Lillian Too (# 48), for instance, who ended up closer to the bottom of the list. Loud in voice and louder still in dressing and style, her aggressive marketing-skewed talks, TV appearances and books have done little to improve public respect.
Compare this to, say, Chef Wan (# 10), whose success is seen to be due to his passion for cooking and dogged determination. As a 35-year-old male survey respondent commented, “You can’t lie when it comes to taste.”
According to Puan Sri T. Ampikaipakan, a corporate trainer and consultant, trust is an instinct we acquire at birth. “This is why first impressions are so important,” she says. “Babies have absolute trust in their primary caregivers for the first seven months. After the eighth month, they start crying when carried by strangers because they’ve developed preference for the people they trust most.”
She adds that the same vulnerability of trust applies in relationships, the family, workplace and the world in general. “You may do a hundred things right and no-one will even think about how trustworthy you are. But do one thing wrong, or leave one promise unfulfilled, and you would lose the total trust forever.”
That’s where transparency comes in. Puan Sri T. Ampikaipakan explains: “People are watching and judging you all the time. Where necessary, always keep others informed of the big picture, so that they can understand the circumstances when you cannot fulfil a certain promise. Then you won’t be seen to be breaking their trust.”
It’s all about being accountable, whether to the country, company, team or self. Let’s see who ranks highly on the trust meter, and who needs more work.
Ability to Deliver
What does it take to be a cut above the rest? Patience, persistence, perhaps even long-drawn suffering and sacrifices, says Dominic Lau.
Indeed, many in our poll have some form of battle scars to prove their mettle: Jimmy Choo’s business tussles, Afdlin Shauki’s body image problems, Michelle Yeoh’s rise up the movie world from Hong Kong to Hollywood.
Obviously the longer you are in an industry, the better you get. “No matter what you do, people will trust you more if you can deliver,” says Lau. “They don’t define trust as ‘time-tested’ for nothing.”
That’s good news for parents who are sometimes disappointed when their children don’t end up in professions like pilots, teachers or doctors, the top three trusted professions in our poll. Blue-collar professionals such as farmers (# 11), electricians (# 18) and musicians (# 21) also command substantial trust, provided they are good in what they do.
Inspirational Factor
It’s easy to place your trust in people who have accomplished awe-inspiring feats, such as MERCY Malaysia founder Dr Jemilah Mahmood (# 2), who has travelled to war-torn and disaster-struck areas to provide humanitarian aid. The same goes for Datin Paduka Sharifah Mazlina (# 10), the first Asian woman to trek to the North and South Poles.
In an interview with The Star newspaper in July 2009, Dr Jemilah said: “Malaysians had become such ‘materialistic’ people; the world around us is suffering and we claim to be caring people . . . when we measure success and development by material wealth and tall buildings. We need role models, to know that the little that we do has made a difference to someone else’s life. These things are worth more than anything money can buy.”
Family Ties
Ever wondered why job application forms require you to fill in the names and occupations of your parents and siblings? That’s because our family background has a bearing upon our character and value system, says Lee Wee Min, Executive Director of Focus On The Family Malaysia.
“Values need to be taught at the formative years as they are learnt at a subconscious level. Once a child reaches pre-adolescence, they are exposed to the distractions and delusions from the media and peers. If they’ve got a strong foundation, nothing can shake their value system,” says Lee.
A good example is world squash champion and Malaysia’s sporting darling, Nicol David. Her mother is a teacher, her father is an engineer and both her sisters are national squash players. In an email interview with Reader’s Digest, David attributes her success to her family’s strict upbringing and the support of the people surrounding her.
Emotional Engagement
According to Paul Jambunathan, trust can exist only with one vital ingredient: respect. This means that for people to trust you, you respect them for who they are, not what you expect them to be.
This is echoed by consultant rheumatologist Dr Amir Zain, who shares that he develops trust among his patients by engaging in honest and effective communication. “The more a patient finds out about his illness, the better I can communicate with him.”
The same applies to people in the entertainment industry, such as award-winning producer and actor Afdlin Shauki (# 9) and award-winning actress Adibah Noor (# 6). Their baby-faced appearance has emotional appeal, notes plastic surgeon Dr Eileen Fong.
“In almost every movie or cartoon, the good guys always have clean, clear skin, bright eyes, full cheeks, cherubic upturned smiling lips, small pert nose and eyebrows that are correctly located away from the eyes. In contrast, the ‘she-devil’ and ‘Mr Sinister’ is always portrayed by people with shifty eyes, hollow cheeks, thin lips, scarred face, crooked nose and vixen eyebrows,” she says.
The New Media
We now live in a dangerous new age of mobile connection and viral marketing where one can gain fame or infamy at a click. This is an additional reason for reputation management, so that public figures will always have their right foot forward.
“The trend for reputation management is still new here, although it is widely practised in other parts of the world,” says Baxter Jolly, Managing Director of PR company Weber Shandwick Worldwide. It’s like having an insurance against bad press. Just one bout of negative reporting will destroy all you’ve ever worked for, such as Ning Baizura’s (# 46) doctored nude photos, which were circulated through the internet.
The fear is that new media can cause public apathy. The more we hear about crime rates, lack of transparency and other social problems via SMS, blogs and other online sources, the more jaded the public becomes.
Impression Management
An important and yet often overlooked aspect of gaining trust is impression management, says image consultant and trainer, Dolly Kee, Managing Director of Image Power. Based on what people know about you, they would already have developed certain expectations on how you should dress, look and talk. “An image is formed by totalling what they see, hear and feel, so it’s an entire package,” she says.
This said, we can safely conclude that the more comfortable you are in your own skin, the more you can get people to trust and accept you. “People don’t like pretenders. You must like and trust yourself first before you can get others to trust you,” says Kee.
Malaysia's Most Trusted 2010
Individuals
1. Nicol David (squash world champion)
2. Dr Jemilah Mahmood (founder of Mercy Malaysia)
3. Lee Chong Wei (badminton Olympic silver medalist, Beijing Games)
4. Lat aka Mohd Nor Khalid (cartoonist)
5. Jimmy Choo (shoe designer)
6. Adibah Noor (singer/actress)
7. Michelle Yeoh (Hollwood actor)
8. Jins Shamsuddin (veteran actor)
9. Afdlin Shauki (aka Chief Kodok, actor/comedian)
10. Chef Wan (chef)
11. Paduka Sharifah Mazlina (adventurer, first Malaysian woman Antarctic Solo Expeditor)
12. Misbun Sidek (badminton coach)
13. Ivy Josiah (executive Director, Women's Aid Organisation)
14. Marina Mahathir (AIDS advocate)
15. Aznil Nawawi (actor/compere)
16. M Nasir (singer)
17. Zang Toi (designer)
18. Rashid Sidek (badminton player)
19. Jailani Sidek (badminton world champion)
20. Gurmit Singh K.S. (executive director of the Centre for Environment)
21. Amy Mastura (singer)
22. Sheila Majid (singer)
23. Siti Nurhaliza (singer)
24. Shebby Singh (former football coach, football presenter)
25. Razif Sidek (badminton player)
26. Jaclyn Victor (Malaysian Idol)
27. Maya Karin (actress, television personality and singer)
28. Ahmad Idham (movie director)
29. Harith Iskandar (comedian, actor)
30. Erma Fatima (actor)
31. Ramli Ibrahim (choreographer)
32. Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor (astronaut)
33. Irene Fernandez (migrant worker activist)
34. Kee Thuan Chye (dramatist, poet and journalist)
35. Aziz M. Osman (director)
36. Tiara Jacquelina (actress/producer)
37. Alex Yoong (race car driver)
38. Asha Gill (television personality)
39. Fish Leong (singer)
40. Soo Kui Jien (tv presenter)
41. Mano Maniam (Fulbright scholar/actor)
42. Deanna Yusoff (actress)
43. Sharifah Amani (actress)
44. Reshmonu (singer)
45. Angelica Lee (actress)
46. Ning Baizura (singer)
47. Ella aka Norzila binti Haji Aminuddin (singer)
48. Lillian Too (feng shui master)
49. Awie Singer (actor)
50. Azwan Ali (TV host)
Profession
1. Pilot
2. Teacher
3. Doctor
4. Paramedic
5. Firefighter
6. Surgeon
7. Scientist
8. Dentist
9. Pharmacist
10. Nurse
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