Last Updated on October 15, 2026 by YEO Chuen Chuen
In uncertain times, people commit when leaders empower them, check in with them and show the way, not when leaders push harder for results. In this episode, Neo Ley Lee, Director of Synergy Financial Advisers, explains why she chooses empowering over enforcing, why self-awareness comes first, and how she kept her team and clients going through Singapore’s 2020 COVID-19 circuit breaker. She draws on Chuen Chuen’s book 8 Paradoxes of Leadership Agility.
Series 1: 8 Paradoxes of Leadership Agility.
Why empower people instead of enforcing rules?
Because people who understand why will commit, learn and solve problems on their own.
The paradox that resonated most with Ley Lee in the book was empowering versus enforcing. In her view, enforcing no longer works: tell people what to do without explaining why and they won’t listen. When she explains the reason and brings them along, they keep the skill, handle more on their own, and come up with more suggestions and new ways of doing things. Leaders who see themselves as the boss everyone must obey, she says, are out of date.
Where does leadership agility start?
With self-awareness of how you lead.
Ley Lee sees self-mastery and inner work as the foundation. If you are not aware of yourself as a leader, you cannot know which style you are using, let alone change it. And because the business environment is so complex, no leader can stand still. Chuen Chuen adds that complacency makes people less self-aware, and that many who claim to be self-aware are not.
How do you lead people with different personalities?
Treat each person as unique, and adjust your style to help them grow.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Ley Lee looks at each team member individually and chooses how to communicate with them. She believes people follow leaders who help them grow: in how they live, how they deal with people and how they present to clients. Her principles stay the same for everyone; only her style changes.
How should leaders support their team in a crisis?
With empathy and regular one-to-one contact, without passing the pressure down.
During the circuit breaker, Ley Lee talked to each team member individually, every day, and told them they would pull through together instead of asking where their sales were. She felt the pressure from management herself, but chose not to pass it on. Where top management expected people to motivate themselves, she slowed down to connect with them, so they could do the same with their clients. Clients also needed support, connection and reassurance, not a sales pitch.
How do you lead a team through a new way of working?
Lead by example: try it first, then share what worked.
When face-to-face meetings stopped, Ley Lee told clients honestly that she had made no sales that month because she was still getting used to working digitally. Clients who first refused to do things online came round once she walked them through it together, and some referred friends. She then shared these stories with her team and invited them to try the same approach. Being authentic, she says, is what makes people trust you.
Related reading
Ley Lee’s case for empowering people instead of enforcing rules connects with the need for autonomy covered in why organisations need human-centred leaders, and three tips to get started.
Read the full transcript
Neo Ley Lee: It takes work to unlearn and to learn something new. So it’s important for a leader to realise that the environment is so complex nowadays that he or she needs to be agile. Gone are the days when leaders were happy with one style and held the view that “we are the boss, so people have to put up with our nonsense”.
Chuen Chuen: Welcome to Agile Leaders Conversations, a series of dialogues where we engage industry leaders in discussions on how they see and apply agility, and navigate paradoxes as they leap and pivot in the new normal. My guest today is Neo Ley Lee, Director of Synergy Financial Advisers Pte Ltd.
Ley Lee has formal financial training and has been in the industry for more than 20 years. She currently leads her own team of financial advisers. Ley Lee, would you like to share a few words about what you do?
Neo Ley Lee: I’m happy that I’m providing an important service to people, and this subject is important to me as a leader. Leaders need to be agile because our world is becoming more complex day by day.
Chuen Chuen: I’ve known Ley Lee for many years. I met her in my early twenties, when I wasn’t making very sound decisions about my finances. I learned a lot from her, and I have a lot of respect for her. Ley Lee has really seen me grow and evolve over the years. When my book was published, I asked her to read it and give me her honest feedback, because I know I can always count on her for honest, sincere feedback. I was very happy that she found it applicable and relevant. So Ley Lee, what are your general thoughts on the book?
Neo Ley Lee: Your book is useful. It takes work to unlearn and to learn something new, so it’s important for a leader to realise that the environment is so complex nowadays that she needs to be agile. Gone are the days when leaders were happy with one style and held the view that “we are the boss, so people have to put up with our nonsense”.
Chuen Chuen: You can see Ley Lee is very direct, which is why I like working with her. It’s true. The view that “we are the boss, you have to do whatever we say” is outdated, and leaders in a multi-generational workplace really need to update it. It’s not about lowering themselves, but about leading effectively and changing what needs to change. We can’t have just one style.
After reading the book, was there a paradox that particularly resonated with you?
Neo Ley Lee: Yes, empowering and enforcing. In our environment today, enforcing is definitely not the way. That’s my opinion. Empowering is the way to go. When we empower people, they learn a lot more, and their commitment level is higher.
Chuen Chuen: And you’ve seen that in your team. When you empower them, they’re committed.
Neo Ley Lee: Yes!
Chuen Chuen: They do their best. Not telling them, “you’ve got to do this, you’ve got to do that.”
Neo Ley Lee: Of course they won’t listen to that. You have to tell them why they should do it. From there, you bring them along, and they learn and keep the skill for themselves. Then they can handle a lot of things on their own.
Chuen Chuen: That’s great. Empowering people helps them build competence and become independent. We show them the process, or explain the rationale. Ultimately, it’s about them making sense of it and choosing which way to go, instead of holding a stick and forcing people down a path as if they have no choice. It’s a lot more effective, for morale and in other areas.
Neo Ley Lee: Yes. In fact, it’s more interesting for them. They come up with a lot of suggestions and take more initiative, and they come up with more innovative ways of looking at things.
Chuen Chuen: Yes! Their problem-solving ability increases as well. In the book, I intentionally kept the definition of leadership agility very simple: the ability to be flexible and adapt with a sense of authenticity and ease. How do you see leadership agility through the lens of a financial adviser?
Neo Ley Lee: For me, self-mastery and inner work are an advantage. To be agile, you really need a good grasp of them. Your self-awareness of how you are as a leader must be very clear. If you’re not self-aware, how would you know what style you’re using to lead?
Like I said, business environments are so complex right now that no one can stand still.
Chuen Chuen: Yes, it’s true. Some people think everybody can be self-aware, but we’ve both seen many people who claim to be self-aware and actually aren’t. A complacent attitude makes us less self-aware. And I like the principle you mentioned: if we stand still, we’re actually moving backwards. Being a leader is very much about your inner being. Who are you as a person? How are you as a person? What kind of leader do you want to be?
Neo Ley Lee: Yes. And because the people you lead have different personalities, it can’t be one size fits all.
Chuen Chuen: There’s also managing multiple expectations. If we try for one size fits all, we can’t please anybody. If you focus on everything, you focus on nothing. So how do you make the choice that’s best for your business and for yourself?
Neo Ley Lee: I look at everybody individually, as a unique being. From there, I decide what style to use to communicate with them, to connect with them.
Chuen Chuen: So you’re always sensing what’s happening in the environment and reading the team you lead. What motivates them? What’s unique about them? Then you tailor your style to connect and communicate with each of them differently.
Neo Ley Lee: Yes, and how I can help them grow. When people follow leaders, they want leaders who can help them grow: in the way they live, the way they communicate with people, and the style they use for a sales presentation.
Chuen Chuen: That’s very encouraging to hear. When I think back on our interactions, I learned and grew as a person, even though I’m not in your team. You really help people grow. You see the potential in others and think about how to support them so they can grow and be more successful. You walk the talk. You believe in this, so you treat everyone equally in that way, but you tailor your style to what each person needs.
Neo Ley Lee: Yes.
Chuen Chuen: That’s a great demonstration of leadership agility, I’d say.
Neo Ley Lee: Thank you.
Chuen Chuen: Right now in Singapore, we’re moving into phase two of the circuit breaker, where some face-to-face interactions are resuming. Businesses can resume too, within reasonable limits and with safety practices. How has the COVID-19 situation changed the way you conduct your business?
Neo Ley Lee: I feel this is the time for leaders to be empathetic. Of course we want business. Everybody wants more sales. But in the current context, we need to tell our people that it’s alright, we’ll pull through this together, and not keep asking them, “Where are your sales?” They also want more connection with their leader. So I talk to them individually, every day. It makes for busy days. I ask myself: if I want to talk to every one of them, how many times a month should I connect with each person?
They know leaders want results, because we also get pressure from management ourselves, but I couldn’t pass that stress on to them. We have to be more understanding towards them during this period. As a human being, I also want people to support me.
Top management may think people should be self-motivated and take the initiative to improve themselves in a situation like this. But for me, this is the time to really go slow and connect with them, so that they can do the same with their clients. They can’t go to a client and say, “Hey, how are you? Any financial planning needs?” You can’t, right? The client will be put off. I take a softer approach.
Chuen Chuen: So you’re talking about soft influence. Even though we as leaders are under a lot of stress, we understand that our people are already feeling pressure inside. So a productive way to deal with it is not to add external pressure on top. They’re already carrying a lot.
Neo Ley Lee: Yes.
Chuen Chuen: Be the person who supports them. If we put ourselves in their shoes, we’d want to be supported so that we can succeed. It’s not that we aren’t anxious. We are.
Neo Ley Lee: Yes, we are.
Chuen Chuen: So what’s the best way to help them? And you linked one important thing: the way you engage and connect with your team is the same way you engage your customers. You don’t let the pressure for results trickle down and affect your relationship with your customers.
Neo Ley Lee: Yes, correct. Our customers also need a lot of support right now, a lot of connection, and probably a lot of reassurance that it’s going to be okay.
You really have to connect with your clients, whether it’s for sales or not, in bad times and in good times. Clients become good friends. In fact, a lot of my clients have become friends. It’s always very fulfilling when a client tells me, “What you taught me, what you suggested, actually works.” That makes me very happy. So I share with my team how I interacted with my clients and the feedback they gave me, and I ask, do you want to try it? In this situation, I feel you have to carry on the way you live, even though a recession is creeping in and a lot of people may have financial difficulties. But I think that will be short term.
Going forward, I think we as a nation can be much stronger. I told my team, “We can emerge stronger.” It’s about how you treat people. If you’re authentic and real, they’ll appreciate you as a human being.
Chuen Chuen: Yes.
Neo Ley Lee: People will trust you. Even now, clients sometimes ask how I am. I told one, “I got zero sales this month.” They couldn’t believe it. I said yes, because I still hadn’t got used to this way of doing things, but I’m gradually picking it up, and people are more receptive when I explain things to them. Maybe we can do business this way. At first they said no, they didn’t want to do things digitally. It’s so funny. I said, maybe we can do it together.
So slowly I showed them, and now they’re very receptive, and we’ve managed to get sales coming in.
Chuen Chuen: So you share the success stories.
Neo Ley Lee: Yes. I lead by example. I do it first. I connect with some clients, and the clients say, okay, I can slowly do this. Some even give me referrals: “Hey, I bought this during COVID-19. I think it’s a good plan. Do you want to look at it?” Then they get me to call their friends and explain over the phone. It’s a good opportunity to connect with people you never thought you’d connect with.
Chuen Chuen: Lots of learning, and lots of opportunities, if you’re open enough to look out for them.
Neo Ley Lee: Yes.
Chuen Chuen: Good. I feel confident and assured, given that a recession is coming, because my own business is also sales-driven, and sometimes the numbers can be very alarming. It can be quite scary. The question is how to turn that fear into a motivating force to pick up new skills and stretch yourself. Sometimes you just try, and you’ll be surprised by what you can do.
Neo Ley Lee: Yes.
Chuen Chuen: Thank you so much for your time, Ley Lee, and for coming on the show to share your views on leadership. I wish you all the best, and let’s stay in touch.
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