Patrick Hylton reckons that transformational leadership is the missing ingredient in Jamaica’s efforts to achieve economic growth.

According to Hylton, the transformation taking place at the country’s macro-economic level, which has been met with some level of success, “needs to go beyond the macro level and into the micro level, into the individuals, and into the firms”.

Hylton, the managing director of National Commercial Bank (NCB), was addressing yesterday’s Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) President’s Forum held at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in New Kingston.

Pointing to how impressed International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde was with the public-private sector collaborative framework which characterises the Economic Programme Oversight Committee (EPOC), Hylton said: “It is important that we work together to ensure that Jamaica undergoes the transformation needed across all sectors to facilitate the development of our society… [as] sustainable growth is critical to the long-term success of our economic programme.”

He argued that Jamaica’s experiences of having long periods of low or no growth necessitate a change in our mindset about the way we do business.

“By transformation, what we really mean is doing things differently, [with] significant change, not incremental changes. Change that will, in many instances, make people doubtful, that will make them uncomfortable and yes, will make them resistant,” he said.

Your aspirations, he said, “must make you stretch”. They must be unreasonable, but at the same time not unachievable.

“If you don’t hear complaints about how crazy and unrealistic your aspirations are, you are likely not being aggressive enough in your attempts to achieve your objectives” he said.