SINGAPORE, June 28 — As Singapore’s first female president, her dressing and wardrobe choices have come under greater scrutiny and President Halimah Yacob has had to get used to this.

Talking about some of the challenges of holding office, Halimah said that male presidents likely do not get as much attention on their attire.

She was responding to a question from the audience yesterday during a dialogue with students at her alma mater, Tanjong Katong Girls’ School (TKGS), on the topic of leadership. A total of 55 TKGS upper secondary students — mostly student leaders — took part in the session, held in conjunction with the school’s 65th anniversary celebration next month.

Halimah pointed out that Singapore has progressed a "great deal” with regards to gender issues, and there is a significant percentage of female Members of Parliament (MP) here — "even higher than the general norm in the world”, she said.

"When I was elected (as MP) in 2001, one of the most common questions asked of me was, ‘Who is going to take care of your children?’ And then I replied them, look, I have a husband, too. We are supposed to divide the duties equally,”  Halimah said.

"But now, we do have female MPs and they have children… and people don’t ask that question. We have truly progressed quite great deal… it is not the gender that matters, but whether the person can do the job.”

However, the occasional "peculiarities” do surface, such as when people comment about what she wears, "because I am a female, I suspect”, she said.

She urged the students not to carry the "emotional baggage” of being a woman, to think that they cannot do certain things because of their gender, but to start from a position of "certainty” and "confidence”.

"Tell yourself that I can do as well as anybody else, I can contribute, I have something to contribute and I want to contribute,” she said.

In doing volunteer work, for example, Halimah also encouraged the girls to serve wholeheartedly. She told them of voluntary welfare organisations expressing their concern to her about how volunteers would "disappear” after a while (for reasons not said) and that creates "a lot of discontinuity, disruptions”.

President Halimah Yacob as a schoolgirl in a yearbook from Tanjong Katong Girls' School.

On her days in TKGS, Halimah remembered the school for inculcating leadership skills.

She attended pre-university there from 1972 to 1973. Being in an all-girl school also helped her to focus on her studies without too many distractions, she said.

She highlighted that being a leader is not about rank, title or status, but about putting the interest of the people you serve at heart.

"People care when they know you care about them, that’s the most important thing,” she added.

"They trust you because they have seen (your work) over time. They have interactions with you, they start trusting (you) and have confidence that you can help, and that’s very important. Always be humble, always build trust. That’s very critical. Never break that trust.

"The minute you break that trust, the word spreads very fast.”

Illustrating her point about servant leadership, she recounted her days in National Trades Union Congress (NTUC), where one of the important things she learnt was humility.

She first joined NTUC with a law degree, and her most humbling experience then was to chair a meeting with 20 senior union leaders when she was just two months into her job.

"I was supposed to give them advice on labour laws, but my senior reminded me, ‘Don’t think that you can teach them too much. They are testing you, so they want to see what value you can add to them…… They may not have qualifications and a degree, but they have the experience of talking to the workers, of dealing with the management’.”

At the end of the dialogue which lasted about an hour, President Halimah took selfies with the students and talked to other girls who were not part of the session but were at the sidelines trying to catch a glimpse of her. — TODAY