Personal Development -v- Leadership

There are many programs out there these days which are billed as ‘Leadership’ programs but which are in fact nothing more than just glorified development sessions.  Not that there is anything wrong with them, they do in fact provide some very good tools and insights.  But they are not ‘Leadership’ programs.  There is a saying that goes, if something sounds too good to be true it generally is.  Well, the same applies in leadership – any program that says it can turn you into a great leader over a day or a weekend or even a month or two, sound too good to be true – and it generally is.

What these programs generally cover off are some good fundamental personal skills – presentation, communication, negotiation and the like.  All excellent skills to have and skills which all good leaders have.  But they are not the ONLY skills that leaders have and in the absence of anything else they may make you better at your job but wont really progress you very far along the leadership road.

To genuinely build your leadership skills you will need to have 3 elements:

1. The theory – an understanding of what it is that makes good leadership;
2. The practice – an opportunity to practice the theory in a staged approach; learn from that experience and then use it to move on to the next stage of development;
3. A Mentor – someone who can guide you along the journey.

Obviously there are those rare individuals who have the inherent ability to become great leaders on their own but for the vast majority of us it will take time and hard work – not something that you will get in a 1 day workshop or even a week intensive.

So the first piece of advice if you want to develop your leadership potential is to find a structured program that builds on the learned knowledge, provides an opportunity for you to implement the learnings before moving the next stage and which also provides the possibility for you to access a mentor along the way.

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Islam, Justice and the West : Part II

In Part I, I contextualised this discussion in relation to what the obligation on Muslims living in non-Muslim lands is.  In this instalment we will explore some of the principles which may apply.

 

There are two camps here – one, which says that the ‘West’ as a collective is an enemy of Islam and so any support at all is a betrayal of the religion; and the other which intuitively takes the position that this is not correct but which has difficulty in articulating its reasons other than if we are aware of a wrong being committed we should stop it.

 

I am neither a scholar nor a ‘leader’ of the community, but I am a Muslim and so I need to understand for my own peace of mind what I believe to be the case.

 

For me the whole issue is bound up in the concept of Justice.  Justice, or ‘Adl’ in Arabic, is one of the main themes running through the Quran and it seems to me that there is something inherently wrong, or unjust, if I, as a Muslim, am aware of something that will cause great harm to many innocent people and choose to stand by and do nothing about it. 

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Islam, Justice and the West: Part I

For Muslims living in a western country there are many issues that we have to deal with every day that are challenging for us – the whole gender interaction, both at and outside the workplace; how we manage our prayers and making our ablutions when we’re away from home; finding halal food options and of course the way we dress, in particular for Muslim women, is a much talked about issue.  But we muddle our way through most of those and find a way to meet our obligations to Allah (swt) without causing too much anxiety for our neighbours and colleagues – if you see a Muslim washing their feet in the office bathroom it’s not because they are trying to save water at home and there is no need to call the terrorism hotline either! 

 

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At the feet of the Scholars

The Internet has had a huge impact on our lives and will undoubtedly continue to do so.  Overall it has been a positive impact but clearly there are some downsides – the proliferation of pornography and the access to inappropriate material for our children the most obvious one.  Another aspect of course is the availability of a huge amount of information on almost any topic one could imagine – suddenly we can all be instant experts in almost all fields.

And this then leads to one of the more serious repercussions of the w.w.w. when it comes to religions and religious knowledge.  From an Islamic perspective, budding students of knowledge sought out specific scholars and, if the scholar consented, learnt by listening and observing the person of knowledge.  For attaining religious knowledge was more than just receiving and memorising information – it included the Adab(etiquette) of the student to the teacher (something which is geared to instilling a sense of humility and humbleness to go along with the knowledge); it included the contextualising of discrete pieces of information within the ocean of religious knowledge; but more importantly it represented a personal relationship between student and teacher which could be traced all the way back to the time of the Rasul(saws).  It is this last factor which is at the heart of what is now referred to as ‘traditional scholarship’ within the battle that is taking place for the middle ground in both scholarship and Islam generally. 

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Palestine

It is almost impossible as a Muslim blogger not to write about the situation in Palestine.  Particularly given the paucity and bias of the reporting that generally takes place in the western media.  It is also a colossal failure on the part of all the so-called ‘leaders’ of the world.  That we can allow a situation where millions of people are forceably removed from their homes, then barricaded behind a concrete wall and left without any food or supplies allowed into the ghetto from outside, would be bad enough, but to then stand idly by while their jailers systematically attack and kill them is just beyond the pale.

Sometimes however, the truth can’t but be spoken and in this case it can’t be better said than by someone other than me.  I came across this article by Deb Reich, an American Jewish lady living in Israel.  It is well worth reading the whole article – below is just an excerpt:

Alas, Jews in Israel and abroad often behave as if Palestinian Arabs are present in Palestine/Israel purely as some kind of devilish provocation – to deny us the fulfillment of our dream of a return to Zion. As if the hundred-year-old olive trees of those long-suffering villagers on the West Bank are standing there only to create make-work for IDF bulldozers and keep our dedicated Army Corps of Engineer boys from getting home in time for dinner. It’s always about us, and we never fail to judge ourselves by our best intentions while busy judging them by their Baruch Goldsteins.

J’accuse…. whom? Either we are all guilty, or none of us is guilty. Governments and partisans and ordinary citizens and religious leaders and followers on all sides of the conflict, back to Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar, have certainly made mistakes and made themselves part of the problem. But most Israelis and Palestinians alive today were born after the state of Israel came into being, so they aren’t responsible; and none of us was alive when the Zionist movement was born in the late 1800s in Europe, so that’s not our fault either. Most were not around when Haj Amin al Husseini sided with Hitler in WWII, so they can’t be blamed for his choice. Most of today’s Israelis were not around when Prime Minister Golda Meir made her notorious pronouncement – “There are no Palestinians!” – and so cannot be blamed for that, either.

The full article can be found here:

http://asiapacific.mediamonitors.net/Headlines/J-accuse-won-t-work-anymore

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Re-inventing the Wheel

If you hang around management theory long enough you will generally see the same models tweaked, re badged and relaunched as the next best thing.  You will also come to realise that many of the questions we are grappling with today are essentially no different to what managers were addressing 50 years ago.  It’s just a question of scale and the speed of change that is different.

So the idea of reinventing the wheel is not that controversial – it happens all the time.  But over the last decade what I have come to realise is that this reinvention does not extend just to the last 50 or even 100 years.  It goes back much further than that – in fact over 1400 years.  Much of the ‘modern’ thinking and theory on management and leadership is consistent with very basic and fundamental principles of Islam which the Prophet Muhamed (saws) expounded in the 7th century.  So for all the Islamophobes out there be prepared to throw out all these practices if you are also set on opposing everything that is Islam.

This is particularly so once you get into the areas of Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility. In future posts I’ll expand on my thinking on this whole concept

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Stillness, Contentment & Mercy

As the modern world speeds headlong at an ever increasing pace, our need to keep up, to take action, to do something also increases.  This need is driven by many factors but at its heart is, I believe, a need to try and retake control of our lives – to do, rather than be done upon.  But as we grapple more and more with this need to retake control we do so by letting go of those very same principles and values of our religion which make this a pointless struggle to begin with.

This need to be in control is a difficult one to come to terms with.  It is a part of our make up to be the makers of our own destiny – or at least to have the desire to be.  Much of modern individualism is founded on this basic tenet.  But it is a house of cards.  The more we believe that we in fact DO control our destinies, the more we succumb to our individual whims and desires.  Ultimately this in fact ties us into societal forces of materialism and consumerism that we are not even aware of.  True freedom is not found down this path.

From the Muslim perspective, Tawakul (Reliance or Trust in Allah(swt)) is a fundamental part of our faith.  It is the ongoing struggle to fight our innate desire that the ultimate outcome for us is something that we can control in the absence of the Divine Will or in contradiction to His(swt) plan for us.

فَبِمَا رَحۡمَةٍ۬ مِّنَ ٱللَّهِ لِنتَ لَهُمۡ‌ۖ وَلَوۡ كُنتَ فَظًّا غَلِيظَ ٱلۡقَلۡبِ لَٱنفَضُّواْ مِنۡ حَوۡلِكَ‌ۖ فَٱعۡفُ عَنۡہُمۡ وَٱسۡتَغۡفِرۡ لَهُمۡ وَشَاوِرۡهُمۡ فِى ٱلۡأَمۡرِ‌ۖ فَإِذَا عَزَمۡتَ فَتَوَكَّلۡ عَلَى ٱللَّهِ‌ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ يُحِبُّ ٱلۡمُتَوَكِّلِينَ

And by the Mercy of Allâh, you dealt with them gently. And had you been severe and harsh¬hearted, they would have broken away from about you; so pass over (their faults), and ask (Allâh’s) Forgiveness for them; and consult them in the affairs. Then when you have taken a decision, put your trust in Allâh, certainly, Allâh loves those who put their trust (in Him).  3:159

And

إِن يَنصُرۡكُمُ ٱللَّهُ فَلَا غَالِبَ لَكُمۡ‌ۖ وَإِن يَخۡذُلۡكُمۡ فَمَن ذَا ٱلَّذِى يَنصُرُكُم مِّنۢ بَعۡدِهِۦ‌ۗ وَعَلَى ٱللَّهِ فَلۡيَتَوَكَّلِ ٱلۡمُؤۡمِنُونَ

If Allâh helps you, none can overcome you; and if He forsakes you, who is there after Him that can help you? And in Allâh (Alone) let believers put their trust. 3:160

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