Saturday 7 May 2011

Lecture Summary: The Leadership of Muhammad, by John Adair

I wrote this blog post whilst listening to a talk by John Adair about the leadership of Prophet Muhammad () which took place at Imperial College London a month ago. I couldn't decide whether to stick this post on this Blog or my Faith Blog. I put it here in the end. Anyway, here are some qualities of a leader which the speaker identified…

Enthusiasm.

Integrity
(Loyalty; Truthfulness; Trustworthiness).

A certain amount of Toughness, matched with Fairness.
(The good chief has no relatives.)

Warmth. Humanity.
(Sharing in the hardships of your people.)

Humility. The lack of arrogance. 
(They won't hear what you say if who you are is thundering at them.) 

Vision. Tangible vision:
about a world different from today; about people. 
(The grace to be the catalyst,
organising the vision to continue on without you.) 

Intelligence. Experience. Goodness.

… There are other qualities of a leader without doubt (consulting, inspiring, and so on) but these are the ones which the speaker mentioned. I liked how the speaker kept his talk short, to the point, memorable, and allowed more time to interact with the audience; a good example of good leadership!

3 comments:

adil said...

A couple of awesome quotes at the end of the talk...

"The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people but to draw it out, to elicit it, because the greatness is there already."

"Remember your position does not give you the right to command; it only lays upon you the duty of so living your life that others may receive your orders without feeling in any way humiliated."

Sy said...

really great post, love the second quote.

adil said...

It was a good talk. Worth listening to if you're into this kind of thing. The talk itself is only 30 mins. Here's the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ng_sEu4iqEU