Fundamentals of Leadership

Hola Rahim al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen wa salatu salam ala Shura filmbay, mousseline mohammadu Rasulullah, sallallahu alayhi, wa aalihi, wa sahbihi wa seldom at the Sleeman kathira, Kira, Hama Babu, my dear brothers sisters beautiful

day today, normal Java in

in the fall as you can see some of the leaves behind me are turning color. And I thought instead of speaking to you from inside, I let me speak to you from outside, so that you can also enjoy some of the beauty of this beautiful place that I am very, very blessed and lucky and fortunate to be in Alhamdulillah.

My brothers and sisters, today I want to talk to you about the fundamentals of of leadership. Leadership is a topic that is very, very close to my heart, and to which I have dedicated

or rather, I must say, I have been engaged in studying it in learning it in teaching it and in trying to practice it now for over 35 years.

And I can say that probably my life is dedicated to the subject of leadership.

And I want to condense for you, my 35 years of learning in a few words.

The first word that I want to say to you about leadership, the fundamentals of leadership is to differentiate,

differentiates, you need to build trust,

to build trust, you need to be reliable. And to be known for reliability, you need to deliver on promises. This is the process diagram of what leadership is when you let me tell you this now from the other side, when you deliver on promises consistently every single time meaning that what you promise to do you do anyway we do a little bit more, but definitely not less. And you never ever, not deliver on a promise. So begins with delivering on promises, to deliver on promises to deliver what you promised is a mark of your self respect. It tells the world you are telling the world how much you respect yourself. A person who promises something and does not deliver it is telling the

world I don't respect myself. So you also do not respect me And believe me, nobody respects a person who does not deliver on promises. Because a person or does not deliver on promises is unreliable. Tell me who respects an unreliable person.

Nobody.

When you deliver on promises, you become reliable.

When you become reliable, you become trustworthy.

And when you become trustworthy, you differentiate and you stand out from the rest of society because society generally speaking, is not reliable and not trustworthy. Look at it any way you like this is the best thing that can happen to you, that you live in a society which is known for unreliability and for the lack of trustworthiness. Because then it becomes so much easier for you do stand out on the basis of your reliability and trustworthiness. A man is as good as his word. And that is not a gender specific statement. It is a statement of humanity of of the best that there is in humanity, which is that a person is as good as their word. If you cannot trust my word, then you

cannot trust anything that I do. You cannot trust something that I give you in writing because I might go back on that you might you cannot trust me period. Because you cannot trust my word. My brothers and sisters, if there is one word that describes leadership, it is differentiate.

sheep are sheep, no matter how many they are.

When you stand out, when you differentiate, you are not a sheep. You then become a shepherd.

And when you become a shepherd, you are obeyed. You are followed. Even if that Shepherd is a dog. He stands out

And he's obeyed and he's followed.

Why should you differentiate? So that you can stand out? Why should you stand out? because only then can someone follow you? People cannot follow someone who is indistinguishable, who is undifferentiated.

A leader has followers because he or she stands out based on what their followers consider to be beneficial for them.

People do not follow somebody who they consider to be either harmful or useless. people follow those who they consider to be beneficial. And that is why Allah subhanho wa Taala told us about ourselves the oma Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa aalihi wa sahbihi wa sallam, he said, we let him initiate on the regime. Quanto Hara Amati Lucretia Lin s. Tamura Bill Maher roofie what and how Luna and Neil moon curry what to Mina villa in salt darling Rolla Tara said you all Muslims are the best of people ever raised up for mankind. You enjoy an Alma rove and you forbid al Mancha and you believe in Allah subhanho wa Taala. This ayah defines our identity, people whose purpose of existence is to benefit

others. This is our niche. This is our metric. This is the basis on which we will be judged when we meet Allah subhanho wa Taala. Whether we benefited others or not, this is our differentiator. It is based on this that we stand out and are distinguished from others. If you do this, we will be respected and loved and we will have influence. Please note, the IR does not refer only to our aqeedah or our ibaadat. It doesn't refer only to our creed and to our worship. Allah subhanho wa Taala said that it is our job to enjoy all that is good and forbid all that is evil. This also shows us that we must collaborate with those who work for good and against evil, even if they are not

Muslim, my brother and sisters, today, a lot of us are living in a state where we feel that our future is threatened. Let me give you some good news and bad news. The good news is that nobody in the world can threaten your future.

The bad news is unless you choose to threaten it yourself. People do what they feel is right to do and they do whatever they do. It is up to you whether we want to fall in with that, or we don't want to fall into that we want to differentiate and we want to stand out or not. Depending on that is our future. My brothers and sisters, our future is in our hands. And that depends on what we do today.

Right? That depends on what we do today. So don't get worried. Don't get depressed, don't get stressed out, thinking that there are other people in control of your future. There is nobody in control of your future except Allah Subhana Allah Allah Allah, Allah Subhana Allah give that control in your own hands. And Allah subhanaw taala said, while laserline Sani Lavasa that for a human being there is nothing more than what he or she chooses to do, what they work on what they work hard about what they try to try to impact. If we decide to change our lives if we decide to change our future, we can do that, provided we work on it. Now.

In today's times, for example, when we are talking about taking precautions against COVID to protect ourselves and others, this is within the purview of this idea of benefiting others, which it says about enjoining good and forbidding evil. When you differentiate based on benefiting people, you become beloved and you are popular. You are trusted you are looked up to and you become influential. People love those who give and they hate those who take we were sent to take from Allah subhanho wa Taala and to give to the people that is why we must build our own connection with Allah and we must learn to take from him alone. Ask only Allah because only Allah likes those who ask. differentiation

is based on trust, which is the first and foremost ingredient of leadership. You cannot be a leader if you cannot be trusted. Trust is a result of consistency, which makes you reliable, being reliable as I mentioned before

To deliver on promises, be as simple as keeping an appointment or more complex as how you treat your spouse when you promised to take care of when you married her. If you do not deliver on promises, your reliability will be questionable and people will not trust you.

If you are not trusted, you can never be a leader because nobody will follow an unreliable, untrustworthy person. See the titles of Rasulullah sallallahu Sallam as Sadek? Well, I mean, in the light of what I'm saying, the truthful and the trustworthy, the one who always delivered on his promises, the one who walked his talk, the one who never made excuses, because excuses do not change reality, the focus on being beneficial, which Allah subhanho wa Taala call the purpose of our existence is based on concern for others. My brothers and sisters, Islam came as a social reform system. It came to teach people that our actions have a twofold effect, visible effects in this life

and invisible effects in the ACA and that is why Islam focuses on safety, which is Salah for all justice, either knowing that we are accountable to Allah subhana wa tada alone and compassion as a reflection of Allah subhanho wa Taala has compassion and mercy, Rama That is why Allah subhanaw taala told us in the ayah that we hear in every Juma Haha, that reminds us to do justice and then some more in the Lucha Yamamoto bill Abdullah son when he died ill horiba wion ha Anil fascia evil monkey world Bhave yaizu como la quinta de carro, Allah, the ayat of surah tunnel. Verily, Allah subhanho wa Taala and joins al aadil justice and Ali Hassan excellence doing more than what justice

requires, and again helping giving help the kith and kin

of which is which amounts to all that Allah has ordered us to do with our relatives, and have an Allah forbids alpha, which is all shameful acts, and since alankar, which is all forms of disbelief and rebelliousness, altobelli, which is oppression, he admonishes you that you may take heed on the, in the words also allies ally sell them on the authority of Jose Del Rio de la No, who said, I heard Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi salam say, Whosoever of you, whichever of you sees anything, even let him change it with his hand. And if he's not able to do that, then let him change it with his tongue, let him speak out against it. And if he's not able to do that, then with his heart and that

is the weakest of faith and this is say what is in Muslim, being an idle spectator is not an option. If there is something that you can do, it is only if you are totally helpless, that he that you are ordered to hate the act that you are witnessing meaning not participate in it and to know that it is wrong. And that is what also lies and asylum call is sign of weak faith, weak Eman. Islam is all about contribution. So let us measure our own. In the words of Michael Howdy, if you want to see the mic, Larry was the originator of the Six Sigma quality, quality method. In the words of Michael Harry, if you want to see what people value, see what they measure, let us take being beneficial as

the purpose that Allah subhanaw taala created us for and will measure us on and ask ourselves, Is this our top concern today? Is this our top concern? How am I beneficial? Is this the question that we asked most often, I will ask you to do an exercise. Go into your WhatsApp see the messages that you have sent to people in the last one week be from last jumada this Juma and see which of those messages is concerned about how beneficial you are to people? Do my messages reflect my concern for others or not? Or are my messages just forwarding stuff from all over the place? And today we live in a world where most of that stuff is negative. What are we doing?

My brothers and sisters?

Is the is the question that we asked most often. Am I or are we being banished

And if so how?

Right, ask this question. Is this a question that we ask in our board meetings? For example?

Is this something we asked in our homes?

To our families? How were we beneficial this week? To whom? And in what way? Do we ask this question?

And if we don't ask this question, then how do we know that we are fulfilling the purpose of our creation?

Remember, what we don't measure? We don't know what we don't know. We can't control what we can control. We can't guarantee if you want to guarantee something, you have to control it, to control it, you must measure it, only then we will know what we are doing, how much what adjustments need to be made. So let us start measuring. Let us ask this question in every meeting, let us ask this question at home. Let us ask this question to ourselves, let us be uncomfortable. discomfort is a sign of change, which we need very badly. discomfort will lead us to do something to become beneficial. Another thing to do is to speak to our neighbors and ask them what they think of us, not

email service speak face to face. In g we have a system called voc voice of customer, where the where we have customers come into a GE facility to talk to us about their experience of users of GE services and products. The job of GE executives and managers is simply to listen and take notes, and then to deal with grievances and service failures and report back to the customers so that they know that their feedback was useful and why and didn't just go down down the hole.

And GE is able to build a loyal customer base on this basis, who are our customers as Muslims who are our customers, all those people we come into contact with in our normal day. I love the definition

of moment of truth that was coined by Yan Carlson, the CEO of SS group Scandinavian Airlines from 1981 to 1994. At the time, Yan Carlson took over the helm of SAS, the company was facing large financial difficulties and was losing $70 million in per annum and that's in 1981. There was a lot of money. There were you losing $70 million annually, and had an international reputation for always being lit. In 1981. A survey showed that SAS was ranked 14 out of 17 Airlines in Europe when it came to punctuality right down. Furthermore, the company had the reputation of being extremely centralized, where decisions were hard to come by, to the detriment of customers and shareholders

and stuff. Young girls and revolution arised revolutionize the airline industry, through an unrelenting focus on customer service quality. Within one year of taking what was the result within one year of taking over SS it became the most punctual airline in Europe. And they started

on an ongoing training program called putting people first This was developed by Claus mala of time manager International. I was one of the people who took that course in India in 1994. The program was focused on delegating responsibility away from management, and allowing customer facing staff to make decisions to resolve any issues on the spot. These changes soon impacted the bottom line as well. And the company from being a loss making company making $17 million loss in per annum annually. In one year in 1982. This company made a profit of $54 million,

one year after the ungasan took over as the CEO. The SS turnaround is one of the most famous examples of what the right focus can do. And it's a case study that has been rough that has been referenced, referenced in many studies widely in management literature, Yan Carlson used the phrase moment of truth. He divided very beautifully he said a moment of truth is, he said in SAS, we have 50,000 moments of truth every day. His definition of moment of truth

Want you to do listen carefully memorize it if you can. He said, it is that moment, when a customer or a potential customer, a customer or a potential customer comes into contact with any aspect of our business, and has an opportunity to form an opinion, the moment of truth is that moment when a customer or a potential customer comes into contact with any aspect of our business, and has an opportunity to form an opinion, customer service consists of knowing, controlling and measuring the quality of our response to each moment of truth, to relate this to ourselves as Muslims and to our institutions, movements and enterprises. How do you think we will measure on this scale, what we

need to do is to identify where our customers come into contact with us and our activities, remembering that a lot of that contact may be remote, unknown to us silent and in passing, but the opinions formed are real, and long lasting, if not permanent. It is important, therefore, to identify those moments of truth and determine what happens at each of them, then to have a prepared response, which happens consistently, to ensure that the moment is handled effectively. I have more examples of how this is done in the corporate world, but won't go into that here. Let me close the circle by returning to where I began.

Our need to differentiate based on the purpose of our creation, which is to be beneficial to everyone around us. Let us remember that purpose deserves our full attention, time and resources. It's not a hobby or pastime, which we do and we feel like doing it. Purpose is the reason we exist. Purpose is what gives us meaning. Purpose is what we will be measured on and purpose is our legacy. ask Allah subhanaw taala to be pleased with you and never to be displeased, asked Allah subhanaw taala jela delallo to help you in ways that you cannot imagine, ask Allah to protect you from all evil that you know and that you don't know. ask Allah subhanaw taala to enable you to live a life

which will leave behind a legacy of grace and honor and which will be a something that can be looked up to by those who want to look at the lives of Muslims in today's modern world was Allah Allah Allah Allah bill Karim? Allah Allah He was savage may be robotic ar hamara mean hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen wa salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato.