Islamic Careers

Islamic Careers

Leadership plays an important part in the success of any organisation. In the absence of effective leadership no organisation can work efficiently. An organisation is created with the purpose of achieving certain objectives through a human group; it becomes essential to control this human group.
The above-mentioned facts clearly show that the employees utilise 60% of their capability without any additional effort as has been shown in the lower part of the diagram.

The upper part of the diagram shows that if the manager uses his leadership ability and motivates his subordinates the remaining 40% of their capability can also be utilised. According to this view, leadership is the key to the success of any business enterprise.

The importance of leadership is highlighted by the following facts:

(1) Helps in Influencing the Behaviour of People:

O ye people! Eat of what is on earth, lawful and good; and do not follow the footsteps of the Evil One, for he is to you an avowed enemy. [Holy Quran: Baqara 2:168]

The Virtues and Vices of Wealth

A man's need for property and wealth to manage his life's affairs, and especially with the burdensome responsibility of managing a family, is a completely natural need. Wealth and property, business and commerce are not in any way connected with virtue or vice when they are not related to man. For example, iron is a type of property and may be molded into many shapes. Many tools are made from it, but until man gains control over it, it is simply a material having no benefits and no evilness. Iron is beneficial when managed by a polite, dignified and noble believer. When iron falls into the hands of a rude, forgetful, lustful rogue, it becomes an evil material.

Every leader has a personal leadership brand which might be carefully cultivated or intuitively perceived by leaders themselves and their followers. A personal leadership brand is an exclusive and a specific approach of a leader to address challenges and manage his/her transactions with their subordinates or followers. The best part of having a leadership brand is that it allows the flexibility to the leaders to define their own leadership objectives and then position themselves appropriately as per the need and situation. For example Lee Iacocca promulgated a leadership brand which was resolute, determined, persuasive and ready to take risks which helped him turn around Chrysler similarly Gandhi’s leadership brand was that of integrity, honesty, principles, strength of character and above all truth.

Punctuality means doing a thing at the previously designated or appointed time. It is often said that ‘art is long and time is fleeting’. Punctuality enables us to do a great deal of work within a short span of time.

Punctuality is the most important characteristic of all successful people. A punctual person is able to complete all his task on time. The student, the teacher, the politician, the official, the trader and even the layman all have to observe punctuality in order to win glory and success in life.

Punctuality brings in its trail efficiency. It helps us to build our career. A punctual person commands the confidence and respect of others. If we look at the lives of all great men, we would realize that they had got a time schedule for every day. Mahatma Gandhi used to rise early in the morning. He used to keep up appointments and was punctual to a minute.

There is an old saying in business: "Fail to plan and you plan to fail." It may sound glib, but those who are serious about being successful, including traders, should follow these eight words as if they were written in stone. Ask any trader who makes money on a consistent basis and they will tell you, "You have two choices: you can either methodically follow a written plan, or fail."
If you have a written trading or investment plan, congratulations! You are in the minority. While it is still no absolute guarantee of success, you have eliminated one major roadblock. If your plan uses flawed techniques or lacks preparation, your success won't come immediately, but at least you are in a position to chart and modify your course. By documenting the process, you learn what works and how to avoid repeating costly mistakes.


Whether or not you have a plan now, here are some ideas to help with the process.
Disaster Avoidance 101

When developing a small business, establishing the right image is key to building relationships with clients. The impression individuals form of your business depends on a range of factors—branding, personal interactions, web presence, reputation—each of which you should carefully consider. Here are a few tips to help you improve your image in yoursmall business marketing efforts.

Evaluate your image
Feedback from customers and staff can be invaluable in evaluating your image. You may think that you are projecting a particular image when in actuality, something gets lost in translation. Of course, it’s important to get a good number of opinions, particularly from within your target audience. When you’ve collected feedback from relevant sources, summarize your conclusions: What works well, and what could be improved?

Clarify your message

1. Start with something interesting: In today’s market scenario where several resumes are lying at the desk, why does a particular resume gets picked than the others in the lot? Thinking... It is because the resume has a cover letter / introductory note that makes it saleable. A summary of a candidate’s profile is always better than a simply stated one line objective which merely talks about a candidate’s aspiration and does not tell about his / her profile summary.

2. Add a personal touch: While writing to potential clients for business, ensure that the content is customized as per the client’s profile and requirement. This helps creating a special bond with the reader.

Self-Image - The idea, conception, or mental image one has of oneself. Self-Esteem - Respect or favorable image of oneself (Random House Dictionary)
Self-image is how you perceive yourself. It is a number of self-impressions that have built up over time: What are your hopes and dreams? What do you think and feel? What have you done throughout your life and what did you want to do? These self-images can be very positive, giving a person confidence in their thoughts and actions, or negative, making a person doubtful of their capabilities and ideas.

Surprisingly, your self-image can be very different from how the world sees you. Some people who outwardly seem to have it all (intelligence, looks, personal and financial success) may have a bad self-image. Conversely, others who have had a very difficult life and multiple hardships may also have a very positive self-image.

The importance of motivation is often under-estimated and I would also venture to say that it's the least understood knowledge area among people who hold vital leadership roles within an organization. Being proficient at motivating your employees will, without a doubt, be a measure of your success as a leader. From my perspective, this is one key performance indicator (KPI) that should be on any leader's dashboard!

Before we learn how to motivate employees, it's important to take some time to understand why we need to motivate employees! Why, because when we comprehend the why of something, we are in a better position to elucidate the how, which increases our chances to actually motivate our employees. Therefore, understanding why you need to learn about employee motivation will naturally increase your motivational skills. Now that you understand the why of the why, let's continue...

Why is motivation important?

Communicating in a meeting is an essential part of effective communication. Some meetings are not conducted in an efficient manner due to which they fail in accomplishing the sole objective of the meeting. It may be because:

• They do not involve participation of all, or
• They may be too long, or
• They may be unsystematic, or
• They may lack a clear agenda, or
• They may not begin on the planned time, or
• They may end without any conclusion.

As a result, such meetings lead to agitation and sheer wastage of time. In order to ensure effectiveness of a meeting, it must be planned, systematic and rational.

The process of running an effective meeting includes the following steps:
Plan the meeting: Plan the meeting in advance. With the plan clear in mind, the objective of the meeting can be well accomplished. Planning includes-
• Outline the objective of the meeting.
• Decide the attendees/participants of the meeting.

Communication is an aid used in everyday lifeâ??be it personal or business. In the business world, good communication is important for the daily operation of the company, but can also affect sales and profitability. Without good business communication, the internal and external structure of a business can face numerous challenges that can ultimately lead to its demise.

A Managers Field Guide
Types

In general, sensible people know tHe mportance of time..
There are among those who believe in the popular saying as “Time is gold.” Time in Islam is more than gold or any precious material thing in this world. Of all religions, only Islam guides mankind not only to tHe mportance of time but also how to value it. Islam very clearly teaches us the value of time, why we must not waste it and how we can make use of our time wisely to increase our eeman (faith) and thus attain success, especially eternal success in the life Hereafter.

Both the Qur’ân and the Sunnah enjoin Muslims to be conscious of time. We are reminded that life in this world is nothing but temporary. We never know when death has been appointed for us. We must value time for the pleasure of Allah (S.W.T.) the Almighty. For our guidance and success, we must never waste time nor abuse it. We must take admonitions from the following authentic Ahâdîth:

There are a lot of communication barriers faced these days by all. The message intended by the sender is not understood by the receiver in the same terms and sense and thus communication breakdown occurs. It is essential to deal and cope up with these communication barriers so as to ensure smooth and effective communication.

As, in the previous section we have discussed the major barriers of communication. Let’s talk about how to overcome these barriers of communication.

1. Eliminating differences in perception: The organization should ensure that it is recruiting right individuals on the job. It’s the responsibility of the interviewer to ensure that the interviewee has command over the written and spoken language. There should be proper Induction program so that the policies of the company are clear to all the employees. There should be proper trainings conducted for required employees (for eg: Voice and Accent training).

Receivers are not just passive absorbers of messages; they receive the message and respond to them. This response of a receiver to sender’s message is called Feedback. Sometimes a feedback could be a non-verbal smiles, sighs etc. Sometimes it is oral, as when you react to a colleague’s ideas with questions or comments. Feedback can also be written like - replying to an e-mail, etc.

Feedback is your audience’s response; it enables you to evaluate the effectiveness of your message. If your audience doesn’t understand what you mean, you can tell by the response and then refine the message accordingly.
Giving your audience a chance to provide feedback is crucial for maintaining an open communication climate. The manager must create an environment that encourages feedback. For example after explaining the job to the subordinated he must ask them whether they have understood it or not.

How positive is your self-image? Answer these true or false statements and find out.

1. My glass is always half-empty, not half-full.
2. I'm always apologizing for things.
3. I'm always telling myself I "should" be doing this or that.
4. I constantly criticize myself.
5. What other people think about me dictates how I feel about myself.
6. I am critical of my mistakes and relive them over and over.
7. I always let the people who care about me down.
8. I feel like I have the weight of the world on my shoulders.
9. A partial failure is as bad as a complete failure.
10. I bend over backwards to please others.
11. I am not sure I have done a good job unless someone else points it out.
12. It's hard for me to forgive and forget.
13. I have to work harder than others for relationships and am afraid that the relationships I have will fail.
14. If I don't do as well as others, it means that I am not as good as them.