How to Lead When You're Not in Charge | Brilliant Books for Brilliant Minds | Imam Jawad Rasul

brother say do we're okay okay so the book that we are uh going through today for our brilliant books for Brilliant Minds series it is called how to lead when you're not in charge and it is written by a man by the name of clay scroggin and Clay Scroggins is actually a pastor in a church so the book is actually written from the perspective which is very similar to the mid uh in the sense that it is a Organization for Spiritual or religious purposes and um you tend to have multiple layers of leadership just like we have in mid we have in the churches and synagogues you have the religious leadership you also have the administrative leadership uh in our families we would say that uh in our families we have uh sometimes multiple uh you could say uh where power rests right so when I when I before I got married I used to think that when I get married I will be the boss at home right when I got married I realized that not yet um there was a there was a boss at home so now the the wife may feel like you know when I get married then I will be in charge of the house and I will do whatever I want and in some things she gets to sometimes some things she doesn't get to so so basically he begins by saying uh and I will go through quickly inshallah maybe hopefully in less than 30 minutes inshallah we'll cover and then we'll take some Q&A he says that so many times we are fooled by the idea that we are given some responsibility and then we have we are now the leader but he says that leadership and Authority are not a package deal meaning sometimes you might be given a position but you don't have no one follows you you have a position so what and sometimes people follow a person who doesn't have a position at all can if any sisters would like to join us downstairs we have a lot of empty space down here so you can come and join us downstairs but if you are remaining upstairs if you talk we can still hear and same goes for brothers as well inshallah so he says that if you can you can anybody think of an example of someone who was a leader or is a leader but doesn't have any position can anybody think of any King of England has a position but no Authority anyone anybody Muslim non-muslim anybody you're going too deep give me something that people can remember give me non-controversial examples okay think about think about the prophets of Allah right the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam in mecah think about ibraim am ibraim throughout his life he was basically someone who was he he did not we don't from the Islamic tradition he was never like a kingly type person he lived a simple life but Subhan look at the amount of followers that claim to be following ibraim Alam more recent examples if you think about people like Martin Luther King right this is someone who didn't have there was no organization at a national level that he was basically heading but simply because he was a good speaker he was a charismatic person people followed him and they used that to basically lead a powerful movement to meet certain goals that they wanted to meet you have for example um and of course these examples are not equal I'm just going up and down of course the prophets of Allah are the best of people isaam was a simple person who didn't have any position of authority but he had so much influence that he was a threat to the powers that be because of his his teaching his his his influence is basically the key word so he says that many times we find ourselves in a situation where we feel like we have authority so we should also have influence but that doesn't go together we may have authority but no one listens to us and how many um okay I can't ask this question and get a straight answer the question I was thinking of how many brothers feel like they have a position of authority at home but no one listens to them so um who who who do people listen to you know one of my friends he told me uh another Imam he said that when a family is Young When the Children Are Young the powerful position in the house is the Father's who is bringing home the bread when the children grow up then the powerful position is occupied by the mom because now the kids have grown up and they have become her support now dad can't mess with them so he told me he said that if you ever look around like a family that has adult children if you look carefully you will see that the dad just follows the mom around she is the one who is a matriarch of the family she's the real powerhouse in the family because now if Dad when when the kids were young dad was the PowerHouse now that the kids are older now dad knows he can't mess with her anymore even if he ever did but alhamdulillah insh it should be a it's a u relationship of love and respect so so now he says you find yourself in a position where you feel like you were supposed to be a leader but you don't have no one listens to you what do you do in this case he says in this case a lot of people they feel inhibited they feel constrained they feel undervalued they're like man I can do so much more but no one listens to me so how can you what can you do in order to increase that and change that and bring about a positive change he says real leaders don't sit back and point fingers real leaders don't sit back and point fingers rather they are people who who lead whether they have Authority or not they lead whether they have Authority or not it only takes you yourself and he says one of the things that will come up later he says remember that if there's no one that you can influence there's one person that you can influence who is that that's yourself so start by Leading yourself when you you lead yourself well other people will want to follow you as well think about it in the Muslim world today right give you that example that a lot of us we would probably say that we don't have really good leadership and if we do see good leadership do we wish to be their followers yes we are hungry for good leadership so he says that one of the things you can do is be a good leader to yourself and you will see that other people people when they see that example that you are setting they will want to come and you will be able to influence them as well then he says that many people at the top of organizations are not leaders and many people at the bottom are absolute leaders even though they have no Authority and that's why a lot of times when things when there's like a some sort of unrest in an organization the leadership at the top realizes that there are certain people that have no position of authority but everybody listens to them so when they have this unrest and they need to negotiate who do they call they call those people they say hey come and talk to us we want to talk to you okay what's going on because they realize that this person is someone that has influence over others they listen to him they follow him so let's talk to this person so all of a sudden this person without any Authority now the people with real Authority are asking him hey can you help help us out can you help us out so he says that it doesn't matter if you have a position of Authority or not you can still lead but there are some things you may have to change he says number one he says remember that wielding the gun of authority is not something that works and no one likes that and no one likes to be told hey I'm in charge so if you are waiting to lead until you given a position of author so then you can go around and you can say hey by the way I'm in charge here you need to do this do you think that's going to make a difference it's not in fact people will will even uh disobey you even more because you are wielding the gun of authority and nobody likes that he says that people who do that they make people feel small they micromanage and they take credit for other people's work and no one likes that type of leader so if you are waiting to be a leader when you get Authority you probably don't really want to wait because it's not really NE necessarily a good position individuals that have to tell you they're in charge cannot attain true followers and Lead nobody wants to follow those people but rather it's usually people who are lower in the organizational chart that may be the most influential people he says influence always outpaces Authority influence always outpaces Authority so what we can work on is how can I influence how can I influence even though I don't have authority and you don't need Authority for that so then the next chapter he says that the first thing that you need to address if you want to lead even though you're not in charge is to identify who you are and what is it that you want to do he said a lot of times this problem that internal problem that happens when a person feels like hey I'm supposed to lead but nobody listens to me so he says a lot of times what happens is the person thems is figuring themselves out and he says that sometimes we have what's called um sometimes what we have is fake identity he says sometimes we have multiple passports meaning we change our identity to fit a position and we we have our own principles but when we see a certain position we change our Authority change our identity in order to try to fit into that he said it's like example of this is that you have multiple passports you show one passport going here one passport going there do you think that's a good thing you get caught and you go to jail for that right he says sometimes we use a fake ID using a fake ID he says sometimes we hide who we really are who we hide who we really are and we sometimes project a fake image meaning someone who is trying to present themsel as someone who is a righteous person but they're not actually righteous he says this is like using a fake IDE to get through a door and he says if you do this you may get through the door but no one will follow you and you will not be able to really bring any positive change because you are at the end of the day an impostor he says number three he says sometimes on our IDs okay I don't want to ask anybody to raise their hand but I'm sure there is somebody there that has misrepresented their height and weight on their driver's license okay make yourself a little bit taller than you really are make yourself a little bit thinner than you really are so he says this is like distorting our identity and thinking highly of ourselves when we are not really there right a person may think like what's wrong with me why don't people choose me to do this and it's kind of like you are pres thinking of yourself higher than you are and it's not a good habit to have in a regular person especially someone who wants to be a leader of change in a positive way a person should think well of themselves but not think highly of themselves meaning they shouldn't think I'm the best that there is then he says one thing to keep in mind is that there is a fine line between ambition and greed what's ambition and what's greed so if you think about uh somebody who wants to bring change in order for them to bring change they need to have ambition but he says that ambition which is run wild which is not in control doesn't follow principles it can become greed for more and more okay and if you think about in many of our Muslim countries you have these young people who maybe bring about a revolution in some good uh promises eventually they end up becoming the worst and the most oppressive dictators because this is ambition running wild but he says that if you feel that you are in a place where you are not being you're not being able to lead and you have ambition you're going to give get a thought which is just give up everything just put your head down and don't worry about anything else he says this is also not something so he says from a Christian perspective he says God doesn't want you to do that and I I would agree that islamically Allah subhana wa ta'ala doesn't want us to just put our head down and mind our own business but Allah subhana wa tala tells us that you as an umah are someone are people people as an umah who command good and forbid evil you are trying to bring positive change in society around you you're not supposed to just put your head down so he says that so he has a chapter of course what I'm sharing here is not meant to replace you reading the book okay so this is just to introduce the main Concepts but you will get more detail inshallah and this book by the way is available in some of the digital libraries so from digital libraries for example there's one app called Libby where you go to Libby and you can get this app uh you can get this book in liby and you can listen to it or read it through the library system so you borrow the book digitally read it or listen to it so then he says that moving on he says what can we do to become better leaders he says number one is lead yourself the first thing is if you want to be a better leader lead yourself he says everyone is in charge of something and if you are not in charge of anything at least you in charge of yourself but can you give me an example of someone anyone who's not in charge of anything but they are still in charge of some things can anybody give me an example meaning there are some things that are still under your Authority what is that sorry I didn't hear that okay controlling your behavior but what is what about more than your own self so I'll give you an example if you come in to the Masid and you see that the shoes are all over the place do you need someone with a executive letter head to come and give you a letter saying brother you have the permission to do something about this you don't if you go to the Masjid bathroom for example and there's a little mess there do you need anyone's permission to tidy things up a little bit you don't so small little things like that it can actually bring about a the first example of you being a leader a leader doesn't wait for someone to give them an authority but whatever they are allowed to do they do it and that actually makes people want to follow this person it makes them impressed that okay you know what this person is not someone who just talks but this person is ready to do so one of the first things that we need to do is change our mindset from being a consumer that we come we take and we go but rather we need to become producers which is that we come and we add value and increase whatever we came and when we leave we left more than what we took once we change that mindset he says that's the first thing that we need to change he says number two um okay let me just mention one more point about leading your leading yourself he says when placed in a position where you are working for someone else it's easy to blame them for the lack of your leadership for your lack of leadership saying my boss doesn't let me do anything but in all reality there's a lot that you can do in most vast majority of situations unless you are in prison even in prison there are some things that you can do to display good leadership and we have the example of yuam in the Quran that in prison whatever he could do he has zero influence on the outside world he is in prison but yuam shows such amazing leadership qualities that he goes from the prison to the Palace of the king because of whatever he did in the prison with just two other people that's all so it may surprise you but you are in charge of yourself just because you're not in charge doesn't mean you cannot take charge he says then the next thing is he says you need to have a game plan whatever you want to change he says you need to have a game plan he says number one self- leadership principle number one is model followership model followership can anybody think about what that means okay you want to be a leader do you know how to be a follower most people are not willing to be a follower but they want other people to follow them right if you look at Abu Bak Abu Bak for the period that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam is there is Abu Bakr a leader or a follower he is a follower he is the best follower that there is and this being the best follower that there is makes him the leader after the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam when I was a teenager a an older friend of mine a mentor you could say he gave me some advice and this is my personal experience he said that he said because because I was a young kid you know that's we're going back now 20 years I had done hi I had done memorization of the Quran and they were it wasn't so common to find the half during that time so everywhere I would go if I went to high school they' say okay you are the president of the school MSA if I went to the Masid they' say you please lead the Salah I'm like 13-year-old kid 14year old kid you lead the Salah if I go in a group of friends the friends automatically say okay you know you tell us what we need to do you lead the Sal so this friend of mine he gave me some amazing advice and I cannot thank him enough he said Jawad everywhere you go you end up becoming the leader but do you know how to follow you need to learn how to follow then you can be a good leader and Subhan Allah so important that if you don't know how to be a follower and if you have never been a follower you cannot be a good leader because when you want people to do something but you can't think of what you're asking them to do because you've never put yourself in that position you are not going to get followers if you are asking someone to wake up at 3:00 a.m. to go do something for you and you yourself have never ever done it in your life how can you understand how difficult it is you're asking what you're asking them to do and that's a really important principle that the best leaders are the ones who come up From The Trenches they come up from the lowest levels because they know how people feel and that's why people can connect with them because they're like you know what this guy knows our pain and Allah tells us in the Quran that the prophets that he sent us the prophets have been made our leaders but Allah says that the prophets they they they are just like you human beings they feel all the same feelings the hunger pain everything that you fear they fear as well because then they can be a good example for us in the same way you know like so sometimes what my wife does is that she basically uh takes all the leftover food she mixes it all up and like maybe some fruits or something like that make a milkshake out of it and gives it to the kids so I tell her okay can you start with yourself she say no I don't want to drink it so I tell her why can you why are you giving the kids something even though it's healthy you are asking them to do something that you are not willing to do yourself that doesn't sound right to me first you do it yourself yes it's healthy and it has a lot of benefits and you want the best for the kids and stuff like that but you know what you're asking them to swallow something bitter you should be willing to do it yourself you know the example of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam when one companion comes to him and he lifts up his shirt he says Yol look I'm so hungry that I have to tie a stone to my stomach in order to basically they say that if you didn't do that you were so hungry that your intestines would get tangled inside so you would press something down to put some pressure to keep them in place so can you imagine if this companion came to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and the prophet had has a massive platter of food in front of him and he says may Allah make it easy for you brother I will make Dua for you what this man would think the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam he lifts up his own shirt and he says I have two stones here he had two stones he says I am more hungry than you are now this person goes back saying you know what my my leader is not throwing me to the dogs and enjoying himself but rather he is right there with us he's ahead of us that makes a huge difference so he says never ask anyone to do something that you are not willing to do yourself if you do so they might follow you once or twice maybe because you commanded them or something but they're not happy to do so but if you are willing to do it yourself and you have done it yourself you will see that the people will follow as well the next thing he talks about he says that monitor your heart and behavior you want to lead you want to bring change why he says check your heart for jealousy check your heart for anger check your heart that are you wanting to lead because you want to bring positive change or are you wanting to lead because you want to be in the spotlight or you want to you had a rival who beat you got to that position now now you are pretending that you want to bring positive change but what you really want to do is you want to knock him down and you want to take that spot he says check your heart very carefully and then he says make a plan how do you want to go about it and of course it requires discipline having a vision then he says check positivity make sure that you have a positive mindset if you want to be someone you you don't have any position of authority in an organization in a city positive energy makes people be attracted to you when you give them hope and you really it's not fake hope you're not just saying the words but you believe it people will want to come with you they'll say yes show me you know that famous speech which is I have a dream I have a dream that one day the children a white child and a black child will be holding hands together and walking to school this image that he presented is something that made people want to say yes I want that I believe in that dream so it has we have to be positive so people who are basically thinking everybody is bad people are the worst there's they cannot see any good coming from anyone people don't want to follow those type of leaders so he says check um he says we we see the world not as it is but as we are or as we are conditioned to see it so if we are very negative we will see the whole world as is very negative if we are very positive we will see the world as a positive place where there's lots of Hope and lots of improvement that is possible so he says leaders that feel a sense of ownership they spread enthusiasm they are themselves enthusiastic they own a project they do it with so much excitement that everybody else wants to come and do it okay so think about this let's say that we needed to paint the Masjid so some brother comes in and he says man I don't know why they gave me this job if I paint this wall next week it's going to be dirty again what are we going to do we're going to say let's leave this brother to his work and let's get out of here right somebody come another guy comes in here he says you know what mallah this Masid is going to look beautiful just give me 12 hours when I done with this this place is going to look amazing how do you feel you want to give him a hand yes you're like man this guy is selling a positive image I want to be part of that so spread positivity and this is one of the characteristics of leaders that they spread enthusiasm and they provide Superior customer service how can you provide customer service one of the very important things is again that when you think when you're asking people to do something think about what they must be going through in their situation right one of the things that I learned and I try to practice is that if I call someone to do something I think about okay this man he is a newly married guy so what is the life of a newly married guy normally like is this a time when I could ask him to come and do something or is this not a Time think about that from other people's perspective if you're asking a sister to do something think about it what is a good time for normal maybe this person doesn't fit the normal pattern but first before you even ask think about okay what this person must be going through Allah subhana wa tala tells us in the Quran about the sahaba he tells the sahabah that when you go to the house of the Prophet when you go to the house of the Prophet when you're done eating then what should you do then leave why he says the prophet is shy to tell you but he has a family he needs to do other things so this is a normal etiquette you go to someone's house you know they they provide you food so you're done eating then they tell you we have dessert coming okay they provide you dessert okay in in Pakistani culture the last thing is tea okay if they offer you tea tea is the last thing usually if the person is still sitting sitting not getting up they say let's have some tea right now okay that's a signal saying okay this is the last thing so a person should not overstay once you have tea you say okay I'll take your leave right in islamically you ask your host I would can you would you permit me to leave and they might say sure inshah for coming and what not or they might say no no no no hold on we have something very special coming it's just delayed wait just wait until my son comes home he's bringing it don't go yet so the etiquette is you ask your permission so when you're done eating you can say please permit me to leave they say no no no what do you mean we got dessert coming so after you have dessert you can see what the situation is but don't keep hanging out think about it from other people's perspective as to what they must be going through so good leaders they provide good customer service each person is a customer and you deal with each person understanding what this person needs from you and you try to provide that as best and truly connect their job to the results within the organization um okay so then the next thing he talks about and we'll get through uh to of the meat very quickly he says think critically he says if you see a problem that you want to change first before you can provide Solutions you need to yourself be a critical thinker first ask things like is there a better way of doing this and you know what you might do your research and you might come to the conclusion that this is the best way that's already being done this is not a way it's not like they're just being lazy and not doing anything they have tried but this problem needs a different type of solution okay he says then um why do we like this why do we like it like this why do we do it in this way is there a reason for it and sometimes there's a reason sometimes there's no reason this just people have been doing it so we've been doing it why is this working or not working what would happen if we stop that okay everything that we're doing which is if you want to kind of make your organization more efficient you are doing every day when you come you're doing like seven things let's say you say okay we need to do an eighth thing so let's look at these seven things is every one of these things actually bringing us any benefits if not maybe that's where we can say okay let's let's give this a break and try something new and that could change but we have to think critically in order to come up with solutions to the problem that we may want to start he says shift we need to change our mindset in some things he says start thinking as an owner not as an employee okay think about if you own a restaurant how does an employee think when something goes wrong the employee says well that's not my job it's somebody else's job the owner says well I'm the owner if someone else is not available to do it I got to do it doesn't matter what the job is I got to do it okay he says start scheduling he says one of the things that a lot of times happens is you you meet with people with no real goal in mind right for a lot of people meetings are the worst things about working in teams because a lot of meetings are not done right so he says every meeting that you have it should have a uh you should have some when you meet after that you need to have some thinking time processing time okay what's the best way that we could do this problem that was raised start thinking critically and start lending he says stop giving other a grade and start lending them a hand if you using the example of the Masid if you come and you see you know one of the the things that we have is for example a lot of people say brother there's trash all over the place so what do you think we could do about that we could say okay so first thing is you know what is the Masid doing like like not like blaming but saying okay Masid management you know what is your proper procedure that you're currently using to help clean up this area is there anything I can help with perhaps a Masid might say you know what brother we've been looking for a vendor a some sort of company to help us with this do you know anybody please let us know and you might say yeah you know what my brother has a cleaning company and I will ask them to come whatever so he says start stop giving others a grade and start lending them a hand saying what can I do to help you don't necessarily have to clean the toilets but you might say you know what brother I have a friend who's a plumber and this plumber says that this type of toilet is not a good toilet because it will always get stuck because of the amount of usage that's there this is designed for residential use not commercial use so you might have a solution like that where you might be able to improve a certain process he says number the next thing the major part he talks about he says reject passivity reject passivity what is passivity passivity says passivity is that we come to the Masid and we see that this Masid there's a leadership there's a management they do the way they think I try to give them ideas nobody listen to me so what do I do now I'm just not going to take part I'm just going to come do my thing and leave some people they do that at work they go to their job and they do their work and they leave if there's a problem if there's a leak in the bathroom if there's a leak in the gas line say hey not my problem you know there's this meme um online where this guy when it hits when it's 5:00 p.m. they throw their papers up like this have you seen this it's 5:00 p.m. I'm off the clock this is somebody else's problem when I was young I attended security training uh to become a security guard so in the security training they said look if you are working at a retail store I'm a teenager at the time and I was was going through this as while I was in college so they said if you are a security guard you're getting paid $12 an hour and someone comes and they are stealing a $6 shirt and you see them what are you supposed to do as a security guard so you know what our instructor tell us he said do this he said oh he got away just show that you did something and then say oh he got away he's like you know what your $12 an hour job is not worth you breaking your leg running after this guy for $6 shirt he says that guy might have a gun he might turn around and shoot you okay now this is the mentality of being an employee okay but when we when it comes to our family when it comes to our community organizations that mindset is what a lot of people have and that doesn't help we want to have the the so what would the owner of that shop do he would say man if it's $6 or 6 it's something that came out of my pocket I want to try to address that situation in the best way possible yes he might say it's not worth getting injured or shot or anything like that over this that's a different story but he won't just give up very easily because this is money coming from his own pocket right he has a ownership mindset so he says if if you want to lead even though you're not in charge should you add responsibility to yourself or reduce responsibility from yourself what do you think add say I'm willing to do more I'm willing to do more number two is should you take initiative or should you wait until someone comes and tells you brother can you please help us with this should take initiative should you look around for projects saying what can be improved or should you wait until somebody else identifies that these are the seven areas where we need help in you should look around saying how can I improve this situation say apply this to your family as well by the way right so family work Community organization at your work everywhere he says should you pick up tasks that other people want or should you pick up tasks that other people don't want what do you think who says you should pick up tasks that other people want to do raise your hand you should and raise your hand if you say you should pick up tasks that other people don't want to do well if the other people want to do it they're already doing it right but if you are someone who is not in charge but you want to have influence you want to bring positive postive change he says one of the ways to basically increase your influence is to do the projects that nobody wants to do right take a challenge and help out where no one is willing to help out everybody wants to be on stage but who wants to come 2 hours early and build the stage and who wants to stay for 2 hours after the program and close up the stage and put it away he says if you want to be a leader then do the task pick up the task that nobody else wants to do all right now he says the next thing is at some point you're going to run into a problem which is that you have an established Authority and you have to challenge them you will challenge them so think about the most peaceful Challengers of the past they would you know eventually they will become a threat to the status quo so he says that remember that challenge brings change and change is inherently challenging when things are changing people feel threatened okay by the way I'm above I'm I'm I have gone beyond my time so I'm going to try to finish very quickly but if you need to leave you can continue watching online inshallah so he that challenge brings change and change is inherently challenging people don't like things changing people usually say man I've been doing this for 60 years and now this new guy comes and he wants to change everything up right we don't like that he says the more personally your boss relates to his job the more personally your boss will take your challenges okay now you are the new guy and you say look with this there's this project we need to change the way we're working now up until now who was handling this project your boss was now that you want to change you know what your boss feels your boss feels that you are attacking his way of working so this is a this is something to keep in mind he says any change to the system will be perceived as a criticism of past leadership so we should be aware that when we are asking for change some people that are sitting there they're sitting quietly but what they are feeling like who is this guy who wants to change something that I been doing perfectly well for the last 20 years he's taking that as a personal threat okay and if you think about in like many of the Muslim countries where a young new leader comes he says look I don't have a problem with the old leaders I this is a different way we want to do this in this way and the status quo parties they start to you know really give him a hard time because they see that as a threat I tell you personally you know I've been an Imam in multiple uh places and when I moved out from a community and I moov to a new place I still follow the community what they're doing and sometimes I see the new Imam coming after me and changing some things how do you think it makes me feel makes me feel I wish it made me feel good but I'm a human being right I have to like clinch my fist and like bite down saying yes that he's the IM it's his right to do whatever he wants to do okay he's responsible for it now but I can feel like a ah why why is he saying this why does he want to change this system to this to this I built it with my own hands literally in some cases and now this thing is put as old and outdated and he wants to do something new but this is the way life works right this is the way life works so he says that you don't have to be the one he says one thing to keep in mind is that you don't have to be the one to bring the change yourself if you can help change the mindset of the leaders that are already there and you can let them bring that change that sometimes might be an easier process where they won't feel like you are trying to change their position and change their history and their legacy and all of those things so then he says that you could when you're challenging Authority you could either build a bridge or you could build a wall what do you think is a good idea to do build a wall or build a bridge build the bridge so he says says um he says constantly comparing your team or organization with another team or organization is that building a wall or a bridge wall is basically think about imagine if your wife and I'm talking to the brothers here if your wife constantly compared you to somebody else's uh husband you like it if a husband constantly Compares his wife to other people people's wives does she like it now he might be trying to make a point which is good which is hey there's a better way of doing it but the way that it's done this is not the right way it doesn't make anybody feel good he says um emphatically declaring what your what we are doing isn't working is also something that makes people feel personally attacked blaming the current situation on someone else like you are the problem this is doesn't work it builds a wall he says obstinately offering an ultimatum if you don't do this by this time I'm out or I will do this or I will do that it builds a wall it does not bring build a bridge so he says the most important thing that you need to keep in mind and I'm on my last page of notes the most important thing if you want to challenge someone is that your relationship really matters your relationship really matters he says if you are going to bring about something that needs to be changed you should bring it up at a time when emotions are low not when emotions are high you need to find the right time and you need to have a really good relationship with them otherwise it will be perceived as a attack he says if you don't have the best relationship with those who are in power then I suggest waiting and working on that relationship instead of challenging them okay give it make it your strategy that okay for the next this many months I'm going to just work on being a really good follower a really good friend a really good assistant until they trust me and we have a good relationship then I will bring it up that's part of your strategy he says to build trust you should practice faithfulness don't betray them he says only bring bring disagreements when your emotions are low he says Champion publicly and challenge in private okay apply this to a husband wife relationship if your wife in public she says my husband is the best husband alhamdulillah I'm so thankful and in private she says this is something that we can improve on you would say yes you know I could I could I respect that but imagine if it's the opposite where in front of other people she says my husband is the worst husband you would be like you like I don't care about your good idea I just don't want to follow it because what you just did to me hurts me so he says Champion publicly and challenge in private choosing to trust your boss will lead to more trust between you he says approach adjust your approach to fit the person you you'll have different people you're dealing with they need different approaches so adjust your approach the same approach doesn't fit for everyone he says declare your intentions before you challenge so when you're about to have this meeting with someone saying hey look you know we need to change this declare your intention that look I'm not here to try to pull your leg I'm not here to try to embarrass you in public I'm not here to say that what you have done in the last 20 years is all a waste of time my intention is not to hurt your feelings I'm here trying to improve our organization and now times have changed there's a new technology if we do this here are the benefits of such and such and he says ask curiosity questions of curiosity and mean it meaning sometimes you just need to ask them okay can you explain to me that we are doing this what's the reasoning like what who came up with this idea why did we decide to go with this approach in order to understand because you know what there might be a really good reason that you don't know so ask curio questions of curiosity and mean it and he says and the last point he says uh last chapter he says that all we need is a perspective shift we don't need to have a position of authority to be leaders we can begin right now right here today and become leaders by changing our mindset which is that we can still have a lot of influence even without the uh position of authority he said real leadership isn't about having the authority to lead um okay and then just some other points that he mentions about dos and don'ts of leadership he says one of the things you can do is that identify a good leader identify a good leader and start to study them that why this person is followed by others why does this person have influence over others so when you watch them closely you might see some little things about them what they do uh and I'll me I'll end with this example I know this one Imam a friend of mine he he was the IM of a Masjid and he would do this program on fuder time on certain day and this was an area where people didn't live 5 minutes away from the Masid some people lived 30 minutes away some people lived 45 minutes away so I spent some time in the company of this Imam and you know what he used to do he used to calculate that brother Muhammad lives 45 minutes away from the Masid and it's reasonable to expect that it takes brother Muhammad about 20 minutes from the time that he wakes up to the time that he gets in his car to start driving so you know what he used to do he used to give him a wakeup call 1 hour and 5 minutes before Salah because he calculated 20 minutes to get ready and 45 minutes drive to arrive in the Masid on time and he used to get up 2 hours or 1 in a half hour before and he would start calling people and waking them up for fuder no knowing their driving time and their preparation time and you know what in this Masid which was in the middle of a suburb there weren't a lot of Muslims that lived in that area you have 60 or 100 people that showed up at fuder time that is really unheard of in that area in that situation so this is an example of leading even though you're not in charge but rather leveraging your friendship your relationship your ability to be a good follower into bringing positive change so definitely I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone one thing I would say is that this book is a very very Christian oriented book so there are lots of examples about Jesus lots of example lots of examples from the Bible and I think there is nothing wrong uh about that that we believe that all good comes from Allah subhana wa tala and it doesn't matter what religion it comes from the only reason I mention that is because it is really presented in a very good way so um I would somebody who is weak in their own religion I would not encourage them to read this book but those who are firm definitely benefit from that or for those people who may not be firm in their religion in in our religion then maybe you can pick up a summary of the book where it goes to the main points instead of going through the whole thing where there are lots of examples and sometimes somebody sees something shiny and they start chasing that and get lost behind that subh do we have any questions or comments suggestions yes brother yeah so uh were you there for Juma today you heard the example of the lion the Lion's hair though you were not there in JMA okay so we gave the example that I'll give you that example in private but I gave that example three times today in three jamas which is how you go about a difficult problem insh I will share that with you any other comments questions suggestions any sisters would like to share add anything yes I missed that last part can you speak a little louder influence and leaders are the same but somebody who has a position of authority is not necessarily the same so it's either you have a position of authority but you're not really a leader leader and influencer is the same I use those words interchangeably does that explain yes so that's a very important and correct point which is that every single one of us has a role to play as a leader the prophet specifically L mention that every one of you is a leader a shepherd and every one of you is accountable for your flock so every single person and he specifically gives example even a woman in in a family situation a person might say well the husband is in charge but the prophet specifically mentions that a woman is has leadership of her own so every single person does have a role to play at their own capacity and their own level of influence any other questions comments okay