By Hazri

Hood I was conducting a leadership coaching group session when a bright, curious young leader in the crowd asked me;

“There are many successful people who do not practice virtuous deeds, so how do we make out of that?”. Then, another participant followed up with this question – “In our extremely competitive world, where would that leave us if we are too kind and compassionate?”

Just let me share with you the context in which this question came about. In one of the group leadership coaching sessions I was conducting, I threw to the group a lot of leadership concepts and virtues, which included taking the high moral path, avoiding pre-judgment, leading by example, having empathy and the virtues of vulnerability and so on. Clearly, it struck a chord with what some of the young leaders were facing in their real lives. To reframe this, what they were concerned of was being left behind or disadvantaged, if they practice these virtues while others do not.

Is There Room for Virtues and Propriety?

Everyone else is racing towards “success”, will we be left behind if we are the only ones playing by the rules of propriety? Is there room for kindness and compassion? I find this discussion fascinating because this issue pre-occupies our minds today and because I was “there” too. It is one of the many “moral vs practical” issues that many of us face today, where the lines are blurred and we sometimes suspend one at the expense of the other as we move on in our rat race. Being part of the rat race was a big part of what defined me before I became a leadership coach.

But I was one of the fortunate ones to have worked with the best talents in the market – and the public sector. I worked with the best CEOs in Malaysia and in the largest company in Malaysia which opened me to the opportunity of working with the best management consultants in the world, standing toe-to-toe with them.

I worked in different countries and looked at how different financial markets worked. Jet setting from one airport to another and making do with less than 4 hours of sleep on weeknights. I was high on “corporate life”. What was the pay off? Pretty handsome actually – good financial rewards, great learning opportunities and lessons, confidence, perhaps some access to glamorous events (and people) and experienced some good energy too. But for my journey at least, it all came down to financial gratification in the end. And so, I discovered that I had some problems settling with just that. But let’s not be distracted so, getting back to the earlier question, it all boils down to our measure of success.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the standard measure is USUALLY how much we have in the bank account, how big of a house we own, what kind of car we drive, where we send our children for education, where will the next vacation be and the list goes on. What compounds it further are factors such as rising costs of living, paying for education and not to mention the rising costs of retirement. All these are real pressures that all working men and women face every day and the measure of success is how well we do in these dimensions. I empathise in this situation.

There are millions of people in our country who work hard and diligently to eke out an honest living – a better living for themselves and their loved ones. It is a simple equation – you cannot have the life you want if you do not work for it. Now, let us just take a step back for good measure. Perhaps what we are fretting over is not such a big deal. We’re not doing so badly, right? We have a roof above our heads, full bellies at the end of the day, and our annual holiday courtesy of fantastic packages from the Matta fair.

Perhaps, let’s just accept it, go with the flow and keep that nine to five job, see how far up we can get on the corporate ladder – just like everyone else. If “everyone” is doing it, it must be the right thing to do, right? On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your satisfaction with this conclusion? If your answer is 6 or below, read on.

In Search for the Meaning of “Success”

So what options does that leave us? There is a lot of literature out there. I am not trying to add anything more to The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari – it is a best-seller in its own right – but perhaps this may be relevant for this discussion – some even manage to get to the pinnacle of their professions and still feel unfulfilled with their lives. Anyway, by any measure, it is an excellent book and we all may find some good lessons from it. If you are up for a more intense read, try Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. It chronicles experiences of people facing extermination during World War 2 and how they coped with it. But, I should warn you that it is not everyone’s read.

I have always thought myself as a spiritual person, and when it comes to the point of being confusing to me, I would lean back to religion. Being a Muslim, the text of the Al-Quran and Hadith are reference points to an Islamic way of life. In addition to the prayers, rules and guidelines on how to be a good Muslim, there are lessons from history, insights on human nature, advice (and warnings), supplications and prognostications. Now, this makes for the collective resources that every Muslim would have should s/he decide to look for them, within the Al-Quran and Hadith. But, alas, why are Muslims also part of the audience who are continuously confused with the meaning of life, and how do we make sense of it all? Without exception, I was one of the confused too. Until the mere simplicity of one of the most common verses finally hit me:

Allah the Exalted said, “And I created not the jinn and mankind except that they should worship Me.”
Al-Dhaariyat 51:56

Should we reflect on the meaning of “worship” using the most common traditions of Islamic teachings, we will find the purpose of a Muslim and hopefully the breakthrough we need to strengthen our resolve. May Allah SWT give us guidance on our individual journeys. So, what if we ask ourselves the proverbial philosophical question regarding where is our place in the world? What if we had a higher purpose to achieve in our families, communities and social networks?

At Winning Minds we can help elicit your leadership passion and objectives. We are leadership coaching practitioners with a proven approach to create breakthrough thinking and achieve paradigm shifts to inspire change in you and others. We aspire to catalyse change for the betterment of the ummah. May we be successful, InsyaAllah.