The inspirational leadership of Umar al-Farooq day course was delivered by Shahid Akmal who is the managing director of Exquisitus Ltd, a Management and Consultancy company that specialises in Diversity and Islamic Cultural Awareness training and development. The aim of the course was to understand the nature and process of leadership, to study the characteristics of effective leaders, analyse our own individual style of leadership and what steps could be taken to improve our leadership potential by drawing on examples of Umar al-Farooq’s life, who was not only a leader but a statesman and a pious God conscious Muslim who showed respect for all individuals whether Muslim or not. Under Umar’s (r.a.) leadership Islam spread widely by virtue of its beauty, simplicity, transparency, openness and leadership qualities.

The interactive course delivered by Shahid Akmal required participants to reflect upon their own lives and identify their individual leadership roles, whether it be of one’s family, business, community or otherwise. They were then shown leadership roles from an Islamic Perspective, which looked at the Servant Leader and the Guardian Leader. It was then down to the participants to discuss, from their own knowledge, which category today’s world leaders would fall into, analysing where they excel and where they fall short.

Moving on to the Locus of Leadership, there were three identifiable areas forming a locus. These were defined as leadership characteristics, follower characteristics and situation characteristics. As each could form a seminar in their own right we focused solely on the first category. Shahid then identified eight characteristics associated with good leadership which were all thoroughly discussed in detail relating back to the superb example of Umar al-Farooq. These were honesty, competence, inspiration, patience, equity and impartiality, modesty/simplicity and responsibility.

The participants then analysed their own teaching styles to see if they were ‘directive’ task oriented leaders or participative’ employee oriented before looking at how a leader can be an effective coach or mentor.  Finally the notion of delegating responsibility was looked at in detail leading on to a final analysis and reflection on what had been covered in the seminar. This led onto a discussion of what one can implement directly from what has been taught of inspirational leadership into one’s own life.

Andalus would like to thank Shahid Akmal for delivering a superb seminar and to all those who participated.