DAVOS, SWITZERLAND – In the fast-changing world, there is a crisis of true leadership and statesmanship. The scholars of leadership as a subject would tell you that the real leadership is more than just leading a political party to the next election victory or earning profit for a business in one financial cycle.
An international Arab thought leader feels strongly about changing the traditional perception encompassing the concept of leadership.
“Leadership issues are not just today and not just in the Arab world; they exist all over the world, and they are not limited to political power or governments; they also exist in the home, schools, and universities” that’s what Khalid Abdulla-Janahi, chairman of Vision3, told TRENDS in an exclusive interview about his new book “From Rulership to Leadership in the Arab World.”
“I look at the leadership at home, school, and work. I then examine it from a meritocratic government perspective. I don’t like nepotism or favoritism in leadership because it hurts young people and the next generation. A minister or other leader should not be trusted if they lack the necessary merit. It’s problematic because meritocracy is my top priority”, he said.
When asked whether his upcoming book, to be released in February, will upset some leaders in the Arab world, Khalid said if some one who has a right to be upset is my father, because my father is a ruler and mother is a leader.
According to him, leadership requires critical thinking and meritocracy. The leader is someone who believes that he got to where he is because of merit and that everyone else should get to where they are because of it.
“By merit, I do not mean choosing your child; it is about equal opportunity and having a clear vision,” he said while speaking to TRENDS on the sidelines of the WEF Annual Summit in Davos.
The book’s inspiration
The inspiration for the book came while Khalid was participating in one of the World Economic Forum panels in Davos.
“The book’s ideas have been present since 2005” he said. “I was the vice chair of the Arab Business Council at the time, and I was speaking in a panel about Arab reform in the future, where I shared the podium with three other officials: Jamal Hosni Mubarak, chairman of the dissolved National Democratic Party, Salam Fayyad, former Palestinian Minister, and Bassem Awadallah, former Jordanian Minister.”
“I was the final speaker in a packed room where everyone was there because of Jamal Mubarak, and everyone wanted to hear from this young man about Egypt’s future. I was talking about Arab regimes, but after Jamal’s speech, I was disappointed because I expected him to talk about the country’s future, reforms, and his vision rather than spending more than 85 percent of his time defending his father’s rule over the past 25 years”.
“If you know me in Davos, you know I don’t waste my time there pretending the world is fantastic when it isn’t, so I was direct and told him, ‘thank you, but you’re defending your father’s rule, and nobody is interested in Dad’s rule, everyone is curious about the future’,” he said.
As I sat down, a man at another table came over to me and whispered, “Please don’t stop raising this question, and it turned out that he was the renowned Hollywood actor – Richard Gere.
“This incident shows that Arab rulers lack leadership.”
Khalid said he has been thinking about writing a book ever since, but has been unable to do so.
“I decided to write freely until I no longer had shareholders, board directors, or anything else. So that was the basic inspiration for the book. Since then, so much has happened, and I wish I had written the book back in 2005 because what happened in 2010 and 2011 was already being discussed, and it would have been better to know ahead of time,” he stated.
Before the book was done, Khalid said, he worked and collaborated closely with a few people to look into leadership attributes.
“We basically worked, created what is known as the Maryam Forum, and started with the London School of Economics to give the credit. Now, we are moving forward in terms of implementing leadership attributes across multiple levels, beginning with schools, and ending with governments”.
“We’ve done a lot of work; hopefully, we’ll start publishing some of it, but I thought it would be good to share my personal feelings, so I did, and that’s why the book is titled “From Rulership to Leadership in the Arab World.” But it is the subtitle, “The Brief Memoir of a Non-Conformist,” that matters. Being a nonconformist — someone who doesn’t believe in the status quo—comes with leadership capabilities, which I’m proud of”.
According to Khalid, the purpose of his book is to highlight, his own personal experiences and moments in his life where he has come across certain things in leadership, whether in the family, at school, at work, or in the international arena and meetings.
He urges all under-20s to read his book.
“I want them to read this because I believe that leadership begins at the bottom and progresses upward. I worked very hard to make the book as simple and easy to read as possible for young people. I want them to understand that there is nothing wrong with being a non-conformist in our part of the world and the third world in general. It can be difficult for someone in a position of leadership to have a non-conformist coming in and telling them why they are in that position and to give them the reasons for that,” he said.
“I think young people should ask the questions that some think I’m too old to ask. They should raise this issue because they’re the future. We need to create these leadership attributes and instill them in the world’s youngest population”.
“No one is born a leader, but you may have an attribute that helps you learn the other attributes faster. Allow yourself to think critically, supported by meritocracy. These are things that I like to see young people picking up, and they should demand it right away,” he ended.
Hadeel Karnib contributed towards writing the text of the story.