LocationsCharacter-Driven Leadership in Polarized and Uncertain Times
By Hussain Dawood | Chairman, Karachi School of Business & Leadership (KSBL)
& Dr. Asghar Zaidi | Rector, Karachi School of Business & Leadership (KSBL)
Development runs on trust, which rests on the habit of telling the truth. Where a person’s word can be relied upon, credit is cheaper and investors are more patient. Where it cannot, the long-term investments a country needs most are the first to go.
Pakistan, like much of the world, is living through polarization and uncertainty. Opinions harden into camps, trust in institutions wears thin, and the future is hard to read. At such times people ask two questions of their leaders: are they capable, and can they be trusted? The first question is about competence, and it is often found in abundance. The second is about Character, and, in our view, it matters more now than ever before.
Character shows itself in good manners. The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said he was sent to perfect Character and Good Manners. Good Manners are Character made visible: courtesy towards those who disagree, patience under pressure, and keeping our promises even when doing so costs us money. In a divided society, these manners are what keep people talking, and trusting one another.
Development, too, runs on trust, which rests on the habit of telling the truth. Where a person’s word can be relied upon, credit is cheaper and investors are more patient. Where it cannot, the long-term investments a country needs most are the first to go. Contracts and regulations can compel only the minimum; the rest depends on the Character of the people who sign them.
Our experience in businesses, in building a higher education institution, and in philanthropy points to three qualities that matter most when times are hard: integrity, stewardship, and responsibility.
Integrity
This means telling the truth and keeping your word. Long before he held any authority, the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was known in Makkah as Al-Sadiq and Al-Ameen, the truthful and the trustworthy. Trust came before authority, and Character before power.
We tested ourselves on this at the Karachi School of Business and Leadership (KSBL). We held back a new degree in AI until its laboratories, faculty, and partners were fully ready, although students were asking for it and the income was needed. Launching sooner would have meant promising students more than we could deliver.
Stewardship
This means looking after something that is not ours and handing it on in better shape. The Qur’an describes the successful as “those who are faithful to their trusts and their covenants” (23:8). Speaking in the Shahzada Dawood Learning Circle at KSBL, Ahmer Bilal Soofi showed that the Qur’anic covenants reach beyond private worship to the promises leaders and institutions make. Seen this way, leadership itself is an Amanah, a trust placed in our care. A leader does not own the institution but looks after it for the people of today and for the generations to come.
Stewardship puts foundations before expansion. In an uncertain year, at KSBL, we did not cut the investment that lasts longest: our faculty. We appointed new permanent faculty through open selection, many with experience at leading international universities. Good people cost more, but the quality they bring lasts for many years. For the same reason, we declined an attractive outside partnership: our focus had to be on strengthening our own foundations in Character and Good Manners first.
Responsibility
This falls heaviest on those with the most capability. No business prospers for long in a society that is failing. Profit is legitimate, but it is not a purpose; the purpose is to leave society stronger than we found it, knowing that we will answer to our Creator for our choices.
Education is a long wager on people, and that wager fails if talent is turned away for want of money. So, in the year our fees rose, at KSBL, we enhanced our scholarship provision, adding fifty full fee waivers for students in need.
How Character is developed
We believe Character cannot be lectured into anyone. It is developed through practice, reflection, exemplars, and friendship with people who help us grow.
At KSBL, we are still learning, and we have begun with ourselves. This term our faculty and staff started a weekly Leadership and Character training programme, adapted with permission from the work of the Oxford Character Project. Colleagues reflect together in small groups each week, because we cannot develop character in our students if we do not practise it ourselves. Our new students began their year with a week on why KSBL exists, built around the five values we teach: truthfulness, trustworthiness, humility, integrity, and striving (for excellence), even in hardship.
Central to all of this is the Character and Good Manners Research Centre we are now setting up, which will be our intellectual base. It will help us work out how best to develop character in our faculty, staff, and students, and give us a metric of success for these efforts. In the end, our mission will be tested by what our graduates do, during their time at the University and beyond.
The vision behind Pakistan’s creation was a society built on justice, responsibility, and human dignity. Human development is built by people who are best in Character and Good Manners.
Character without competence lets people down, and competence without Character misleads them. Our task at KSBL, therefore, is to form capable, principled leaders whose Character and competence last beyond the classroom. To those who lead today, and to the young men and women who will lead tomorrow, our counsel is simple: Develop your Character and Good Manners to become a true leader.