Leadership in Islam is a Trust (Amanah). It represents a psychological contract between a leader and his followers that he will try his best to guide them, to protect them and to treat them fairly and with justice. Hence the focus of leadership is on doing good.
According to Islam, every person is the shepherd of a flock and occupies a position of leadership.
Leadership is the ability to persuade others to seek defined objectives enthusiastically. It is the human factor which binds a group together and motivates it towards goals. Management activities such as planning, organizing, decision making are dormant cocoons until the leader triggers the power of motivation in people and guides them toward their goals.
The above defination of leadership stresses that a leader is more than just a manager. Leading and managing are not the same thing. Warren Bennis, a leadership expert, summarizes the distinction between leadership and management as follows: "The difference between managers and leaders is fundamental. The manager administers, the leader innovates. The manager maintains, the leader develops. The manager relies on systems, the leader relies on people. The manager counts on control, the leader counts on trust. The manager does thing right, the leader does the right thing."
An organisation with good management and poor leadership will preserve the status quo, but may not be able to advance to a higher level of performance. An organization that has an excellent leader, but nobody with good management skills may aspire to great heights, but crash precipitously because there is no one to follow through.
In modern Islamic organisations both leaders and managers are needed. Leaders can reframe experience to open new possibilities; Managers can provide a sense of perspective and order so that the new possibilities become reality.
Dr Jamal Badawi and Dr Rafeek Issa Beekun in their book "Leadership: An Islamic Perspective".
An introduction to the book Pdf version Here
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