EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT

EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT

REFLECTION ON HUMDARD UNIVERSITY VISIT

Darvesh Karim,

It was a pleasant morning, when we were ready at IED’s parking area to visit Humdard University, which is situated in very much isolation from the hustle and bustle of Karachi city. It takes almost one hour to reach there in private vehicle. Respected facilitator was also accompanying with us and to dine, lunch boxes were made prepared. At 8 O’clock we moved towards our destination. Up to some distance, all of us were in our own way of journey by listening music, chatting with the seat fellow or just looking outside and trying to observe the objects which were passing quickly. Luckily, the van had a microphone installed connected with the speakers all around. So, we started centralized and semi-organized fun by singing, joking or stating the golden saying turn by turn on the microphone. The long and rough road seemed much shorter, when the driver notified us that we have reached to the destination.

Humdard University, a huge campus, broadened over a widespread land with an excellent library, over dominating all the features of University with the wealth of over 500,000 books on every topic. But, I felt that, the readers of these valued books were very much limited. Another tremendous feature of this library is the collection of all newspapers since 1960 to date and also some papers available from 1902. For a historically research Humdard University’s library is the paramount place to get information.

We met the Vice Chancellor and some faculty members in conference hall and had an informal discussion and introduction session. It is worth mentioning here that from the beginning of the session of Effective Leadership and Management Course, it came to my understanding that ‘Leadership’ is a process and a role, not a position. This understanding became accommodated to the earlier pattern (Leadership as a position) of my knowledge regarding leadership. Bur, during the discussion with Vice Chancellor Dr. Syed Abdul Aziz, he mentioned leadership as a ‘position’. He further gave some useful leadership tips like, ‘get knowledge and experience then the whole world is open for you’, ‘First make a team among your staff’, ‘To change the behavior of the staff understand their behavior first’ and lastly ‘Leaders not only to command, but leaders are those, people want to die for’. It was a long session, so I could not note down every tip, but the question, which was arising in my mind (probably in the minds of all my fellows), that is leadership a position?  Our facilitator, at the end of discussion of Vice Chancellor very accurately and tactfully mentioned that we perceive leadership as a role or as a process but not as a position and she probably convinced them, as they didn’t deny the perception. Now I can confidently say that Leadership is not a position, but it is a process and a role, which can be changed according to the situation.

We visited Library, some portions of different faculties, cafeteria and the school run under the supervision of Humdard Foundation. In University’s beautiful lawn, we took our lunch and returned to IED by celebrating the second phase of fun and excitement. It was of course an exposure visit to have an empirical experience of management and leadership styles and a pleasure trip as well. Madam Zubaida Bana, thank you very much for providing us such opportunity.

Darvesh Karim, CP. M.Ed. 2009