Abstract
One duty of managers is to lead people who are subordinate to them. Together with tasks like planning and supervision, managers must be capable of leading their personnel in a way that they obey their manager’s orders eagerly and enthusiastically and strive to procure the goals. The subject of leadership style, as one of the main and important discussions, has always been under the consideration of authorities on the field of management and leadership. For this purpose, numerous styles in the form of diverse theories have been presented. These theories, mainly divided into traditional and modern, start from leadership traits (qualities) and after addressing leadership behavior theories and exigent ones, return to leadership qualities again. What matter meantime is to know how the leadership style in Islamic management is? In order to answer this question, based on library method and by using descriptive-analytic research method and also induction (from particular to general), first theoretical conduct of Amir-al-Muminin (leader of the faithful) Imam Ali (P.B.U.H.) has been explored and discovered. It needs to be mentioned that the research domain in this issue is mainly orders and commands of Imam Ali (P.B.U.H.), assuming that the conduct of his holiness is nothing but Islamic management. Then, we obtain its bases by analyzing his conduct which is mainly anthropological. And at the end, the leadership style is explicated considering both theoretical conduct and its bases. According to this and considering Islamic anthropology , human is an entity that has inherent magnanimity who does not deserve to be intimidated and any sort of instrumental or exploitative view toward him is heinous. Leadership style is neither work-centered nor worker-centered, but leadership style in Islamic management is magnanimous and based on inherent dignity of human. This style includes two elements of softness and leniency on one side and intensity and severity on the other side. These two elements which in turn have their own standards or degrees, express the method of leadership in Islamic management. In fact, leadership style in Islamic management is an exigent style with two elements of maximum leniency as the principal and minimum practical severity as the incidental. The prerequisite to adopt such a style for the leader is having traits the most important of which is broad-mindedness, as in narrations it has been mentioned as the requisites of chairmanship. By adopting this style with a divine motivation and toward His satisfaction, its effectiveness and obedience of people will be by many degrees more.
KEYWORDS: leadership, leniency, softness, severity and broad-mindedness
INTRODUCTION
The duty-bound approach to management and listing duties for managers which sometimes called management principles; is one of the well-known approaches in science of management which now has a special position in scientific circles and also among managers. Although these duties were asserted by Fayol the French; but considering these duties cannot be exclusively restricted to his time .These duties in fact are inseparable parts of management and from the time the human being has started his social life and management has come into existence, these duties in a simple and elementary form have had external realization. In any case, whether we accept or deny antiquity of these duties, we may be able to claim that the extract of management is leadership, and this (employment of human resources) is the element which has been considered in management definitions. In fact, it is through the kind of interaction between leader and follower, employer and employee, that this” employment” is realized. To show the importance of leadership there is another expression that reads: managers must have theoretical, technical and human skills that the most important of all is human skills .Human skills are determinant of the kind of interaction with the staff to acquire the goals. In fact, the duty of leadership in management is the revelation of human skills of the leaders. This issue doubles the importance of leadership. That’s why it has been discussed and reviewed in this article.
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LEADERSHIP DEFINITION
There are so many definitions for leadership but none of them has been publicly accepted. Of course there are common elements in most of them that after mentioning two of definitions; common elements will be paid attention to.
- Leadership as a process is the power of using influence without force to guide and coordinate activities of members of a group to obtain a goal.
- Leadership is the art or process of influence on people in a way that they eagerly and enthusiastically try to obtain the goals of the group.
Although there are differences in definitions of leadership but there are also common elements in them that can help our understanding of leadership and result in agreement on one definition.
In most definitions the word “ability of influence” has been mentioned and in other definitions also the word “effectiveness” has been used which is synonymous with ability of influence.
In most definitions, there is element too. It means that leaders strive to realize the aims by influence on others. Therefore, the ability to influence has direction and has been aimed at aims.
To sum up, leadership can be defined as the ability to influence others in order to obtain goals.
Leader is the one who can influence behavior and thoughts of others and make them change their own behavior and thoughts, according to this wherever there is an influence, leadership has been realized. Besides, the highest leaders who do not have the ability to influence their people are not true leaders indeed.
DEFINING RESEARCH ISSUE
By defining leadership as so, some questions may raise including how the leadership style in Islamic management is? Does leadership, in Islamic management, situate at the field of leadership traits or situate at territory of behavior? If leadership situates at the realm of behavior, is it attributive or exigency? The aim of this research IS TO OBTAIN THE STYLE OF LEADERSHIP IN ISLAMIC MANAGEMENT USING ALAVI CONDUCT (Alavi means pert Page 3
Research method
Research method in this article is library method based on description and analysis of religious doctrines, especially commands of Imam Ali (P.B.U.H.). In this method mechanism of induction is used and the process of research is done from particular (i.e. religious premises) to general (i.e. bases) to find an answer for the question of research. Using this method, bases of leadership are completely recognized; meantime religious premises (commands of Imam Ali) are also analyzed for the content so that more details and delicacies are discovered by the researcher. This method, in fact, is a mojtahedane method i.e. it is related to religious jurisprudence whose results would be descriptive-prescriptive propositions. This method is different from fighh science having prescriptive propositions within the limits of ahkaame khamse (five religious commandments), and some preliminaries of religious jurisprudence including exact examination of document and situation of rejaal-e hadith are not object of attention in this method. Another point is that , although in discussion of leadership style , from structure(building) we attain substructure(base) , but in writing , first, the bases especially anthropologic bases will be discussed and investigated so that arrangement from base to building is considered , besides ,leadership origins ( basis ) will be discussed briefly . By origins, we mean necessary traits to implement this style of leadership. that, in research method, we don’t move from bases to leadership style has a clear answer which is in order to pass through bases to building and question, an special mechanism is needed which is not known by the present researcher, so, first he has got the answer to the question from the sunnah text i.e. words and conducts of the Imam and then he has drawn out its bases and origins.
