Alhamdulillah, it was an honor to participate in this leadership program with IIUM students, organized by the Collaboration with Higher Education Strategic Initiatives (CHESS), a platform where PETRONAS reaches out to universities to bridge and helping to prepare students as professionals entering the industry.
I've always been passionate about developing youth, and am particularly interested in reaching out to university students, who go through an important transitional phase in their lives: as they start moving away from dependent youth shaping themselves into young adults with huge potential to achieve greatness, how can we help them provide some "real world" perspective and help to inspire them to capitalize this potential.
The program was co-organized by IIUM's Huffaz sejahtera Leadership Program (HSLP), a program initiated by lecturers from IIUM engineering faculty to create a platform for holistic personal development for students, as an additional avenue for students to earn credit points. Their 3-year program centers on Qur'an memorization, coupled with leadership competency building such such as 3-day leadership camp, their third day culminating in a visit and engagement with industry professionals - in this case, PETRONAS. excellent program and great practice educational institutions can emulate.
For the session, I delivered a talk title "Let's be the Change our future needs".
The key message I wanted to share with them is that the main ingredient to achieving success in life is your character: your values, beliefs, morals, attitude and outlook in life.
There's a saying that goes, "money and success don't change people. They merely amplify what is already there". If your character is sound - your heart is sincere, your attitude thrives to succeed, you have the integrity to stick to your principles - then anything that comes your way only amplifies the good for yourself and the impact towards people around you. The longer you live, the more wealth you have, the higher you rise in position and rank, the more followers and influence you have, then the greater the goodness amplified.
And if you have poor character, any wealth, position, or even the longer you live - will only cause more and more damage to society!
List down all the traits of what you consider are "great leadership". Whether it's approachable, inspiring, good listener, supportive, visionary, they all have one thing in common: this is all about character.
So, if great leadership is about character, it has nothing to do with rank or a leadership position. You can start being a great leader right here, right now.
We cannot "wait" for the future leaders to just magically appear out of nowhere, or fall from the sky. If we want a better future, we need to BE a part of what shapes that better future!
Was nice to bring them for their first experience to KLCC towers and the famous sky bridge.
Thanks to the organizers for opening up a chance for us to contribute. Allahumma barik. Here's hoping for more collaboration opportunities in the future!
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