The Art of
Empowering Others and Global Population Issue
By:
Irfan Gani Alim
The
world global population is now growing in enormous number of people due to the
failure to meet the need for contraception and continuity of preference for
large family. The analysis, with 70% accuration, shows that the human population
by the year 2100 approximately will be 11 billion from today which is 7
billion.[1] By this concern, we have a
serious problem to maintain the quality of the population which is to turn this
growth into something productive, so there will be no such waste of human
societies. This issue arises many challenges to anyone, especially to the
rising generations, the future world leader. Are they capable, or not, to
optimize the quality of the population?
The
leaders are not the people who are merely setting a goal, telling instruction
on how others should behave, and shouting a tanturm to them if they are not
doing as planned. Instead, it is a boss. On the other hand, to be real leaders,
it requires more effort on leading someone towards achievement. One of which is
the ability to be a charismatic and inspiring figure by empowering others. In
addition, as Bill Gates once said, "As we look ahead into the next
century, leaders will be those who empower others.”. Consequently, what does it
mean by empowering others? It is about time we initiated to seriously clarify
this intangible understanding.
From
the affix appending to the term, the prefix em– (the form used for the prefix
en– before b, m, or p) means to make someone or something be in a particular
state or have a particular quality.[2] If the prefix is attached
to the free morpheme, power, then it will be the term used to describe a
condition of encouraging someone to have more quality of power or any relation
to the authority. Therefore, the term empower
results in the understanding of giving someone more responsibility upon
something. In other word, when leaders empowers someone, they put trust to
those who are competent to have control in specific area.
The
essential notion the leaders should achieve is the insightful perspective of each
fellows of the team. Empowering someone implies not only give the other peers
ability to control but also put them in the right position. The leaders need to
regard each others’ need and hope, and thereby give them specific value that
distinct one to another by means of persuasive words and actions. Thus, the
leaders will have record that show the uniquenesses of the member so that they
could imply specific maintenance to each one of them. The leaders ought to
concern this carefully because incorrect arrangement may have an effect on the
failure leadership, or even worse, the leaders will be outwitting the rest of
the member instead of empowering them.
Furthermore,
as my personal experience, leaders who are failed in the leadership are those
who unable to build a friendly atmosphere to their surrounding, and therefore people
will lose their trust. The impact of losing trust is huge because the leaders
will gradually loose their integrity. Accordingly, the leaders ought to inspire
others to develop more meaningful perceptions of their dedication towards
achievement. Empowering someone without reflecting a good way to lead is
nonsense. In order to gain people’ interest and trust, personal identification
and appreciation are necessary. The leaders could conduct a regular meeting
engaging the whole participation of the members to clarify the importance of
achieving goals, and to have intimate conversation communicating personal
opinion on workflow issue and giving constructive feedback one to another. As
the consequence, not only the members are able to discover common concern, but
also the leaders can encourage others by sharing motivation that convinces them
that they are valuable to be part of the team.
Nevertheless,
it is highly recommended not to overextend on monitoring the team. Even though
the leaders are about to be a figure guiding the rest of the group by
empowering them, have an eye on every movement that the group make is a threat
to their endeavor. They might sense this as the antithesis to their effort and
thereby affect their performance. To prevent this, giving some independency is
optional. The flexibility could be given by creating some spaces in order to
provide discretion.
In
addition to the implementation of empowerment, as far as I notice, the idea of
empowerment is always be the major concern in Ahmadiyya society. The society
has held many gatherings requiring the whole member participation. Most of activities
are not merely restricted to religious event, yet, through team building
activities, they underline the significance of internal bonding regardless the
status of seniority. The goal is to strengthen the sense of belonging that each
members has as the part of the society. Moreover, these days, there are several
community services held by the society, one of which is Al-Hidayah School –
Non-profit organization that have a concentration in tutoring the students who
is disadvantaged in economics. The program empowers youth member of Ahmadiyya
to volunteer themselves as the teacher of certain subjects. The youth put their
concern to this program as their devotion to the community. However, in every
activities, the society always uphold the integrity of Muslim, especially the
norm of purdah.
As
for the conclusion, with appreciating other members’ needs, and creating
supportive atmosphere, hopefully, the leaders could be charismatic and
inspiring figure and attain the notion of empowering someone. In addition to rapid
population growth, I have a dream that this essay could inspire every youth
around the world to have awareness of the art of empowering others in
leadership, so there will be 11 billion high-quality population by the beginning
of 22th century.
[1] Carrington,
Damian. "Sustainable Development." World Population to Hit 11bn in
2100 – with 70% Chance of Continuous Rise. The Guardian, 18 Sept. 2014. Web. 5
Feb. 2015.
<http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/sep/18/world-population-new-study-11bn-2100>.
[2] "Cambridge
Dictionaries Online." En- Prefix Definition, Meaning. N.p., n.d. Web. 04
Feb. 2015.
<http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/en_2#translations>
0 comments:
Post a Comment