True leaders are developed. It’s a personal choice to add more value to your society, and make your life more rewarding on a personal and professional level, said Sheikh Hussein Al-Banawi.
He recently published a book entitled “The unknown leader: Discover the leader in you.” The book was launched at Effat University, where Al-Banawi is a member of the Honorary Advisory Board.
“Al-Banawi is a global visionary and inspirational leader dedicated to help the next set of enterprise leaders in the Arab world,” said Haifa Jamal Al-Lail, president of Effat University, at the book launch. “He is the chairman and CEO of the Banawi Industrial Group (B.I.G), one of the leading manufacturing groups in Saudi Arabia. He is founder of the Chair in Islamic Economics, Finance and Management at Rice University in Houston, Texas, and serves on the board of various civic organization.”
Al-Banawi sees two challenges facing the Arab business world as it continues to seek growth opportunities. One is the ability to continuously provide the right education for future generations. The second is being in an area that historically has had its fair share of political turmoil. The remedy to this, he believes, is continuing to engage internationally.
“The book is a formal invitation to the club of unknown leaders. It is a special group of people: unassuming but remarkably instrumental. He recounts his own lifelong journey toward leadership and the invaluable lessons he gained from unusual friendships, challenges, decisions, victories and defeats,” Al-Lail said.
Leaders have a shared capacity to aspire, inspire, energize and deliver. Leadership has the ability to bring out the best in people. They become a better person, so society becomes a better environment to live and work.
Al-Banawi said the journey to self-awareness starts through becoming self-critical. Then you take on that journey of self-development and aspire to true leadership. This journey will take you to a higher stage, which is self-awareness. “This means you will become more recognizant of your own abilities, strengths, weaknesses, likes and dislikes. You start to notice how you engage, how you react, communicate, deal with anger, happiness and how you deal with failures and success, and you continue to watch yourself as you are engaging. It becomes a natural habit of self-development,” Al-Banawi said.
