Halal Hot Dogs (Trick)

This blog post is about halal hot dogs... somewhat!

The Transformation of Leadership and its Impact on Volunteerism

Let me start this discussion by asking what do we mean by leadership? In my view, a leader is the one in the front seat, driving, directing and delivering our vehicle to safety. He/ She could be one of three types of individuals: born leader (gifted and charismatic), trained leader (through experience) or appointed leader (sometimes they fit, other times they don’t).

In my opinion, leadership is about finding a way to create important opportunities, save resources and develop continuity to deliver the product to serve the needs of the community. A leader must also be able to gather wishes, root them in reality and forecast the future.  Leadership should be about modesty, transparency, honesty, openness and altruism. This is my personal definition of leadership.

Continuing my idea, let us imagine I’m the owner of a small stall or kiosk selling halal Hot Dogs in the corner of a shopping centre. Within 6 months up to a year, I may be able to buy a small van to take me from A to B every other day to buy stock. I would enlist the help of my wife and a paid employee to maintain and grow the business.

In the second phase, three years along the line, I and my wife might be able to save more money and open a small corner shop selling doughnuts, lollipops, kebabs etc. We would need to employ more people to run the shop, while my wife is in the kitchen cooking and I go to a wholesaler to buy in bulk. We can look at this development as the first stage of building an organisation, as it takes up more time to manage, direct and control.

At this very critical stage of development, we need to look at three things: 1. business idea; 2. business management; 3. business ownership. If there is no clear separation between the management and ownership, I believe that it is a fatal mistake for any business.

If we want to develop that corner shop into a supermarket, we need to create a clear landmark between the idea, the management and the ownership of the business. Specialised people should manage the business, while the owner should protect the original idea and safeguard its development. A “supermarket philosophy” could remain forever at the back of the mind of the owner, failing to take it further to the next level and transforming the idea into a chain of supermarkets.

Only a few can share the governance with others and give them freedom to manage a team will be able to create a chain of supermarkets. By doing this, more money will come in, more job opportunities will be created and more services will be delivered to the community. Plus, more profit will return to the business owner, while incurring less risk on their capital money and gaining more public trust for their business.

This is where a lot of organisations are failing: owners refuse to let other capable individuals manage. The organisations which widened their ownership, diversified their leadership or alternated their governance are the ones with the biggest and most effective impact on volunteers. These organisations will have wider catchment areas, access to volunteers with more diverse skills, projects that require multi-tasking. They are the ones delivering more for the community.

Just imagine what it would be like if we were to empower all the small-scale social entrepreneurs and encourage them to endorse this new culture of ownership based on partnership: from a hot-dog to a chain of supermarkets!