By Mohammed Mamun Rashid
Practical Leadership book of Professor Dr. H. M. Jahirul Haque was published in 2025 as its first-edition. Dr. Kazi Anis Ahmed (President, Board of Trustees at University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh) quoted in preface of this book, “This is not a theoretical exposition but a practical guide offering valuable insights into true leadership practices, drawn from remarkable career journey of author. Leadership vision of author is not a dated top-down one, but informed by multi-directional collaboration, and thus more apt for the times we live in. Utility of this book goes well beyond the academic sector with lessons for leaders at all stages of their career from starting to advanced.” Professor Haque is a renowned researcher, educator, mentor and academic leader with more than three decades of practical experience in higher education, technology-driven innovation, institutional leadership, and fostering international partnerships for strengthening connection between global and local universities.
The book Practical Leadership comprises eleven principle-based chapters of some 98 pages. Existing author intends to scrutinize unique contribution of this book especially for adding new branches of knowledge in leadership discourse and implications of personal verbatims derived from practical experiences. All topics are critically reviewed in this paper, as well as contextualizing the areas with other scholarships. The topics in conjunction with summaries, case studies, diagrammatic representations, best practices, failure stories, innovative solutions and review questions add to measure the value of knowledge and quality of content.
A leader with ownership quality becomes proud of every success of his/her organization and grief-stricken for every bit of its failing. Ownership can elevate an ordinary employee to a leadership position. An employee with more skills cannot be a good leader who do not own the organization. Haque (2025, p. 12) quoted, “Why does a father or mother choose the best food, clothes, schools, and residence for his/her children? The answer lies in ownership.” Ownership and creativity are closely interconnected. About creativity and ownership among frontline employees in service industries of Ghana, Azila-Gbettor et al. (2025) identify that psychological ownership of employees strongly establishes supportive leadership and excellent creativity. Ownership and leadership go hand in hand. Leaders with ownership quality keep their emotions at bay and go beyond narrow egoism and personal ego clashes, even personal interests. Instead, they seek to make rational choices for the greater good of the team and organizational growth (Haque, 2025, p. 13). Similarly, Lin et al. (2024) reveal that authentic leaders can amplify the positive aspects of psychological ownership, fostering greater employee readiness for organizational change. Professor Haque positively articulated all relevant aspects of ownership like correlation between ownership and leadership, ownership worthiness towards accountability, transparency, faiths, integrity, duty and responsibility, loyalty, dedication, effectiveness and efficiency, self-empowerment, nurturing of self-motivated organizational culture, among many more. Nonetheless, it is realized that this book may be more comprehensive if he incorporates a simple case study, in next edition, about failure of a competent leader due to lack of ownership. The case study with anonymity of leader’s name and organization will be a good learning issue for readers.
This chapter starts with storytelling about one Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of a multinational company and proceeds by key message of philosophers. Ego, emotion and impatience are three serious negative factors. Self-ego is key enemy of good leadership. An inflated ego propels the leaders to lose touch with their junior, colleagues, work culture, and clients. Haque (2025, p. 29) asserts that an egoistic leader will never participate in the positive participatory discussion and debate. He/she likes to pressurize for carrying out own decision. It is one of the major reasons behind organizational failure. Ego makes a leader more selfish and ruder. Managing ego and becoming down-to-earth is one of the fundamental duties of a good leader. In this context, Marques (2024) strongly urges for shifting from ego-driven to collective-focused and altruism to be a good and successful leader.
A good leader handles challenging issues with patience to gain the desired outputs. He/she never loses temper during a crisis; and does not misbehave with team members. In all, patience is a sign of maturity. Haque (2025, p. 31) reveals that managing or regulating emotions is one fundamental task of a good leader. They need to respond to their emotions purposefully, not reactively. Fenton (2012) discovers that unfortunately too many people still toil in fearful work environment due to lack of emotional intelligence of leaders. Lower absenteeism, better customer service, and more innovation i.e., workplaces might be more attractive by top talents. On the top of that, the statement of Practical Leadership book e.g., ‘Regulating positive and negative emotions is very important for good leaders’ is quite applicable in all cross-regional and multicultural work settings.