Leadership is one of the oldest and most intriguing phenomena in human culture. Leaders have always been there and continue to change the world to date. Many theorists, sociologists, anthropologists and business researchers have endeavored to explain the leadership process, but nobody has been able to explain it entirely with a single theory.
Moreover, the styles and rules for leadership keep changing with time, and new techniques are required to tackle the challenges never met before in history. Dr. Kaliym Islam is one of the renowned authors and researchers in the field of leadership, his book The 12 Inch Rule of Leadership: Proven Strategies For Career Success is a comprehensive book with strategies and cases to apply the 12-inch rule for leadership and share the success in leading effectively.
Dr. Kaliym Islam is a former Wall Street executive where for over 20 years he led global learning businesses. NY Times best-selling author Kevin Kurse (The e-Learning Guru) describes him as a “fresh voice among the usual author/guru crowd…” who “…brings the credibility of someone who makes a living DOING, rather than TELLING. Teams under his direction have been:
- Named learning elite organizations by Chief Learning Officer Magazine,
- Won International Society for Technical Communication (STC) awards for innovative learning content, and
- Cited by HR Futurist Josh Bersin as best practice learning organizations.
He has written thousands of industry and academic articles and several books that focus on leadership, strategy, organizational development and training and development. His most recent book highlights how leaders in the industry, government, higher education, k-12 and entrepreneurship utilized a common framework (The 12 Inch Rule) to achieve career success. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Practice at Southern Illinois University, where he helps develop tomorrow’s educational leaders.
Why The 12-Inch Rule For Leadership?
Over forty years of membership in Phi Beta Sigma, Dr. Kaliym Islam’s relationship with the fraternity varied from being highly engaged and financially involved to not being engaged at all with no financial association whatsoever. But the 12-Inch Rule always remained with him. It was always a source of joy for him to attend conferences and meetings with brothers from his past, reminiscing about our experiences and challenging each other to recite the 12-Inch Rule.
As time passed and everybody progressed in their respective professional careers, Dr. Islam noticed that the individuals who maintained the 12-Inch Rule as part of their routine appeared to have a higher career trajectory. These individuals (including himself) seemed to be on the professional “fast track.” Besides being leaders in their communities, they were also leaders in their professions.
It was the motivation for Dr. Islam to dive deep into the understanding of the 12-Inch Rule and how it affected their approach to leadership. He saw that deciphering how these leaders used the 12-Inch Rule in their professional careers could provide a roadmap for people like Charles.
The Case Of Charles:
Charles (not his real name) is a middle manager trying to advance in his career. He believes that he has done all the “right” things. He has a college degree, worked for his current company for five to ten years, and received good performance ratings. Yet, like 80% of the leaders who took part in a study conducted by McKinsey, he is uncertain about the future. He dreams of being recognized as a successful leader of individuals, teams, and organizations. Charles also looks forward to the financial benefits that come with such recognition. He wants to improve his ability to manage priorities, and he wants to learn how to lead from within.
In this situation, Charles could be ecstatic if he could refine his existing leadership skills and become a more strategic leader. Unfortunately, Charles still needs to figure out how to master the competencies of effective executive leadership. He needs to improve on the big picture and uphold high standards while wearing many hats.
Unsurprisingly, Charles feels frustrated because he’s not receiving the recognition he thinks he deserves. The company has passed him over for promotion, and he’s still having trouble finding his leadership style. Moreover, he still feels he needs to get the answers to some questions before he can move forward:
- How can he gain the trust of his team?
- How can he effectively solve problems?
- How can he be recognized as an emerging leader?
Charles is still convinced that leadership is too complicated because there’s no easy-to-follow framework. He thinks that learning and improving will take too much time. In fact, Charles feels that the current approaches are outdated and won’t help him succeed. Charles wants to refine and develop his existing leadership skills to receive recognition for promotion.
Dr. Kaliym Islam believed that the 12-Inch Rule could help every Charles of the world, regardless of their industry. Therefore, he decided to decode the 12-Inch Rule. He needed to understand how the Phi Beta Sigma 12-Inch Rule impacted the leadership approach of those who were trained in it.
Research On The 12-Inch Approach
Dr. Kaliym Islam engaged in what can loosely be described as a qualitative phenomenological study. He opted for this technique because he wanted to provide context to the findings and qualitative approaches allow researchers to explore cases in more detail than conventional quantitative techniques. Also, qualitative research is best suited for studies where there is a need to describe, interpret, verify, or evaluate any phenomenon.
He interviewed ten individuals who were (i) members of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Inc., (ii) trained in the 12-Inch Rule, and (ii) currently held leadership positions at their respective companies. He defined ‘leadership’ as having direct reports and/or budget responsibilities. He asked each of the participants two questions about each of the principles associated with the rule:
- What is your understanding of this principle?
- Can you share an example of how you’ve used this principle in your role as a leader?
The thirty-minute and sixty-minute, semi-structured interviews were conducted via telephone. He used an interview guide to help the conversations stay on topic, giving the contributors the freedom to express themselves. He used Tetra Insights to transcribe the audio recordings. Any terms or information that was deemed vague or irrelevant was removed. Finally, he completed the themes by checking the identified invariant constituents against the transcripts to determine whether they explicitly expressed them.
In conclusion, he identified how the 12-inch rule had helped all the respondents adopt leadership styles that worked wonders for them. The rule had been effective irrespective of their personal capacities. The research became the foundation of his book, a must-read for all managers dreaming of becoming leaders of the future.
Media Contact
Company Name: The Training Pro Academy
Contact Person: Dr. Kaliym A. Islam
Email: Send Email
Phone: +18137777405
Country: United States
Website: https://drkaliymaislam.com/
