By STEPHEN L. BRUNDAGE | ARAB NEWS
ALKHOBAR: Former Saudi Aramco President and CEO Abdallah S. Jum’ah shared his perspectives on leadership along with his own career story during a keynote speech before the Toastmasters Annual Division M Conference Thursday night in Alkhobar.
“In the song, ‘Beautiful Boy,’ by former Beatle John Lennon, he says ‘life is what happens while you are making other plans.’ This was true in my case. I never set out to work for an oil company; I never had plans to become a CEO,” Jum’ah told an audience of more than 400 people. “However, while the road I traveled from childhood to college and career took me to other places than I had thought about in my early days, it brought me to a destination that has proven more challenging and infinitely more rewarding than anything I could have imagined”.
He spoke of his early days growing up in Alkhobar in a family of 10. His father was a fisherman and pearl diver whose disability prevented him from providing for his family as he would have liked.
“We grew up in abject poverty,” Jum’ah said, “but in other ways we were enormously rich. We were close-knit, and we were supportive of each other”.
He credited his mother for imbuing him with a love of learning and recognized his late brother, meteorologist and poet Jabbar Jum’ah, for showing him the beauty of poetry and self-expression. Jum’ah said by the time he turned 16, he had read translations of many Western classics and memorized a large amount of his favorite poetry.
“That was my first lesson in leadership — that knowledge is power,” he said.
Jum’ah also noted that he was energetic and spent a great deal of time playing football, first on the streets and then in school where he earned recognition as a top goalkeeper.
“To this day exercise is still in my daily routine,” he said. “The football field and the basketball court instilled in me an appreciation of physical stamina. So my leadership lessons grew to include the value of teamwork and attaining a shared goal as well as the rewards of personal discipline. Sports offer a good metaphor for building relationships, building trust and working toward a mutual goal”.
He said working for Aramco at age 16 was his first paying job and said the company helped him attend American University — Cairo and later American University — Beirut where he met longtime friend Saleh Al-Turki who later became president of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Al-Turki was in attendance at the conference.
Jum’ah said his original plan was to become involved in higher education, but under the guidance of Aramco executives, including now-Minister of Petroleum and Minerals HE Ali Al-Naimi, he opted instead for a career in the oil business. He said that one of the ways he distinguished himself was helping to form the company’s response to a disastrous refinery accident.
“Leadership isn’t glamorous,” he said. “It’s often gritty and exhausting”.
He said he believed Saudi Aramco’s incredible successes with its ongoing mega-project program could be traced from the lessons the company learned from that early failure, and he urged listeners not to discount the importance that business failures play in later business successes.
“Leaders also must have a high degree of self-confidence, but they have to balance that self-assurance with self awareness,” he said. “Humility is the supreme expression of confidence. To show total humility takes true confidence and courage. A good leader should also be confident enough to use wit to put people at ease”.
He said another important trait leaders must develop is the ability to listen to others and learn from them.
“There is an old saying, ‘God gave you two ears and only one mouth, so you should listen twice as much as you talk’”.
Jum’ah said it was important for leaders to confront cultural issues and emphasized the importance of having a strong foundation in the liberal arts. “I have seen firsthand the strength of diversity,” he said, noting that it applied to diversity of men and women in the workplace as well as to people of different nations and of different faiths.
“Leadership is not a science; it’s an art. Each leader uses these skills and abilities in different ways,” he said. “No business culture is inherently better or worse, but a good leader adapts”.
He also reminded the audience of a cardinal rule of management that unfortunately is often forgotten.
“A leader exists to serve an organization and its employees,” Jum’ah said. “It’s not the other way around”.
He noted Toastmasters’ importance to the development of business in the Kingdom.
“Leadership begins with communication, with thoughtful listening, with the sharing of well-expressed ideas and with spirited interchange for greater understanding and better cooperation,” he said, praising the organization’s 30-year history in Kingdom and the contributions it has made for countless Saudis seeking to improve their communication skills.
“Toastmasters resonates so well in this part of the world because of our own longstanding oral tradition,” he said. “Oration has been part of the Arab experience from time immemorial. Throughout the history of the Arab people, the role of poet and speaker has served to chronicle achievements, good deeds and generosity. Our tribes competed not with weapons but with words”.
Arab News
