Rasa Diri Sebagai Hamba: Jalan Menuju Syurga

 Pernahkah kita merasakan dorongan nafsu untuk melakukan sesuatu? Namun, kita berjaya menghalang diri kerana mematuhi perintah Allah. Itulah sebenarnya makna Islam.

Hanya dengan cara ini kita mencapai ketenangan dan kebahagiaan hidup. Inilah maksud sebenar perkataan "salam." Para sarjana Islam juga menegaskan perkara yang sama. Mereka mendefinisikan Islam sebagai "peace acquired through submitting yourself to the will of Allah" — kedamaian yang dicapai melalui penyerahan diri kepada kehendak Allah.

Ia bermaksud kita menundukkan kehendak diri kepada apa yang telah ditentukan oleh-Nya. Inilah ciri perhambaan diri. Inilah juga cara merendahkan ego dan nafsu yang sentiasa merasakan diri hebat. Nafsu yang sering merasakan kita tidak memerlukan Maha Pencipta.

Bukankah ini kesombongan yang ditunjukkan oleh syaitan? Ketika disuruh tunduk dan menghormati penciptaan Adam, syaitan enggan kerana sombong . “ Ingatlah ketika Kami berfirman kepada para malaikat, 'Sujudlah kamu kepada Adam!' Maka mereka pun sujud, kecuali Iblis. Ia menolaknya dan menyombongkan diri, dan ia termasuk golongan kafir” (Al-Quran 2:34)

Rendah Diri di Hadapan Pencipta

Hanya dengan sifat rendah diri, kita berada di landasan yang benar. Dengan merasakan diri kecil di hadapan Pencipta, kita layak menerima rahmat dan petunjuk-Nya.

Banyak kejadian yang menimpa kita sebenarnya adalah cara Allah memberi rahmat. Ia adalah kaedah untuk mengembalikan kesedaran bahawa kita hanyalah hamba. Dengan sifat ini jugalah kita akan dibawa ke syurga — nikmat yang dijanjikan selama-lamanya.

Jangan Cinta Dunia Secara Berlebihan

Sifat hamba ini menyelamatkan kita daripada cinta dunia yang berlebihan. Ia mengajar kita untuk sentiasa berpandangan jauh. Kehidupan akhirat lebih pasti. Di sanalah kita akan menghadapi perhitungan amalan.

Teruskan Refleksi Diri

Tanamkan benih kehambaan dalam hati. Sentiasa bergantung kepada Allah. Berpegang teguh kepada tali kepatuhan. Ingatlah, kecenderungan manusia itu sendiri adalah kepada keingkaran.

Hayatilah bahawa hidup ini adalah ujian. Pasti ada jerit perih. Namun, sedarlah bahawa itulah yang membawa kita kepada sifat kehambaan. Sifat inilah yang menjamin jalan pulang yang benar sebagai makhluk bernama manusia.

Apabila kita benar-benar bergantung kepada-Nya, dan sentiasa merentangkan harapan kepada janji-janji-Nya, kita akan selamat daripada dusta kehidupan dunia.

The Ivory Tower's Silent Crisis: Why Malaysian Universities Must Learn to Learn

 

Something is quietly unravelling in Malaysia's public universities. Behind the polished facades and impressive ranking climbs, a deeper malaise festers—one rarely discussed openly yet widely known. Our ivory towers, once symbols of enlightenment, now risk becoming monuments to mediocrity and institutional silence.

The evidence is troubling. Academic dishonesty among lecturers—not just students—has become disturbingly normalised. Citation stacking, paper mills, and the coercion of junior academics to add senior names to publications they never touched: these are not isolated incidents but systemic practices driven by relentless KPI pressures. When a system rewards quantity over quality, it inadvertently cultivates a culture of cutting corners. The pursuit of truth, which should be a university's sacred mission, gets sacrificed at the altar of metrics.

Then there is the ranking obsession. Malaysian universities have poured enormous resources into chasing global rankings—those European and American inventions that, as many Western institutions now recognise, measure prestige more than genuine educational quality. We game the system, sometimes paying for positions, while the real work of developing critical minds and advancing knowledge takes a backseat. The irony is painful: we climb ladders that may lead nowhere meaningful.

Perhaps most damaging is the pervasive culture of fear and silence. Academics who dare speak up risk being sidelined, passed over for promotion, or placed in 'cold storage.' This chilling effect is not merely anecdotal; research consistently shows that hierarchical rigidity and fear of retribution stifle innovation and learning. A recent study on Malaysian public higher education institutions found that psychological safety—the belief that one can speak candidly without punishment—remains critically underdeveloped, particularly among administrative and planning staff who shape institutional direction (Edmondson, 1999; Edmondson & Lei, 2014). Without psychological safety, organisations cannot learn, adapt, or honestly confront their failures.

Becoming a Learning Organisation: A Framework for Reform

The path forward requires a fundamental shift in how our universities conceive of themselves. Rather than institutions that merely deliver education and chase rankings, they must become learning organisations—entities that continuously acquire, create, and transfer knowledge while adapting their behaviour to reflect new insights (Marsick & Watkins, 2003). Watkins and Marsick's influential framework identifies seven dimensions essential for this transformation, each with specific implications for Malaysian higher education.

 

Creating continuous learning opportunities means moving beyond annual workshops and token professional development. Malaysian universities should establish structured learning circles where administrative staff and academicians regularly discuss challenges and solutions. Sabbatical programmes, traditionally reserved for academics, could be extended to senior administrators to explore best practices at other institutions. Cross-functional rotations would allow to understand different departmental perspectives, breaking down the silos that plague our bureaucracies.

Promoting inquiry and dialogue requires dismantling the deeply ingrained culture of sungkan (reluctance to speak up) and deference to hierarchy. Universities could institutionalise regular forums—perhaps monthly 'town halls'—where  all levels can question policies without fear. Book clubs discussing higher education challenges, as some advocacy groups have pioneered, create informal spaces for critical conversation. The key is normalising questions as signs of engagement, not insubordination.

Encouraging team learning challenges our individualistic performance systems. Instead of pitting departments against each other for resources, universities should reward collaborative projects that span faculties. Joint problem-solving teams addressing institutional challenges—student retention, graduate employability, research impact—would cultivate collective intelligence. When teams learn together, solutions emerge that no individual could devise alone.

Establishing systems to capture and share knowledge addresses the institutional amnesia plaguing our universities. When experienced staff retire or transfer, their knowledge often vanishes. Malaysian institutions need robust knowledge management systems—not just databases, but living repositories where lessons learned from failed initiatives are documented alongside successes. Exit interviews should become genuine knowledge-harvesting exercises, not administrative formalities.

Empowering staff toward a collective vision means genuine participatory planning, not token consultations where decisions are already made. Strategic planning exercises should actively seek input from frontline staff—those who interact daily with students and understand operational realities. When people help shape the vision, they own it. Currently, too many strategic plans are drafted in isolation by senior management, leaving staff to implement goals they neither understand nor believe in.

Connecting the institution to its external environment demands that universities shed their insularity. This means more than industry partnerships for funding; it requires systematic environmental scanning—understanding shifts in graduate employment markets, technological disruptions, and evolving societal expectations. Advisory boards with external stakeholders should have genuine influence, not merely ceremonial roles. Universities must become learning nodes within larger ecosystems, not fortresses guarding outdated knowledge.

Providing strategic leadership for learning is perhaps the most critical dimension. Vice-Chancellors and senior administrators must model learning behaviour themselves—publicly acknowledging mistakes, asking questions in meetings, and visibly engaging in their own professional development. Leadership development programmes should prioritise learning facilitation skills over administrative competencies. When leaders demonstrate that learning is valued, the entire institution follows.

Building Psychological Safety: The Foundation for Change

None of these dimensions can flourish without psychological safety—the shared belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes (Edmondson, 2018). In Malaysian higher education, where hierarchical traditions run deep and face-saving dominates organisational culture, building psychological safety requires deliberate, sustained effort.

First, leaders must frame work as learning problems rather than execution problems. When a new initiative is introduced, the message should be: 'We are experimenting; we will learn and adjust.' This reframes setbacks as data rather than failures. Malaysian university leaders often present plans as definitive, making any questioning seem like disloyalty. A learning frame invites input and acknowledges uncertainty.

Second, leaders must acknowledge their own fallibility. In cultures that venerate seniority, admitting 'I don't know' or 'I was wrong' feels deeply uncomfortable. Yet research shows that when leaders model vulnerability, it gives permission for others to do the same (Frazier et al., 2017). A Deputy Vice-Chancellor who openly discusses a strategic mistake and what was learned creates more safety than one who maintains an illusion of infallibility.

Third, institutions must actively invite input and respond constructively. It is not enough to have an 'open door policy'—staff must see that speaking up leads to genuine engagement, not retaliation. When someone raises a concern, the response should be gratitude and inquiry, not defensiveness. Universities could implement 'psychological safety audits' where staff anonymously report whether they feel safe to speak, with results driving leadership accountability.

Fourth, collective voice mechanisms should be strengthened. Rather than leaving individuals to challenge unreasonable KPIs alone—a risky proposition in hierarchical environments—entire departments should be empowered to collectively reject targets that undermine academic integrity. Academic unions and advocacy groups play vital roles here, providing solidarity that individual whistle-blowers cannot achieve. There is safety in numbers; collective dissent is harder to punish than individual complaint.

Fifth, training programmes on psychological safety should be mandatory for all leadership positions. Many universities leaders genuinely do not realise how their behaviours—interrupting, dismissing ideas, reacting defensively—undermine safety. Practical training using scenarios relevant to Malaysian academic contexts can develop awareness and alternative responses. This is not about importing Western management fads; it is about creating conditions where our own people can think, speak, and contribute fully.

 The Way Forward

Malaysian universities stand at a crossroads. We can continue down the path of performative excellence, chasing numbers while our intellectual culture atrophies. Or we can embrace the harder, more rewarding work of becoming genuine learning organisations—places where truth is pursued, mistakes are learning opportunities, and everyone can speak without fear.

The reforms outlined here are not utopian fantasies; they are evidence-based practices validated across diverse organisational contexts. What they require is leadership courage—the willingness to prioritise long-term institutional health over short-term metrics, and to trust that when people feel safe to learn, extraordinary things become possible.

The choice is ours. But the clock is ticking, and the cost of silence grows steeper by the day.

Major (Retired) Dr. Shamyl Shalyzad Shamsuddin is a freelance social science researcher and writer based in Seremban, Negeri Sembilan. He specialises in organisational learning and Human resource development.

 

When Your Best Friend Becomes Your Worst Boss: A Coffee Talk About Career Survival

 

Last week, I had a long phone call with my old friend, Farid (not his real name). We haven't caught up properly in months. What started as casual "how are you bro" quickly turned into a two-hour deep conversation about work, life, and some hard truths about the corporate world.

I'm sharing this because honestly, there's too many good lessons here to keep to myself.

 

The Two-Hour Interview: Good Sign or Red Flag?

Farid told me he just went for an interview. Aviation management team position. Quite senior role.

"Bro, the interview took almost two hours," he said.

"Two hours? Serious?"

"Yeah. Other candidates only 20 minutes. I don't know if that's good or bad."

I told him honestly — it can go both ways. Maybe they really interested in you. Maybe they grilling you because they not sure. But two hours? That means something caught their attention.

Then he shared some of the questions they asked. And wah, these are not your typical "tell me about yourself" questions.

Question 1: "You are a single father. How will you handle 30 female bachelor staff under you?"

I nearly choked on my coffee when he told me this. What kind of question is that? But you know what, it's actually clever. They want to see if he will panic. If he will say something inappropriate. If he understands boundaries and professionalism.

Question 2: "Let's say all your team members are your best friends. One of them is underperforming. How do you handle it?"

This one is tricky. Because we all know — friendship and work sometimes don't mix well. Can you be firm with your buddy? Can you separate personal from professional?

Question 3: "How would you handle a sexual harassment case in your team?"

Straightforward but heavy. They want to know if you understand policy, procedure, and most importantly — will you protect your people or protect the company's image?

Question 4: "You have a good worker, but they have a medical problem. How do you manage this?"

This shows if you have compassion. Do you see staff as humans or just numbers on KPI sheet?

Question 5: "If we hire you, what new things will you bring to the company?"

Classic. But important. Are you just here to collect salary, or you actually want to contribute something?

I told Farid, "Bro, if they asking you all this, they seriously considering you. These are leadership questions."

 

 

The Story Behind His Two Resignations

After the interview talk, I asked him something I've been curious about.

"Eh, what happened to your previous jobs? I heard you left two companies already."

He went quiet for a moment. Then he said, "It's a long story, bro."

And what he told me next — I think everyone needs to hear this.

The First Job: When Integrity Costs You Everything

Farid used to work for a company that managed and funded a religious school. Good job. Stable. Respected.

His own son was a student there.

One day, his son came home with injuries. Bad ones. Turns out, a teacher had physically punished him so badly that the boy had to be hospitalised.

As a father, Farid was furious. As an employee, he wanted to report it properly.

But the management called him in.

"Farid, we understand you're upset. But please, let's settle this internally. Don't make a police report. Don't go to the media. It will damage the school's reputation. It will affect our funding."

They basically asked him to shut up. To protect the company's name. To sacrifice his son's justice.

"I cannot do that, bro," he told me. "That's my son. How can I stay in a company that asks me to cover up abuse?"

So he resigned.

No drama. No big announcement. He just walked away.

"Sometimes," he said, "your principles cost you your paycheck. But at least I can sleep at night."

The Second Job: When Your Friend Becomes Your Enemy

After that, Farid was quite lost. No job. Bills piling up. Single father, remember.

Then an old friend approached him.

"Bro, come work with me. I'm in this organization now. The pay is good. I'll take care of you."

Farid was hesitant. The job scope wasn't his expertise. He's more of operations and management guy. This new role was completely different field.

But the salary was attractive. And his friend kept pushing. "Don't worry, I'll guide you."

So he joined.

Big mistake.

The first few months were okay. But slowly, things changed.

His friend — now his boss — started to pressure him. Complained about his performance. Set unofficial KPIs that were impossible to achieve.

"He never gave me proper training or resources," Farid said. "But he expected me to perform like I've been doing this job for 10 years."

And here's the worst part.

Farid is a friendly guy. He gets along with people easily. Soon, he became quite popular among other staff. People liked him. Respected him.

And his boss? Got jealous.

"I could feel it, bro. Everytime I joke with colleagues, he would give me that look. When people come to me for advice instead of him, he got irritated."

The boss started to sabotage him. Talked bad about him to board members. Made him look incompetent in meetings. Created situations where Farid would fail.

Finally, Farid was "advised" to resign.

"When I left, some staff actually cried. A few even said they wanted to resign too. That's when I knew — the problem was never me."

 

The Lessons I Took From This Conversation

After we hung up, I couldn't stop thinking about Farid's stories. There's so much to unpack here.

1. Know what you're good at — and stick to it.

Farid struggled in his second job because it wasn't his strength. Yes, the money was good. But money means nothing if you're miserable and failing everyday. Your "bread and butter" skills exist for a reason. Don't abandon them just for a bigger paycheck.

2. Never mix friendship with hierarchy.

This is painful but true. Your best friend can become your worst boss. When power dynamics enter a friendship, things get complicated. Not everyone can separate personal feelings from professional decisions. Be very careful when a friend offers you a job under them. Ask yourself — can this friendship survive if things go wrong at work?

3. Jealousy in the workplace is real.

Some bosses feel threatened when their subordinates shine. Instead of being proud, they feel challenged. If your boss starts acting cold when you get praised by others, that's a red flag. Protect yourself.

4. Impossible KPIs without resources is just setting people up to fail.

How can you expect someone to climb a mountain if you don't give them proper shoes? Some managers set high targets but provide zero support. No training. No budget. No manpower. Then they blame the staff when targets are not met. That's not leadership. That's cruelty.

5. Look after your people's welfare — including their health.

A good worker with medical problems is still a good worker. Don't throw people away just because they're going through tough times. Show compassion. Adjust their workload. Be human.

6. Your integrity is not for sale.

Farid could have stayed quiet about his son's case. He could have kept his job, kept his salary, kept his comfortable life. But he chose to walk away because he couldn't live with himself otherwise. In the end, we all have to answer to ourselves. Can you look in the mirror and be proud of who you are?

7. Communication and humility go a long way.

Talk to your team. Ask questions. Don't pretend you know everything. The best leaders are those who say, "I don't know, but let's figure it out together."

 

Final Thoughts

Before we ended the call, I asked Farid, "Any regrets?"

He laughed softly.

"Regret? No, bro. I learned so much from both experiences. Painful, yes. But I know now what kind of workplace I want. What kind of leader I want to be. And most importantly — what kind of person I refuse to become."

That hit me hard.

Sometimes the worst jobs teach us the best lessons.

To Farid, wherever your next chapter takes you — I'm rooting for you, brother.

And to whoever reading this: protect your peace, know your worth, and never let anyone make you compromise who you are.

---

Have you ever been in a similar situation? A friendship that got ruined by work? A boss who made your life miserable? Drop your thoughts. Sometimes sharing helps us heal.

Shamyl Shalyzad, PhD, is a freelance writer, HR advisor, and social science researcher. He resides in Seremban, Negeri Sembilan