Prophet Muhammad and the five personality dimensions

Posted: June 15th, 2022

Prophet Muhammad and the five personality dimensions

1) Surgency

It is a personality dimension that shows to what extent one is able to continue what he starts, even if he faced barriers, and keep going with positive thinking and high stamina. Plus the extent to which an individual is wanting to be a leader or a follower, with taking into consideration the ability to meet and have chemistry with new people, or to be shy and secure about new people.
Prophet Muhammad was a leader who was chosen by Allah, and not by people consensus, because of what Allah has created in him from personality and attitudes that is different from others. Even if Prophet Muhammad had to choose to be a leader he would definitely choose to become one because of what he has in personality and traits towards himself and other people.
Prophet Muhammad went through forceful and ferocious conditions during his message distribution of Islam to people were he suffered from injuries and huge opposition from people who refused the idea of Islam and chose to stay on their beliefs, not because of prophet Muhammad’s personality or attitude towards them, but because they are happy in what they believe in and the believe that Islam is a myth and sorcery.All the wars and invasions against Prophet Muhammad and his followers didn’t stop him from continuing the distribution of the right message which is Islam. This shows how a leader was born and made due to high persistence in what prophet Muhammad task was to do until his last breath.

2) Agreeableness

It is the extent to which an individual can get along with people and people get along with them, with the ability of social intelligence towards these people.
Prophet Muhammad was known for his mercifulness and kindness towards all people even with enemies and people who decided to stay on their beliefs. Prophet Muhammad was able to capture the hearts of people specially his followers due to his ability to understand the people around him what each and every one who approaches him for guidance or help needs and wants to be satisfied and happy. Awareness is what it’s called the ability to satisfy own and other’s needs, in a dynamically changing organization that the prophet Muhammad lived in because of new people who joined Islam lately and because of the variety of entertainment and tools found in life people were subjected to sins. Prophet Muhammad was able to take control of all of these people who came from different cultures and beliefs due to his awareness and emotional intelligence towards people who did either good or bad and treated them in the way they should be treated. Such a management approach is using the X and Y theory where prophet Muhammad sometimes even when people sin he used his kindness and leader intelligence to guide them through the right path, and on the other hand people who sin also used with them a harsh attitude for them to be a model for others who will do the same thing, all of these obligations and actions were for the good cause of Islam and people for them to get the ultimate prize which is paradise in the end of life.

3) Adjustment

It is the ability to be stable and confident in the actions towards achieving a specific goal.
Prophet Muhammad got the message of Islam at a young age and was surprised from what has happened to him and from the responsibility that he has to take towards the people, but this has not stopped him from believing that there is one creator for this universe who is Allah. Self-confidence in himself as the chosen one among all people although it was a big responsibility, gave him the ability to stay stable and persistent in what he want to do. Although Prophet Muhammad was able to have high stability and self-confidence this didn’t make him an autocratic leader, telling people what to do and not listening to other people’s opinions, on the contrary his self-confidence and stability allowed him to accept and seek guidance from his followers even if it was not that good.

4) Conscientiousness

The extent to which an individual is dependable and reliable in what he does with honesty and integrity.
Prophet Muhammad from Allah as the chosen messenger at his time was born with integrity and honesty and was impeccable. Due to these traits in him, the ways of retailing and ethics at his time and current time in Islam has changed, and became one of the most dependable approaches in all times. Prophet Muhammad never cheated or lied to anyone in his life anything he says even if the individual mind was hard to believe, his true followers and believers in Islam trusted and believed him. Prophet Muhammad never said something that he will do, and haven’t done it with the help of Allah. Due to what Prophet Muhammad had of traits and miracles he was able to be a highly dependable person who until our day we still give examples of his integrity and honesty.

5) Openness
The extent to which an individual has a static locus of control, intelligence, and flexibility.
Prophet Muhammad was a very wise individual who knew how to deal under cruel and harsh circumstances such as when going to wars or invasions by choosing the right people for the task and the cunning strategy to win the war with the help of Allah. Here comes the approach of locus of control, where prophet Muhammad had both internal and external locus of control, for example when going to a war prophet Muhammad believes in the creator of his own fate where he stood in the frontlines of any war( internal), with the authorization of Allah to help him in his war(external).

All these five dimensions has proven to show what type of a great and successful leader is prophet Muhammad made of, with the support of many other positive management studies and approaches that support it. This is why the Islamic world try to walk on the same path of prophet Muhammad either by following his ways of business and tasks management, or the personality and behaviors towards people in our daily life, for a successful and sustainable way of living in a world where people are changing everyday with different personalities that can be hard to be satisfied, but should be done to win the ultimate prize which is paradise when we stand between the hands of Allah in judgment day.

Looking at the prophet and his life from the perspective of leadership would teach us many aspects of successful leadership.
Many non-Muslim scholars and writers studied the history of our prophet, to find the traits, characteristics and actions that defined him and made him achieve so much in just few years.
John William Draper (d. 1882), an English-American scientist, physician, philosopher, and historian, writes,
Four years after the death of Justinian, A.D. 569, was born in Mecca, in Arabia, the man who, of all men, has exercised the greatest influence upon the human race… To be the religious head of many empires, to guide the daily life of one-third of the human race, May perhaps justify the title of a Messenger of God.
Allah chose the right guy, to send his message through him, and entrusted him with this extremely heavy mission to deliver the message in the way he sees the best, indeed Mohammed (PBUH) did get all his information from the revelation, but he himself took all the decisions and tried his best to manage this newly growing organization to the best point he could reach.
He was forced to leave his hometown with some of his companions, they had very few resources and men, but then just a few years later he would come back with 10,000 followers and ruled the city.
He built a trust relationship between him and his people in a way in which his companions in the battle of Uhud sacrificed their life and limps and stood as human shields to cover him.
He had high self-confidence and integrity, he was very loyal to his people and to the mission, and he was very determined that when some of the enemy’s leaders came to his uncle to convince him to leave what he was doing he said:
O uncle! Should they place the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left, so as to make me renounce this mission, I shall not do so. I will never give it up; either it will please God to make it triumph or I will perish in the attempt.
The prophet was a perfect example of commitment and involvement, he did not ever take a day off to rest, but rather he dedicated every day of his life to find new ways and develop new strategies for the success of his mission and made his people and followers his first priority.
He revolutionized human rights, he managed to do the impossible back then, at his time, humanity was suffering from oppression, injustice and hatred. People were slaving another people, parents would kill newborn babies, the strong would oppress the weak, theft and crime was around every corner, which was very far from what the creator wanted his creation to be on, and very far from the religion of peace and harmony he sent to the human race, and that is when the mission was appointed to Mohammed (PBUH), his role wasn’t just to change and adjust few things but rather to change a whole culture its bad habits.

• He is the only man to end racism and bigotry, where in this modern world we live in we are still struggling to even control it.
• He gave women their rights after they were abused and treated un equally in the society
• He ended slavery and injustice and planted the seed of brotherhood.

He also achieved to end all the bad habits inside the social community, such as ending alcoholism and bad habits of eating and living.
This leader did not just lead a certain organization but created this perfect lifestyle which if any human being can succeed in adopting it, will live in a life of ease and comfort, here and thereafter.

Arnold Toynbee (d. 1975), a research professor of international history at the University of London, in his book Civilization on Trial said,
The extinction of race consciousness as between Muslims is one of the outstanding moral achievements of Islam, and in the contemporary world there is, as it happens, a crying need for the propagation of this Islamic virtue.

When we talk about the prophet and his followers achievements, we can always talk about how they conquered the whole world from far west of the Moroccan coast to the deep east of Asia, and how they gained such authority and power and so on, but the real hard mission that no other leader in my opinion could be able to achieve is the morality and ethical culture he imbedded in the community, the righteous way of life, the love and brotherhood between human race, because this is the kind of change that will remain forever.