Mahmoud Khattab: How to Be a Good Leader — Wizard Journal

Most company leaders can delegate tasks. Fewer master effective leadership and successfully steer a company of motivated team members toward the company’s goals. But when executives do master this kind of leadership, they can infiltrate their company with productivity that spreads throughout the organization and reaches the bottom line. So, what makes a good leader?

The CEO of Precision MD, Mahmoud Khattab, Elk Grove, California, explains that to shape effective leadership skills, managers must first understand their motivations, strengths, and weaknesses. This puts them in a strong position to connect with their team, encourage open communication, give and receive feedback, and promote employee development, thereby improving the team’s engagement and accelerating the company toward its goals.

“You have to have a lot of skills,” Mahmoud Khattab says. “Some skills, you must have in your personality, and some skills, you can gain through experience. You have to be determined and make decisions. You have to know where you’re going. You have to have a long-term vision and a short-term vision. You also have to know how to deal with employees, which is challenging, because each employee has a different personality. They have different drives. They have different interests.”

Here are five strategies to help you achieve effective leadership.

1. Promote Your Employees’ Growth

As a leader, it’s important to show interest in each team member’s success and growth. So, set aside a budget for each employee’s development, even if it’s only small, so they know you value their progression. But your investment shouldn’t only be financial. When you emotionally invest in your team members’ development, you can motivate and inspire them to take on challenges that will benefit both them and the company.

“If your team members have the feeling that you don’t have time for them, or you’re not following up on their performance, on the details of the practice, the outcome will start to decline in the practice,” Mahmoud Khattab says.

2. Build Human Connections

You might be your team’s manager, but you’re also a human. When you connect with your team members genuinely, they’ll think of you this way, which can strengthen the relationship for both of you. So, employ empathy, humility, and compassion in your leadership style to connect with your team members. Get to know them, especially their strengths, weaknesses, hobbies, and preferences. This way, you can better understand their goals and motivations.

3. Uphold a Positive Attitude

All leaders face obstacles, regardless of how effectively they manage their teams. Whether you’re facing minor miscommunications or major errors, when you run into these challenges, the way that you handle the negative situation will reveal a lot about your leadership skills. So, uphold a positive attitude, and try to identify the positive aspects of an overall problematic situation before focusing on the negatives. You can also focus on solutions, rather than the problem itself, to help your team maintain positive engagement.

“You should be able to deal with difficulties,” Mahmoud Khattab says. “You should be patient. You need to be positive. If you have a lot of negativity, that will show, and the people that work for you or with you will be affected by you. If you try always to spread the positive spirit and positive energy, that will affect the people around you as well.”

“When we have a problem, we look at it as the whole system failure, not one single person,” he adds. “We analyze the problem. We try to find out why it happened and how we can avoid it in the future. We try to create a system to prevent this problem from happening again instead of targeting one person.”

4. Communicate Openly

Communicate transparently with your team. Remember that your employees are a reflection of you, and, if you demonstrate honest, ethical behaviour, they will follow. You can also personalize your interactions and communication style depending on the team member and the situation to best meet their needs. For example, some team members may prefer to discuss via email, while others may prefer to discuss face to face in a private setting.

5. Teach Employees by Showing Instead of Telling

Ineffective leaders often tell employees what to do. But when you show employees how to complete a task, you can coach them toward a more collaborative work environment and give them the independence they need to apply their own creativity and work systems. This way, team members are more likely to take ownership and direction of their projects, freeing you up to work on your tasks.

“Even if you hired an excellent employee with very good experience, if you don’t manage that employee well, their performance will decline,” Mahmoud Khattab says. “So, there’s a responsibility on you, or your general manager, to keep up with management, to keep up with evaluation, to keep up with meetings, and on the basis of every single employee.”

Learn more about Mahmoud Khattab.

About Mahmoud Khattab

Mahmoud Khattab is the CEO of Precision MD in Elk Grove, California, which offers a variety of cosmetic services, including Botox, hair transplants, chemical peels, facelifts, breast implantation, and laser skin resurfacing. Originally from Syria, Mahmoud Khattab graduated with a medical degree from the University of Damascus in 1993. He then completed a medical residency at the prestigious Case Western Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio. Since then, he has spent more than 30 years in the medical sector. He has also served as chairman of the Syrian American Alliance, where he contributed to philanthropic causes that support Syrian refugees.

Originally published at https://www.wizardjournal.com on June 5, 2022.