English grammar and paraphrasing!
mabunab
Script.docxScript:
Leader interview:
He is a financial consultant and the representative of the general director of development and planning in the General Authority for sport; he is also a member of the Paralympic committee. I really want to interview him for a couple reasons. First, he is a very well known businessman in my country and I’m very lucky to have this opportunity to talk to him. I also think it is a great way of networking and getting to know him more. He built himself from zero, so sharing his story and experience and leadership style will help and inspire young people. Al-Saleh has been supporting youth for a long time and developed several programs and initiatives for youth, which I personally aiming to reach his leadership level one day.
Question 1: Let me begin by asking you about your background?
I learned a lot from my parents, my father worked in the government sector for over than 40 years as a manager of public relations in the Ministry of Health. My mother worked as a school leader. I have five siblings, four are Doctors and Computer Engineers, and I’m the only one who specialized in Finance. I started by working on vacations when I was in high school. One of my neighbors who worked as a Regional Director in Al-Ahli Bank recommended me to work in the bank with a salary US300/month. I then attended Engineering school after my father request, but I failed. I then transferred to Finance and Accounting, which helped my moving foreword with my part-time job in the bank. The turning point was when I moved to the British Bank where I had the chance to get into many advanced curses and intensive training in the field of banking. I had a remarkable experience where I applied it by implementing them in several European countries. I learned how people make their money, and this is where I started investing in local and international stock markets.
My current job is providing financial advisory and financial planning services to companies, institutions, businessmen and community leaders, which I have great relations with.
Question 2: What leadership means to you?
Leadership means to me currently is to influence young people to be leaders. I am dedicating my life now to give youth the power to make decisions, helping them find their goals and work to achieve them, as well as helping them to understand their purpose and our purpose as an organization.
Question 3: How did you reach to your current job now?
I worked in the Banking sector and I built myself until I finally reached to being the Regional Director for the Central Region and a General Manager of the Bank for Private Banking Services. Banks are important areas of work; they increase knowledge and the balance of financial culture.
Question 4: What strengths do you believe you have as a leader? And how does it contribute to your current success?
I would say my greatest strength is patience, which I believe young adults lack the necessary persistence. I want to say something important; having a certificate is important, but only in very specialized disciplines. In real word, not everyone who holds a certificate succeeds in the work assigned to them, reality is much different than books. Hard work and persistence will result in success. At some point I had to work for 12 hours, it was exhausting but the results were very satisfactory and well worth it.
Question 5: what was your vision or a goal in your professional life? And how important it is to have a vision for young adults?
I beileve it is very important for young people to have a vision and identify what they can be creative in before deciding what to study and specialize in. Also, figuring out their strengths and weaknesses. Young people should invest their talents, develop their abilities, and invest their time in work to explore and find themselves as eraly as possilble. As Bill Gates said: “I did not pass some courses during my university studies, but my friend did. He now work as an Engineer in Microsoft whil I own Microsoft!”
There are multiple examples of people I know, who took advantage of their talent without having certificates. Therefore, I stress the importance of exploiting your talents and how part-time jobs are important and could be a real turn-point.
Question 6: What do you think of part-time jobs? And what you think is better as a part-time job for young people?
Working in crafts* is an important source of income for both the employee and the job seeker. There are examples of those who did not succeed in education, and went to the technical professions, and their monthly income is now equal to or more than the income of employees. Young people should not be ashamed of crafts work! electrician, air conditioning, tailor, barber.. etc. We must not shy away from crafts* work because it is an important source of income.
Question 7: Who has influenced you the most as a leader in your journey?
Prince Mishaal -- The Chairman of the Board of Trustees
He was a source of pride for me. He asked me to work with him as a Financial Advisor, then he delegated me to manage the Adminstration of Private Affairs. I learned a lot from him, he taught me not to rush to judge things and differentiate between things and decisions, as some them require urgent decision and take responsibility, while some need to be careful with, and study it before making any decision.
Question 8: What is the difference between a leader and a manger? And do you believe that leaders should make others feel strong and confident? If so, what do you do to help others feel that way?
The manager will command you to do something in a certain way, while a leader will explain to you the reason or simply tell you what is the reason. This will give you the opportunity to think freely and challenge yourself more, it is a motivational way to give others the opportunity to take the lead and “think” and make their own decisions. A leader also should be able to connect the goal to the to the general goal and vision of the organization.
A leader could predict what will happen, but when it comes to decisions he/she has to be resilient, they’re able to change the plan when it’s needed, despite a manager.
Question 9: Do you think it is important to delegate? and why?
As I said before, it is a part of the learning process to give other people the opportunity to take the lead. A leader won’t be able to do everything himself, and it is important for others to gain trust and varied experience as they might be leaders at one point. It is the leader’s responsibility to create such environment where people feel trusted and supported and they can make decisions and that the leader will be there to back them up whenever they need.
Question 10: What makes someone stand out from his peers as a leader? What are their attributes?
Enthusiasm, accountability, interpersonal skills, communication skills, and most importantly, a leader has to “sense” what the issues are. What made Steve Jobs a successful leader is his ability to sense, he had very strong feelings about what makes a company great!
Question 11: Does someone have to be a leader in all situations to be a real leader?
No at all, a leader can be leader in situations, and might not in another. It depends on the situation and the team he/she is working with, a true leader will delegate some responsibilities to others if he/she thinks they can do/handle it better.
Question 12: How would you describe your leadership style? And how the leadership style changed from 20 years ago to now? And do you think it’s become easier for young professionals or more difficult?
I always make sure we have a democratic working environment so everyone feels free to take a role and make decisions when needed, we then discuss them and figure out what changes need to be made. In other word “delegation”. A leader nowadays doesn’t have to know everything and shouldn’t be afraid to delegate. This will improve the decision-making qualities in his/her team, although the leader will have the final decision at the end. Leaders nowadays tend to influence their team and don’t depend on their power and authority.
Question 13: What are the biggest mistakes leaders make? And how they can avoid it?
Acting like a manger! A manager would have people to forcefully follow him, but if you act like a leader they will follow you because they want to, not they have to. You have to make them like you, then you will be a successful leader.
Peer interview:
Name: Abdulmalik Al-K, is 24-year-old guy, graduated from ABC with GPA of 4 majoring in Architecture Engineering. He is currently working as a Project Coordinator at National Housing Company (NHC), and a Graphic Designer working at my Marketing Agency.
He is very creative and inspires me a lot. Although we both work in the same field of graphic design, but he worked on himself for the past seven years. I wanted to interview him for a couple reasons. First, he is one of the best graphic designers in my country. Second, he has very strong aura of positivity, energy, and creativity that everyone would like to know the secret behind it. Also, after we are done with the interview I plan to share it with other team members to get motivated and inspired by him. And it could be a good start to then interview the other members as well.
Question1: Can you tell us more about your background and how did you start logo design?
Since I was a kid I loved creating and building stuff like LEGO. My parents noticed that so they nurtured this side of me and everyone started calling me Engineer when I was only 5 years old. When I was 13 my parents gave a room equipped with everything just for building stuff from wood. When I reached 16 I got confident about majoring in Architecture. I then applied for a scholarship to study in the States and I got it. Logo design started with me when Photoshop started to be common in 2004, I liked playing and editing photos, fake some logos for my family members, I improved skills on all Adobe programs. I was sharing my logos on the internet for a long time because I love what I am doing and was very proud of myself, until a Make-up Artist asked me for a logo and I did one for her for free. She was surprised and insisted to give me money for it and then she was the one who convinced me to freelance logo design, and I started from there. I sat a plan and targeted only small businesses. I came to the States and continued and improved myself more and it helped me a lot with my studies. I marketed my work with logos for fake businesses and I suddenly became one of the famous and youngest logo design in my country.
Question 2: How moving to the States changed your personality? And how did you succeed between logo design and school? When did you notice you had a goal?
Moving to the States was something I planned for a long time and I really wanted it. This helped me accepting any challenges or difficulties. Before moving I was a dependent person and my parents decided for the first time not to direct me. I found myself all alone in a different country, different culture, and different language! I worked on myself and built a very strong and independent personality. Everything was easy to me because I had a goal in my head and I worked hard to achieve it at any price. My goal was to graduate with a high GPA, go back home and work at NHC, which is where I am working at now. Through six years I lived it in the States, whenever I had something to do I always ask myself if it is going to help me reach my long-term goal! For example, I was making sure all my elective courses were related to my the job I am planning to get in the future. My friends always saw me as someone who makes great decisions so I always was the one people come to and ask about everything.
I made sure to fill my free time completely with my business. Simply because I love what I am doing, so it was a priority for me. I took advantage of every second learning something new or getting into new businesses.. etc
To-do list was a life saver for me, I made sure I note everything at least for a month in advance.
Question 3: What kind of challenges you faced in your professional life? And how did you deal with it?
When I got my dream job I was working on my business with you and I also was in another business that I got into because he was my friend and I was so excited. I reached a point where I literally had no personal life, no socializing, I was only working, I could not see my family regularly and clients were complaining as logos need a continuous communication with clients. I was about to give up, but then I sat my priorities what is important and what is not and finally decided to get out of my friend’s business and dedicated extra time to my family and of course I sat time to learn something new and improve my skills.
Question 4: Do you have particular sources for inspiration, such as the work of other designers, or general sources?
My grandfather is my source for inspiration. He is the definition of a leader, he started from zero and built himself and now he is a well-known businessman in my country. His advices to me never put me down and he believed in me, he trusted me and sometimes he delegated work to me because he believed in me, he believed I could do anything!
His advice is to always be with people who have a goal and have ambition. And stick with those who are older and have more experiences and ask them how did they reach to their positions and get as much feedback from them. He always says this expression: “Do not eat a big bite”, meaning getting as many advices even if they were simple ones.
Question 5: Is it common for clients to request changes? If yes, how do you deal with it?
Always! One of the most difficult logos I worked on I spent 7 months working on it. They requested many changes and the price they paid was very low compared to the duration. This thing what differentiate me than other logo designers is that I let the changes requests open for clients as many as they want. But when I accepted the request I did not know that 11 people are behind this client, so I had to convince at least 6 of them to accept the logo. I was very patient and I worked on their requests until they asked me to create a complete new logo! I was about to give up and decided to give them their money back, but when I thought about it I realized the logo was for an App, and this is my first experience. If the App succeeded then I will gain a lot and it will benefit me. I had to be more patient and I did the logo and it was a complete success and opened closed door to me! I’m very glad I didn’t give up!
Question 6: How do you handle a disagreement with the product owners when you know they're wrong?
When a client asks me for a logo that is not my style I try to talk to him and convince him. If he insisted I don’t say no but I don’t publish the logo as one of my work and let him know for sure about my opinion. I learned that clients’ satisfaction is the most important thing in my business.
Question 7: How would you describe your relationship with your leader at work? And how do you take advantage of this?
My leader who is my advisor now really liked me and liked my work and he invited me to move to his department. He completely changed my path, I was working in a different direction but he noticed my strengths and directs me to PMO, which is a very different path! The first thing he told me when I moved to his department is that he doesn’t want me to apply things as ABC, he told me that he made lots of mistakes and he will always wait for me to correct him. And I did, he gave me the confidence I needed to share my ideas and give suggestions freely.
Question 8: What was the worst criticism you received from a client? And how did you deal with it after?
A client once said my logo is stolen from the Internet and he wanted to sue me. I was very calm with him and showed him the logo steps and I paid for a program to check how authentic is my logo just to gain back the client’s trust.
Question 9: What are your goals in the future or what do you want to be?
