Dr Sahloul Leadership

The term leader is defined as one who commands or leads, and it is one that has been in Dr. Zaher Sahloul’s dictionary for quite some time now. Dr. Sahloul is a full-time physician at Advocate Christ Medical Center, practicing critical care and pulmonology, with a subspecialty in sleep medicine. Since he immigrated to this country in the early 1990s, Dr. Sahloul has served on boards such as the Bernadin Center of Catholic Theological Union, the Illinois Coalition for Immigrants and Refugee Rights, and the Illinois State Muslim Advisory Council. But in March of 2011, Dr. Sahloul’s life changed when his homeland became the center of violence, extremism, and humanitarian disaster. Dr. Sahloul grew up in the city of Homs, Syria’s third largest

Sahloul was elected as president of the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), one of the Syrian diaspora’s leading medical organizations. The mission of SAMS changed completely when the humanitarian crisis broke out in Syria. Once in the business of bettering the public health system in Syria, now an organization that was in the business of saving lives 24/7. In his two terms as president, SAMS became one the leading medical relief and advocacy organizations in the world, recognized by the United Nations, the White House, and the U.S. State Department. The organization, under Dr. Sahloul’s leadership, extended its reach into Syria’s neighboring countries: Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, and Iraq, to provide immediate medical care to refugees. Over the course of nearly six-year conflict, SAMS set up makeshift hospital after makeshift hospital in besieged areas in Syria, and Dr. Sahloul himself delivered supplies and worked in a majority of the hospitals. Every couple months, he would lead a group of physicians through the battlefield into opposition held areas to deliver much needed medical supplies and technology, and treat injured civilians. In the summer of 2015, Dr. Sahloul collected evidence of a chemical weapons attack on the Syrian city Sarmin, and presented this information to the United Nations Security Council. Unfortunately, no action was taken against the Assad government for using chemical weapons on its own

Sahloul on his work with SAMS and how his understanding of leadership shaped his ideas in moving forward. Dr. Sahloul defines leadership as formalizing the right and timely vision based on the potentials of the followers, leveraging available resources, and the ability to steer the ship to unchartered territories with foresight, perseverance, and flexibility. These traits fall in line with the traditional leadership theory, but Dr. Sahloul does consider his style of leadership is a healthy mixture of numerous leadership styles. He says that, “My style of leadership can fall somewhere in between transformational, visionary, and strong leadership. I believe that people and organizations have great but untapped potentials. With the right vision, training, and nurturing, they can accomplish a lot and reach new frontiers.” (Clarke, Concept 1, Slide 13, Bullet 3) Dr. Sahloul sees it as necessary to emphasize tapping people’s potential through meaning, shared learning, and empowerment. In turn, you draw on emotional intelligence, political and social sensitivity, and transparency (Clarke, Concept 1, Slide 15). Dr. Sahloul exclaims that leadership’s core competencies include: honesty, resilience, flexibility, timing, crisis management, foresight, optimism, and an understanding of people. His leadership attributes more or less fall in line with the universal attributes of leadership provided to us in our lecture on concept