Interview with Salar Khan, MD., MBA., author of Unlocking the Natural Born Leader's Abilities

Leaders orchestrate commands to people in order to accomplish objectives pertinent and in accordance with their personal principles and intentions. This book sets to identify the qualities and abilities of a certain kind of leader, which I refer to as the natural-born leader (NBL). The NBL possesses innate traits, refined and perfected over time with education, training, and experience. I will attempt to illustrate these traits by drawing from my fifty years of personal experiences and hope readers will look at this as an opportunity to introspect. I have also designed a self-assessment tool so you may self-evaluate the presence of these NBL abilities and identify where you ultimately fall on the spectrum.

Today, there is widespread lack of confidence in leadership whether in business, government, education, or elsewhere. The vision of a confident leader, that of an NBL, is needed for the betterment of the world.

Question1- Could you please tell us a little about your book? The title of my book is: “Unlocking the Natural Born Leader’s Abilities: An Autobiographical Expose”

Question2 – Who or what is the inspiration behind this book? Currently, there is widespread lack of confidence in leadership -whether in business, government, education, or elsewhere. Leaders have fear of failure, and therefore, they cannot perform well. I believe the world is facing a crisis when it comes to leadership; our society needs more positive thinkers. We need the vision of a confident leader -that of an NBL is needed for the betterment of the world. This was my main motivation and inspiration for writing this book. My observations and experiences throughout the last 50 years of my life also have served as an inspiration. I remembered my parents provided a foundation of achieving confidence by teaching me to set smaller tasks or targets in my daily life. Having a clear goal in mind is imperative achieving success. Free to make self- decision, analyzing mistake, after achieving target or goal feel happy and self-rewarding yourself.    An incident made me realize how unpredictable life can really be. On Sunday, March 6, 2016, at about 6:00 pm, the thirty-six-year-old son of my elder sister was sitting on a carpet at home, working on his laptop. He had no history of any illness when, all of a sudden, he dropped dead on the carpet. There was nothing—no warning, no signs, and no symptoms. In two to three seconds, he had already departed. Life honestly doesn’t play on anyone’s timetable except its own. And so, I was compelled to start writing this book in December 2016.

Question3- What cause are you most passionate about and why? I feel most passionate about teaching others through my 50 years of experience. I believe that by reading this book readers will instill some of my teachings regarding leadership and apply them to their real-world situations. In this way, I hope my teachings can serve to better the world.

Question4- Do you have any rituals you follow when you finish a piece of work? I have no rituals.

Question5- Who has influenced you throughout your writing career? As far as it concerns specifically writing, I would say no one.

Question6- What are some of your long-term goals? Working on writing a second book and several books in future. Now I love writing to serve humanity, giving them good guidance to improve their personal and professional lives.

Salar Ahmed Khan, MD, MBA, FACA, FCCP, DTCD, MCPS, worked as an Internist and Pulmonologist at Karachi, Pakistan from 1985-87; as the Chief of Medicine, the Acting Director of Medical Services, and Acting Hospital Director at Al-Midhnab General Hospital under the Ministry of Health in Saudi Arabia from 1988-93; as the Associate Professor Medicine at Baqai Medical College and Hospital in Karachi, Pakistan from 1993-94; as a Surgical Assistant, Material Management, and Acting Central Processing Supervisor at Edge Water Medical Center in Chicago from 1996-2000. He is working as a program specialist at Chicago, Illinois since 2000. He was nominated and won several awards at national and international levels. In his spare time, he enjoys cooking, photography, and watching sport, like cricket. He lives in Chicago, Illinois with his wife and two sons.