Usama Shaharyar: World's Best Emerging Leader 2022

WCRCLEADERS in conversation with Usama Shaharyar, Co Founder and General Manager, Rasa Communication, Saudi Arabia

Usama Shaharyar, Co Founder and General Manager, Rasa Communication, KSA

What makes a strong leader? What are your key leadership strengths make the strongest attributes of success?

Leadership is an art — which means there's no right way to do it. Leadership is an attitude, an intuition built over time. Leadership involves "someone else," even if they don't have to be direct reports or people who have a financial or social obligation to do what you tell them to do. There's always a purpose, something that needs to get done. There's a goal at the end, and you and someone else are working together to achieve it.

Even though there are many leadership styles, you can judge if one certain approach works or not by one simple metric: is that leader getting the outcome they want?

Specifically, it's about the purpose and the people: is the goal set out by them being achieved, and are the people they're leading happy as they work towards that goal?

To do these, a great leader has to be someone who can identify and strike the right balance between what are usually two opposing ideas.

1. Communicating top-down but also bottom-up

2. Having strong convictions but continuing to learn

6. Understanding multi-generational workplace

As much as we all might wish there were, there isn't a playbook for being an incredible leader. That's why we see successful leaders with so many different styles. There are multiple ways to influence others and share a vision, and there's no one right way.

An accomplishment that you consider the most significant in your career? What challenges did you face to reach success?

One of my most significant accomplishments in my career is the startup of Rasa Communication in 2012 as a co-founder. I started the startup being alone, doing everything by myself, and now reaching more than 100 staff, providing various solutions to our customers. The biggest challenge was to find the right employees to join our company to drive our mission.