Prince Mohammed bin Salman - the man behind the political leader

Only a personal opinion

By Dr. Howaida Hisham El Halabi

Senior Advisor at Delivery & Rapid Intervention Centre - DARIC

Under the Council for Economic and Development Affairs- CEDA in Riyadh - Saudi Arabia

Many writers published articles showing the Leader and politician qualities in the person of His Royal Highness Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Prince Mohammed bin Salman but they did not address the real characteristics behind this young Saudi man full of ambition, perseverance and continuous due diligence even in his own way. His dreams and responsibility towards those dreams have pushed him to make them crystallized into a reality that we all wish to live & witness to the degree of realizing each of our dreams along the way of Saudi Vision. His dream simply reflects it; it says bluntly ... Transformation is due. This step has made Saudi Arabia jump with a qualitative leap from what it was before to what it is now and continuing to progress and prosper while struggling all the time to fasten the time wheel and quicken it to where the rest of the world is now and recuperate all the time lost while dragged into turbulences & delays. It is a vision of a young man who has found himself dreaming yet can achieve this dream just like all his Saudi peers who are definitely ambitious and proud of their homeland and have enough loyalty to impart the spirit of development, progress and growth towards a better future in a coherent and harmonious world of science, knowledge and success. It is this same young man who made reality come true with an army of promising Saudi youth that is moving with growing love towards a better future, in God’s willing.

Yes, he is the leader who has been bestowed the ruling of the Saudi state under the rule of his father, may God prolong his life & protect him. His morals, culture and ethics made him responsible for this great national dream and bear the previous culture despite all the difficulties and all the conditions he passed without fatigue or lassitude but with true thoroughness and conscientiousness for his full faith in Allah Almighty is the first and foremost support & care taker all the time. He has realized that the time has already come to form the global cohesion and integration with other countries in the world as a natural and logical situation that any new country was established and to clarify the boundaries and the recognition of the international entity that was created to stay and continue. This young Saudi man carried the flag of the fourth state of the Saudi kingdom of as a national responsibility. He carried the light torch for the Saudi people to be ahead of evolutionary thinking and development like any young Saudi wants to have a better conditioned homeland. Many people do not understand or misunderstand the real concept behind this dream of his. They do not realize how passionate this young man is. They underestimate his experience and undermine his expertise.

Yes!! He is an expert!! Whether you like it or not. He is.

He knows much more than others would think. Some managements schools say: Age does not limit nor define your experience. Unlike the Arab proverb that says... he who is older of one day knows better & ahead of you at least of one year. The experience of this young man has come to him as he loves to hear others, listens carefully to them where his understanding proficiency is an ability to record & register the lesson learned behind every story or conversation he hears. This is scientifically called qualitative acquired experience and not realistic acquired experience according to well-known theories of human profiling. Both are based on the analysis of human characteristics which lead to identification & definition of any personality profile. The human profiling science is part of the graduate studies I have specialized in and worked with in the field of human resources, where my experience largely & intensively lies in advanced human calibers analysis and of their working subordinates & crews that will team up to work together. Profiling measures Leadership skills in numerical proportions & rate whether they were acquired by his search for knowledge such as normal study or self-development or other higher standards of learning & training but in all cases was developed in ordinary natural environment such as the Compare and Reconcile approach where different administrative positions are plotted in a parallel pattern to check direct, opposite or different actions and reactions. The end result of this methodological analysis of patterns of the human personality is to position this person i.e. Leader and employ him/her in the right place at the right time. The scientific approach we used here within is based on analyzing the style of actions that have resulted from the environment, early education, higher education, influence of culture, exposure to different types of human beings and their influence by interaction and behavior of this clever distinguished young man who is highly communicative although he is a non-verbal direct expressionist. This meant that his awareness of the skills he has and his ability to recognize his development needs and work hard to improve them thus increase his leadership talents. It is known that MbS has a charismatic character that he was born with for sure. He likes to simplify things and make them less complicated preferably direct and straight. This trait has led to increase his confidence and speed up his awareness of all revolving & evolving events around the translation and meanings of past history and its repetition according to the lessons learned, where he has already listened to carefully and recorded the gain in the balance sheet of his added experience.

Can you imagine the number of real lessons learned this young man has been exposed to in his journey of silence to learn until he became in his position? Countless!!

Here we need to go back to the recent past. 1981 AD. What was the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia like? I was then 16 years’ young girl living in Jeddah. I was studying at one of the first girls' schools at that time (Dar al-Hanan) in the second secondary school. A school that was created by her royal highness Princess Effat Al Thunayan, the wife of the deceased king Faisal ibn Abdulaziz Al Saud, god bless both their souls. Girls’ schools at that time were a novelty. Not usual to educate your females. Believe me, you would only know that era if you only asked any Saudi woman who lived in that far-off age what was it like then. Because even then as young Saudi girls, we knew we were going on ... and continuing to be part of something!

Imagine what this young vibrant man has survived as a child until he was 10 years old? That is, his youth in the early nineties spent with a dynamic royal environment where the usual rhythm of events is based on no daily monotony and youth have life struggles considered quiet abundant all over Saudi all at the same time. If you knew Saudi Arabia at that time or lived in it or experienced the nature of its people, encountered the original civilians at that time, it would have explained to you the picture or just a glimpse or part of it. You would have most likely understood the impact it had on the prince young boy. The pace of this acceleration and wrestling were the biggest credit in creating a kind of archetype in this young personality as he began to record events in his memory data base imitating this Japanese Samurai warrior& wrestler who rises up and fights when his honor is in jeopardy or needs to defend all that he owns, especially his land and his countrymen & women who have experienced with him as young people emerging from the ever changing era & events of the country without stopping or slowing down in the rush of daily life, especially with the beginning of 1991. What did this young man and his people experience after 1991? Does any of you remember how it was? What did Saudi Arabia experience in these ten years then? All of us remember and know everything about that historical period we went through. These are the ten years that have made Saudi Arabia, the Middle East as a whole and the whole world look at its events and news on a daily & constant basis.

Do you remember how Saudi was after the collapse of the second millennium and the journey of years for the Kingdom from 2001 to 2010 in the whirlwind of news and media with this sudden exposure to the internet where all kinds of social networking & social media opening on Saudi Arabia its doors to be Online all the time? Do you remember how it was after 9/11? Imagine? How do you think was the impact of the accumulation of those events taking place in Saudi homeland where this young Saudi spent the spring watching silently? Just a viewer watching ongoing scenes? As we all witnessed. As we were all a generation that endured changes like skin wraps. This young man has learned more in this period of time than any human mind can record on its own. The influence on his character and the crystallization of his personality became proactive and full of endurance, patience, and perseverance. He struggled to create himself and develop it first so that he can face the circumstances ahead. This was for him the stage of self-development, which he worked hard with the intelligence and integrity of the diligent striving for success and excellence, which makes you believe that he wants to move rocks, mountains and valleys in the sense of obstacles, pitfalls and obstacles that faced the Kingdom as a country that suffered long periods of stagnation and slow march. This explains his continuous need to look forward to a time of stability and balance in his life along other Saudi citizens that were & still are thirsty as much as he is. He trained himself to understand people around him and read them carefully and extensively as he listened carefully to what they said and learned all what can be used so that this ability would allow him easily to respond quickly when needed. He was asking the right questions to get the right information required to know all the facts from honest people around him. He was part of this generation that came out with this young Saudi motivator influencing anyone approaching him. All he wanted and still wants is only to achieve for himself and his country by creating a healthy environment for his children and his country to be full of integrity, high loyalty, motivated by honesty … He is that young man who seeks to achieve his main goal to change his homeland for the better and push it towards a better future. This need to transform the future of Saudi Arabia by drawing smart and fruitful goals, Time-based implementation plans where he used management by objectives followed by a clear plan directed towards the achievement of absolute and purely outputs without allowing any frustration or restlessness to address his door.

Ask yourself then ... what is the shame in this young leader and all his team of practitioners whether scientific executives or advisories to create a dynamic entity parallel to the dynamic Saudi youth, active and promising to be perseverant for the success of this beloved country?

He just went on every possible lightning speed he could use to make his country go beyond all this stumbling and overcome the delay endured in a serious quest to transform it into a strong country like a truly global entity, with an international worthiness, seeking a proud social balance, building a defensive force with pride, establishing advanced education with confidence, providing medical and social services comparatively standardized as other international countries that seek to develop their countries because it is the right of every citizen of any country in the world? What is wrong if he pushed the passion of this outstanding young man to race towards a better tomorrow as an educated and confident strategist who want to fulfill his duty towards this country?

What is wrong if he wants to resort as any senior executive would do to any of the international companies and seek the help of experts, intellectuals, scientists and thinkers, or anyone who has a positive thinking and passion to be appointed in his responsibility and national task?

What is wrong if this young man who is a good listener wants to visit the outside world and invite them to visit us, increase our tourism and our investments, by bringing in additional income to a country such as Saudi Arabia where God’s wonders are present to all availability. Many pilgrims came to Saudi Arabia for Hajj or Umrah as it took the responsibility of continuously working to protect the sacred Islamic lands and to receive the honor of its service. A country that only depends on oil and oil exploration from its land to put budgets and expenses to manage and ensure a decent life for all its citizens and create justice and stability.

What is the defect or mistake if this lucky young man has committed to change a country that is always attacked and criticized in all media for one reason or another? A country on the world map like the rest of the other countries? What is wrong if he is a supporter of Saudi women being half of the Saudi society, supporting her by making her an active proud part the whole? Where she can work and has an impact on the development and progress of her country? To give her the ability to move without fear or anxiety in her car from her home to her workplace and save her rights by giving her priorities to be chosen if she wants to work. To make Saudi women the basic pillar of citizenship such as all others in any other homeland.

All of the above is a reality and we are living it right now.

2018 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia… is the year of stability formation where the stage of evolution and transformation and change have started. It is the dream that this ambitious young man saw when he was a boy and a frequent witness to this homogeneous balanced and cohesive community that is fulfilling this continuous future towards a better tomorrow with consistency and confidence.

And then you realize that this young man is now in the custody of this country and you must then interact with this national unity to provide back what it gave you in your youth. It becomes then necessary for you without thinking twice that you need to put a hand in & help in this intertwined great work that is happening, associate to the transition of the comprehensive transformation of your homeland and help your brothers and sisters to participate in achieving your dream and the dreams of your homeland. You are accountable before God of your knowledge and work to the benefit of all the people around you. You also realize that this man has been a strong cause for your vital integration into a society that wants to excel and wants to succeed in the best possible ways. You will further realize if you have continued to think about your national duty for a longer period than the first 10 minutes that this young man has given you and your children the opportunity to live in a future filled with peace of mind, family harmony and human dignity.

You come to realize at the end how dignified, responsible, daring, and dynamically intellectual, mentally and physically this young man might carry his warrior suit instead of you in his war for a promising future to this land.

Yupp!! He is that human leader... Prince Mohammed bin Salman.