Three years ago, I set out to answer, “What makes Dubai so successful?” Convinced it was leadership, I specifically wanted to know what is that leaders do here to consistently deliver grand results.
Through my research, I discovered 12 habits (as explained in the book ‘Leadership Dubai Style’) that have passed the test of time (from 1833) and from one generation to the next.
Here are the habits needed if you want to achieve remarkable results:
1. Lead today for tomorrow’s future
Since the earliest days of Dubai, its leaders have been focused on the future. Not just a few years into the future, but generations ahead, with the clear purpose to help their people attain personal economic prosperity. All actions and decisions are made with this purpose in mind, and with a long-term view.
2. Have an ambitious appetite
Life wasn’t easy in early Dubai. Cholera plagued the city, there was no electricity, and leaders had few natural resources to fall back on. In other words, there was a real hunger of need. Dubai had to advance, develop, and grow to survive.
This survival ambition eventually became habitual. The hunger of need became a hunger of habit as Dubai began to build an economy and moved on from the survival stage.
3. Act decisively and give direction
Democracy isn’t necessarily the law of the land. In Dubai, leaders lead. There is a culture of centralised decision making.
Make no mistakes about it: this is a fair and empowering autocratic style. In Dubai, you are expected to decide and lead in accordance with your level of accountability.
4. Create an environment where others succeed
On the surface, it looked like Dubai had nothing to offer its early settlers. That is, until the town’s leaders created an environment where others could succeed. A century before the official decree establishing the city’s first ‘free trade zone’, Dubai lured expats onto its lands with the promise of free trade.
Leaders knew that if others succeeded, so would Dubai.
5. Stick with the strategy
Creating an environment for others to succeed in the early 1900s depended on Dubai leveraging its location as a hub, albeit a small one. Over the 115 years that followed, Dubai stuck with the “hub” strategy and continued to leverage its location.
Today the emirate has become a global meta-hub, but still sticks to the same fundamental strategy. This strategy was in place yesterday, and will be tomorrow.
6. Be brave to maximise a bubble and sprint away from crisis
Crises are a reality, so instead of working to avoid them at all costs, maximise the growth opportunities when they arise and minimise the post-crises moments. Crisis leadership is a sprint — into and out of crises.
7. Keep the focus — where you look, they’ll look
Where the leader looks, the people will go. In Dubai not only do leaders decide, they have a tunnel vision and not get distracted by what’s on the periphery. They give a clear direction to their people and keep them focused on the same goal.
8. Micro-Monitor without micromanaging
Just setting a direction isn’t enough. Execution is the mantra of leadership success, and this requires personally making sure that a project is coming along well. There is no better way to ensure this than proactively, informally monitoring.
9. Don’t accept “Good Enough” as good enough
“It’s good enough” is never good enough in Dubai. A hunger of habit means leaders in Dubai are constantly pursuing ways to get better. Leaders should always be searching for faster and better ways of doing things.
10. Be loyal in order to get loyalty
‘Follower-ship’ isn’t taken for granted in Dubai. Perhaps from a painful memory, or just from good old-fashioned common sense, leaders here know that loyalty is more important than positional authority. Loyalty in Dubai is bidirectional: both parties in “the circle of loyalty” must give and receive.
11. Consult to be informed while avoiding the consensus limitation
Consensus stalls the progress of leadership, but leaders can’t act in a void and away from the people. Between the two extremes is the “majlis” — a communal setting where you can listen to your people to know and understand, and then make a decision based upon their input, your purpose, and the overall strategy. Consulting with your people doesn’t mean abdicating to them. It is simply a wise way to be informed.
12. Develop future leaders today
Tomorrow’s leaders are today’s leader’s responsibility. With a clear eye on the future, today’s leaders should build up those who will lead tomorrow, almost to an obsession.
Dubai’s history of leadership succession and a consistent approach to leading means passing on the torch is in the leaders’ DNA.
Lead with the habits ...
