Leading in the GCC makes for a very unique experience for which many leaders are not prepared. At best, leaders come into the region having given some thought about working in an Arab environment. But the uniqueness of leading in the Gulf work environment is not limited to understanding the local Arab culture (although this will greatly help). The real uniqueness is that most companies have 25-35 different nationalities represented on their local payroll and as a leader you are expected to lead multiple nationalities on the same team in the same office location.

Not only is this very unique, it is creating one of the most challenging leadership environments known in modern history.

The challenge in the region is more than the complexity of working across a multitude of nationalities in a single location. The real challenge resides in the converging of the developed markets and the emerging markets in the midst of the local Arab culture.

Comparisons

To aid in understanding what this means for you as a leader here are four high level comparisons between the Western (or developed) markets and the emerging markets that you need to consider:

1. The Western Corporate Society where business stems from mechanistic mentality compared to the emerging markets' first generation corporate citizens where business stems from family mentality.

2. The ageing population in the West compared to youth bulge in the region and east.

3. The individual orientation from the Western markets compared to group orientation in the emerging markets.

4. Guilt and innocence mindset in the Western markets compared to the honour and shame mindset in the emerging markets.

For each one of the above, you should pause and ask yourself, "What does this mean for me as a leader?"

Now for the question that we all want to know the answer to, "Where does leadership success in the emerging markets come from?" It comes from (1) knowing employees; and (2) adapting your leadership approach.

First off, every leader needs to get to know his/her employees. Many times there is great confusion in the exchange when the leader fails to take into consideration the background of the employees. This is really common sense and should be a universal practice, but in this challenging work environment, it needs to be on steroids. Here are a series of questions to aid you in getting to know your employees:

• What demographic factors are shaping your workforce?

• What cultural factors do your employees bring into the workforce?

• How was your employees understanding of customer orientation developed?

• How was their performance understanding developed?

• Where does their understanding of an organisation/corporation come from?

Once you are able to answer these basic questions, you will be able to motivate and develop your employees to be able to work to their fullest potential.

It is also worthwhile taking a moment and personally answering each of these.

Success as a leader in the region is going to require that you spend time getting to know who your multi-nationality workforce is and then adapting your style if you want to motivate them to success.

 

The writer is Vice-President Leadership Solutions, Kenexa.