Part 1
The name of the leader that I would like to discuss within the framework of the current paper is Dr. Mugheer Khamis Al Khaili. He is a member of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council and a former Chairman of the Health Authority. The two traits that Al Khalili possesses are humility and authenticity. The concept of humility may be most visible in his attempts to develop a sustainable environment within the Emirati and contribute to social innovations (Al Khalili, 2020). As an effective leader, Al Khalili enabled the vision of his father, Sheikh Zayed, and made sure that the mission to improve the quality of life in Abu Dhabi would remain active. In order to respond to the ever-changing environment in the United Arab Emirates and Abu Dhabi in particular, Al Khalili made the best use of the support of his partners who were also interested in the Nation’s prosperity. As for the concept of authenticity, this leader’s activities are guided by the values of respect and responsibility as his biggest aspiration is to attain a distinguished level of quality of life for all the people living in Abu Dhabi. Al Khalili managed to display his authenticity while addressing the need to invest in local talent and made sure that the Department of Community Development would also take part in innovative activities (Al Khalili, 2020). Al Khalili’s authenticity may be seen in the cooperative environment that has been praised across the Emirati and many cases of social participation and contribution that involved the Family Development Foundation, Social Support Authority, and the Social Care and Minor Affairs Foundation.
As for the cognitive factors that characterize Al Khalili as a unique leader, I would like to point out his extensive insight into people and situations and the ability to apply farsightedness and conceptual thinking practically under any circumstances. As one of the key individuals who laid the foundation for the community development activities, Al Khalili gained extensive insight into how to build a cooperative environment and achieve positive results with the help of a strategic partnership with the Abu Dhabi Housing Authority (Abu Dhabi Department of Community Development, 2020). Throughout his career, Al Khalili established numerous partnerships that allowed him to take care of the Emirati residents during each stage of their lives. The initiatives that he proposes are always focused on the personal achievements of Abu Dhabi residents because Al Khalili believes that every authority program should be designed to innovate and facilitate human lives without negatively affecting them. The distinctive social environment of Abu Dhabi is also taken into consideration because of the leader’s willingness to embrace every culture. The concept of farsightedness and conceptual thinking is also important because it helps Al Khalili to combine all the available resources and skills to build commitment among his followers and encourage more active participation among the Emirati residents (Abu Dhabi Department of Community Development, 2020). In response, the Government contributes to his incentives and extends its investments to make sure that the community is going to receive all the necessary resources that could be used to reduce the number of cultural misunderstandings and enhance the visibility of individuals who previously suffered from social exclusion and discrimination. Al Khalili’s leadership is transparent and builds upon social accountability and active civilian participation.
Part 2
When speaking of the characteristics of charismatic leaders that Al Khalili possesses, it may be safe to point out his masterful communication skills and a self-promoting personality. When communicating his ideas on how the Emirati students could be motivated to pursue careers in science, Al Khalili encouraged everyone and lauded the school and teachers’ efforts (Abu Dhabi City Guide, 2020). He was rather excited to claim that educational activities set the foundation for further innovations and improvements that could be utilized to demonstrate the fact that Abu Dhabi authorities and organizations possess the resources and knowledge required to equip students with all the necessary technology and help them attain educational objectives. Al Khalili’s prudent communication allowed for the transformation of the educational environment and deployment of a New School Model. In addition, his self-promoting personality enabled the Emirati to move away from a traditional form of education to promote the values included in its holistic counterpart. Al Khalili is a critical thinker who places the emphasis on this problem-solving attitude and makes sure that students may be just as successful as he is. Therefore, he promotes unique career paths and gives Abu Dhabi students multiple chances to develop capabilities that Al Khalili possesses himself.
One of the potential ways to improve Al Khalili’s leadership would be to develop two additional traits, which are energy and action orientation and a visionary approach to efforts focused on community. The energy and action orientation trait should be excelled in order to help Al Khalili gain a shared responsibility for the government and establish more community efforts intended to engage the private sector and Abu Dhabi residents. As an enabling person, Al Khalili would have a chance to rebuild the job market with the help of locals and contribute to the shared wealth of Abu Dhabi. In turn, he would achieve a much more economically sustainable environment that is able to respond to the nation’s aspirations and needs in a timely manner. As for the visionary part, Al Khalili may be interested in establishing an all-inclusive agenda that would embrace a positive communal aptitude and a focus on meaningful change. In a sense, the leader would become much more aware of the social issues in the region and gain more insight into how he could empower the locals and resolve social issues that hinder the opportunities of community development.
Based on the information presented in Chapter 3 of DuBrin’s (2015) book, it may be concluded that Al Khalili is a transformational leader. First, he takes an evidence-based approach to his decisions and only addresses community needs when its segments require improvements. Under Al Khalili’s guidance, a volunteering-based ecosystem has been developed that turned Abu Dhabi residents into active contributors to an engaged community. For example, the Be Active initiative that was launched under the guidance of the Department of Community Development and Al Khalili’s personal supervision showed that the community could benefit from different types of activities intended to improve civic health and more (Dajani, 2020). Al Khalili is a transformational leader because he comes up with new projects to deploy their pilot versions and see how the community would respond. His ultimate idea is to apply joint efforts and help all segments of Abu Dhabi society prosper and unlock the full potential of proposed solutions.
Part 3
The first relationship-oriented behavior that I would like to discuss is Al Khalili’s ability to create inspiration and visibility. As one of the executives overseeing the Department of Community Development, he is one of the individuals that recurrently enable and empower the local population to contribute to more qualitative services and accessible care, for example. Every strategy that Al Khalili offers gets through the vision of the emirate and every member of society gets to decide whether they are going to support the proposed initiative or not. This means that the leader’s decisions inspire members of society to improve their quality of life and become more determined when it comes to awareness and assistance. An example of this could be Al Khalili’s willingness to support Abu Dhabi residents throughout every stage of their life (Oxford Business Group, 2020). On the other hand, the leader in question masterfully addresses the idea of promoting certain values and principles. It means that his research-based decisions are always informed by the needs of the local population and nurture sustainability. One of the initiatives that prove the existence of Al Khalili’s attention toward values and principles is that his team conducted a survey that helped the Department to gain the latest insights on education, health, security, and quality of life.
The first task-oriented behavior that can be reviewed is Al Khalili’s strong inclination toward high-performance standards. Every strategy that he outlined throughout his career always reflected the interests of the community and was based on the idea that social development cannot be achieved without an effective interaction between the government and citizens (with the private sector also contributing to the end result from time to time). Al Khalili’s high-performance standards are based on the idea that everyone’s best efforts should be exerted in order to enable collaboration and enhance the community (Oxford Business Group, 2020). The leader quickly acknowledged the importance of the government and made sure that all three parties are working together to resolve the existing issues. The second task-oriented behavior is hands-on guidance and feedback. Al Khalili recurrently gains feedback from every participant in order to ensure that adequate support may be provided to every person who contributed to the development of a better community in one way or another. The best example here could be Al Khalili’s efforts to make housing more accessible through a series of decisions that affected the existing living standards and made the society much more inclusive (Oxford Business Group, 2020). Accordingly, Al Khalili sets a positive example and motivates Abu Dhabi residents to develop tolerance and an innovation-driven attitude.
To conclude this section, I would like to state that Al Khalili is a participative leader who knows how to operate his followers and generate change even when there are no clear regulations or clear objectives. Through social participation, he focuses on the process of designing policies and contributing to Abu Dhabi’s social sector. Al Khalili’s willingness to draw more volunteers and professionals to the process of developing the community into an attractive environment. Many organizations accelerate their investments in social development because they see how Al Khalili’s incentives reward non-profit activities and ecosystems that move away from unnecessary resources (Oxford Business Group, 2020). Instead of corporate social responsibility, Al Khalili promotes corporate social investment because he believes that such an attitude makes the interaction much more powerful.
Part 4
The one decision that I am going to discuss within the framework of the current paper related to a situation that occurred in 2011 when a high school female teacher was temporarily suspended due to coming to the school drunk (Ahmed, 2011). The decision to suspend was made by Al Khalili, as he was the director-general of the Abu Dhabi Education Council at that time. The leader discussed the matter with the school principal and made an informed decision that required the teacher to remain suspended for the period of investigation. As Ahmed (2011) also outlined in his news article, the teacher displayed unacceptable behaviors but Al Khalili decided to look at all the available evidence before finally questioning the need to fire the given teacher. At the time when the incident occurred, the teacher was caught breaking the code of conduct that every teacher receives when they begin teaching. Knowing this, Al Khalili managed to evade quick, uninformed decisions and made sure that every other teacher meets the necessary expectations and respects the given code of conduct.
It may be stated that, in accordance with the Normative Decision Model, Al Khalili picked the best possible decision-making model and engaged in proper consultation with the principle and other agencies to evaluate the situation from several points of view and evade making the decision alone. Knowing that Al Khalili has made the decision while taking into consideration the gravity of alcohol consumption in the UAE, it is safe to say that the decision was also highly acceptable on all organizational levels. The management style that affected the decision-making process the most was the extensive group participation. Al Khalili displayed an incredible level of commitment to the support of Abu Dhabi education and proved that the educational environment could be much more productive (Abu Dhabi Department of Community Development, 2020). The democratic approach to dealing with the drunk teacher also showed that Abu Dhabi has enough room for improvements that require every community member to contribute with whatever possible. Even though it does not cover the financial support, an accurate decision to suspend the teacher first instead of firing her on the spot proves that Al Khalili’s decision-making skill is highly beneficial for the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.
Based on the information that I have been able to collect, I may conclude that Al Khalili possesses a consistent leadership style that allows him to discover new social benefits even after the launch of new pilot programs. For example, the Abu Dhabi Social Support Program became one of the biggest steps toward the process of community development. Every decision that Al Khalili makes is affected by the support that the leader may receive from the government and private organizations. Housing support and eligibility improvements are at the forefront of the list of the most important decisions made by Al Khalili throughout his career. The new initiatives are yet to come but Al Khalili’s consistent leadership may be expected to ensure the best possible quality of life for all Emirati families that expect equality and a cultural shelter. The future progress in the area managed by Al Khalili is subject to his ability to remain consistent and resort to the help of other stakeholders where necessary.
References
Abu Dhabi City Guide. (2020). More schools to take part in Abu Dhabi Science Festival 2012. Abudhabicityguide.com. Web.
Abu Dhabi Department of Community Development. (2020). Policies. Addcd.gov.ae. Web.
Ahmed, A. (2011). Teacher under investigation for drunkenness. The National. Web.
Al Khalili, M. (2020). Message from the Chairman. Addcd.gov.ae. Web.
Dajani, H. (2020). The 60-plus age group in Abu Dhabi gets fitter under new initiative. The National. Web.
DuBrin, A. J. (2015). Leadership: Research findings, practice, and skills. Nelson Education.
Oxford Business Group. (2020). Mugheer Khamis Al Khaili, Chairman, Department of Community Development (DCD): Interview. Oxford Business Group. Web.