Leadership is one of the key elements in any organization. Leadership includes a wide range of versatile practices and tasks directed at the provision of organizational guidance, the creation of a specific vision for the future development, and the establishment of productive and effective communication with different stakeholder groups. In that way, a leader is an individual able to carry out all of the required duties, guide the organization, direct its operations, forecast its future ups and downs, and respond to the current ones. The ability to fulfill these numerous tasks with success and choose the right courses for organizations is quite rare and requires a lot of expert knowledge and entrepreneurial confidence, a unique vision, and professional experience.
That is why, the world’s most successful leaders are few, and their stories, decisions, and ideas are shared like legends and treated as sources of valuable insights for future businesspeople. Studying leadership style, behavior, and ideas of one of the renowned leaders of the United Arab Emirates is the major purpose of this project. The leader chosen for this project is Mohammad Al Abbar. This report will focus on the exploration of entrepreneurial achievements and contribution of this leader, as well as his approach to leadership. The leadership of Mohammad Al Abbar will be discussed for the purposes of evaluation and critical analysis, and its alignment with the theories and concepts learned throughout this course.
Leader’s Background
Leadership is a multifaceted phenomenon that forms based on a wide variety of internal and external factors such as the leader’s personality and character traits, individual experiences, professional excellence and expert knowledge, level of confidence, workplace situation, organizational performance and needs, vision, relationships and stakeholders, and goals. As a result, in order to explore the leadership style, approach, and views of Mohammad Al Abbar, it is necessary to begin with his personal, as well and professional backgrounds as the sources of his vision and ideas as a leader.
His Excellence Mohammad Al Abbar is an entrepreneur and a leader who works in the industry of property development and real estate in the territory of the United Arab Emirates. Currently, he occupies the position of a Chairman of Emaar Properties that is one of the largest and most powerful property development organizations not only in the county but in the entire region of the Middle East. Also, in the past, Al Abbar served as director general in the Dubai Department of Economic Development. Moreover, in addition to his present engagement in Emaar Properties, Al Abbar also works as a Board Member of an organization known as Eagle Hills based in Abu Dhabi. Apart from that, Al Abbar was made a top adviser to the leader of Dubai, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.
When it comes to the personal background of Al Abbar, it is important to note that he comes from a big family and is very proud of his father who worked as a ship captain on a trading vessel – an occupation that Al Abbar has always seen as very dangerous and connected with multiple risks, and thus requiring a strong will and a lot of confidence. Al Abbar graduated from Seattle University where he acquired a degree in business administration and finance (Hill 2016). Soon after his graduation, Al Abbar received his first job – he occupied the position of a manager in the Central Bank of the UAE situated in Abu Dhabi (Hill 2016). In his interviews, Al Abbar often mentions that time as restless because he was very passionate about his job and what he could do with it. The true objectives of this leader were not to earn more money and multiply his personal income but to improve his country and the lives of his fellow citizens.
Al Abbar, who grew up in Dubai during the times when it was a small fishing port, had a clear vision of how this city could grow and expand, and in what ways business leaders of the country could make the other residents proud of their nation, development, and economy. The job in the Central Bank of the UAE led Al Abbar to form a close relationship with the leader of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Together with the ruler, Al Abbar worked on the expansion of non-oil industries of Dubai and thus maximizing the diversification of the economy. Al Abbar is known for his ability to seek out the best and more productive ways to achieve his goals. This leader is good at seeing the bigger picture, making connections between various social trends and economic phenomena, and creating the perfect conditions for fast growth and development of the projects on which he works. Due to these unique abilities and skills, Al Abbar is one of the renowned business leaders in the UAE who was interviewed by multiple western mass media representatives and features on business TV channels and shows. His vision and leadership approach are recognized as outstanding by many other business experts and leaders.
Contributions and Achievements
One of the most well-known achievements associated with the leadership of Al Abbar is the construction of Burj Khalifa – the tallest building in the entire world. When interviewed about this megaproject, Al Abbar noted that he sometimes wonders if he could do better with the creation of this skyscraper (Luzajic 2016). However, he also admits that if he had an opportunity to improve the building and rework the project, he would not know what to change because the final result is gorgeous (Luzajic 2016). This attitude of Al Abbar shows that his leadership is based on the ongoing improvement and a never-ending pursuit of perfection and excellence. The leader states that this major achievement of Emaar Properties led by Al Abbar was guided and inspired by his fulfillment of ambition, as well as the expression of passion and vision. The meaning Al Abbar put behind the construction of the tallest building in the world was aimed at the establishment of a grand symbol showing to everyone around the globe and the people of the United Arab Emirates that this is a highly civilized and developed country. The purpose was to make the fellow citizen proud of their state.
It is needless to say that the construction of Burj Khalifa was not the only achievement of Al Abbar as a leader. In fact, a variety of well-known projects and innovations were brought to life by this entrepreneur and his unique way of thinking. For instance, in the middle of the 1990’s Al Abbar served as the initiator of the Dubai Shopping Festival – a massive tourist event that is still held in Dubai on the annual basis. This project was another work of Al Abbar in his tireless attempts to revive the city of Dubai, promote its tourist industry, attract numerous visitors, and establish its global presence. Organizing the Festival, Al Abbar made sure to connect it with various forms of entertainment such as fashion and food shows, folklore performance, street bazaars, and artistic events, to name a few. As a result, the first ever Dubai Shopping Festival managed to attract as many as two million tourists. Its success made the event a tradition for Dubai that continues to bring millions of visitors every year. It goes without saying that such massive inflow of tourists going to Dubai for shopping also helped to attract foreign investment and capital, thus resulting in a great contribution in the economic development of Dubai and its establishment as an international hub of tourism and entertainment. For this project, Al Abbar was recognized as one of the marketing superstars of the region.
All in all, Al Abbar, who is now 50 years old, is a leader with diverse talents and a unique set of skills, insights, and experiences. He specializes in a variety of spheres such as luxury hospitality, real estate and property development, mining, leisure assets, and shopping malls. In addition, he is dedicated to the development of his company Emaar Properties that has expanded to as many as eighteen different countries establishing leisure destinations and resort hospitality facilities of high class. In that way, Overviewing an impressive business profile and the list of achievements of Al Abbar, it is possible to notice that this leader is one of the key contributors to the present rapid growth of Dubai as a world-class city in terms of business, tourism, and entertainment. Due to the unique vision and passion of Al Abbar as one of the major leaders in Dubai, this city has transformed from a quiet and small fishing port to a beautiful metropolis orientated the latest technologies and innovations, bravely embracing the boldest projects, and attracting more and more tourists, workers, students, and investors as an international hub.
Views and Ideas
As it was mentioned previously, Al Abbar’s leadership is based on his unique vision for all of his projects and a clear idea of what needs to be achieved that appears prior to the plans and their implementation. Moreover, the strong vision of Al Abbar is dictated and driven by his passion for work and constant improvement regardless of the area in which he works and the projects to which he contributes. As an individual who loves his country, he dedicated his personal and professional resources to his career which he envisions as serving to his motherland as a promoter, marketer, developer, and builder of progress.
As a passionate leader, Al Abbar is a hard worker, and since he is a perfectionist who always strives to do his best, he never stops improving his work and reaching for an even higher standard. As a child, he was a witness to the older version of Dubai – a small and quiet town with few businesses and a very slow economic progress. Due to his unique vision for the city, Al Abbar happened to be one of the core leaders in the UAE who were dedicated to the expansion of the city’s resources, the maximization of its attractiveness to foreign investors and visitors, and the growth and multiplication of its income. As a result of the focused work of the leaders such as Al Abbar, within just a few decades, Dubai transformed into a world-class metropolis with beautiful skyscrapers, luxurious hotels, gorgeous resort areas, and a wide range of diverse places of attraction.
Working on the ways to generate the inflow of capitals and people into the UAE, Al Abbar used critical thinking and evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of the position of Dubai in regard to various markets and industries. In order for the city to be able to compete with other world-renowned metropolises, Dubai had to become noticeable and memorable. As a result, the striving for record-breaking events and constructions occurred. The industries and markets of Dubai were led by people ready to embrace and facilitate change – the confident risk-takers such as Al Abbar. Today, this leader is convinced that digital technologies are the key to progress and success, he carries out most of his daily tasks and duties using his smartphone and contacting people in a very fast and effective manner (Bhoyrul 2016). As a result, this leader manages to stay very active and productive every minute of the day.
For Al Abbar, it is critical to stay on track with the latest technologies and innovations because, according to his vision and perception, in order to stay relevant and competitive in the contemporary markets, businesses have to embrace the best and most efficient technologies, integrate them in their operations, and enhance the customer experience they provide. As a result, this leader continues his self-development and, on the way, pushes his employees to follow along and stay hungry for success and change. Al Abbar is one of the leaders whose passion and professional focus on constant improvement drive and stimulate the development of the economy of the UAE and the growth of its industries.
Al Abbar’s Leadership Approach
Interviews with Al Abbar published online by various mass media serve as the sources of detailed information about his achievements and projects. Due to the importance of this entrepreneur as a professional and a leader, he has become a focus of attention of business and finance magazines, and his leadership style and vision can be educational for the future managers and business administrators. However, in order to develop a better understanding of Al Abbar’s approach to leadership, it is necessary to analyze his choices, ideas, vision, and behaviors in terms of leadership concepts explored throughout the course.
First of all, assessing the leadership behavior of Al Abbar, it is easy to notice one of the most striking aspects of his personal style – the presence of a clear vision of a result that is in a distant future. This trait signifies a visionary leader and is present in the other world-renowned leaders of this type such as Jack Ma, Elon Musk, and Steve Jobs. All of these leaders were able to envision extraordinary change prior to planning for its facilitation, and eventually achieved exactly what had been envisioned. One of the most outstanding features of visionary leaders is their ability to see past the present challenges and obstacles and focus on the inspiring image of the desired future (Jeffrey 2016).
In the contemporary world, where the ways to increase business efficiency are thoroughly researched, leadership behaviors, as some of the major facilitators of organizational performance, are the points of focus. Among the leadership behaviors recognized as the most effective, there are transformational and transactional ones, as well as ethical and visionary leadership (Dhammika 2014). The visionary leadership is seen as a particularly important and effective approach due to its connection to employee outcomes and its ability to establish and maintain what is known as organizational citizenship behavior (Dhammika 2014).
From the interviews with Al Abbar, one can notice that this leader is highly attentive to the organizational culture created by the organizational citizenship behavior of the employees. In particular, in one of the interviews printed in UAE Today (2017), Al Abbar noted that during a visit of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Economic Development Department in Dubai where Al Abbar serves as Director, the ruler of Dubai requested that the glazed barriers between the customer service employees and clients are removed. His Highness made this request because, according to his vision, the barriers created an unfriendly atmosphere and prevented direct communication between clients and employees. In response to this demand, Al Abbar ordered for all the doors in the facility to be removed along with the barriers (UAE Today 2017). In that way, the leader fulfilled the request of His Highness and also, as a true perfectionist, achieved the highest level of transparency in the department by means of literally opening all the doors to the clients and stimulating the employees to stay active and alert in their workplace.
In fact, as most visionary leaders, Al Abbar is rather demanding in regard to his employees and teams as to how hard they work and how well the contribute to their collective projects. According to Al Abbar’s approach, a leader must surround themselves with “hungry people” (Luzajic 2016). By “hungry” he meant passionate about their work, just like Al Abbar himself was at the very beginning of his career and still is today. Interestingly, this idea aligns with the thirst for proactive and creative teams able to facilitate and maintain change, and embrace innovations that is typical for most visionary leaders (Antonakis & Day 2017). In addition, Al Abbar admits that over the course of his career, he developed and grew quite a lot as a professional. His views and perceptions changed accordingly. To be more precise, Al Abbar states that he had become more demanding toward the people who work for him and mentions that some of the individuals that he used to hire in the past would never get a job from him today (Luzajic 2016). This must be the case because as Al Abbar improved as a professional, his understanding of the jobs of his workers, as well as his standards for the employees, have grown as well.
Due to the ability to envision the future and the desired results without focusing on the current problems and potential obstacles, visionary leaders are very good and setting goals for the employees and establishing a clear path from the given state of affairs to the anticipated outcomes (Antonakis & Day 2017). Moreover, the same ability helps visionary leaders to stay in touch with the needs of their followers and thus allows creating trusting, inspiring, and honest communication between the two parties (Dhammika 2014). As a result of this feature, visionary leaders are known as great communicators able to empower and move their audiences. This statement is true when it comes to the individual style of Al Abbar who is known for his wisdom, insightful opinions, and empowering statements. Al Abbar is an inspirational public speaker who manages to incorporate sentimental personal memories and experiences in his professional vision of the future development making it clear for the listeners that he is driven by pure passion of an entrepreneur, love for his country and its people, and the desire to bring the UAE from good to great.
Theories and Concepts that Align with Al Abbar’s Leadership
There exists a theory of leadership that outlines a concept known as charismatic leadership. The name of this form of leadership came from the Greek language where the word “charisma” stood for a special gift provided by the divine, or a miraculous ability of some sort. In the 1940’s, the term was first applied in regard to leadership and, specifically, a leader’s ability to produce a unique type of influence on their followers (Mittal 2015). To be more precise, this kind of influence was recognized as outstanding because it came not from the leader’s position of power and authority but from the followers’ perceptions of the leader as a particularly valuable and inspiring person whom they would follow willingly. The charismatic leadership is based on the leader’s unique vision of what needs to be achieved that is supported by their skillful communication of the set goals and objectives to followers. The visionary leadership of Al Abbar aligns with this description, and so he can be recognized as a charismatic leader for his employees, as well as for many business administration professionals and students who hope to have a similar career path.
Moreover, the leadership behavior of Al Abbar also aligns with the transformational leadership theory. In particular, as defined by Mittal (2015), transformational leaders are known for their ability to influence their followers by means of staying sensitive to their needs and desires. In other words, the unique feature of transformational leaders is the capacity to transform the people around by means of appealing to their emotions (Mittal 2015). Transformational leaders use their abilities for the purposes of developing their followers’ professional skills, improving their performance, and cultivating confidence and autonomy. Followers who are properly motivated and inspired are able to take on more responsibilities and initiate individual projects, thus increasing their contributions to the organizations in which they work.
Both transformational and charismatic leaders have tremendous impacts on their organizations and followers and are known for the completion of the largest and the most famous projects in their industries. Very commonly, the terms ‘charismatic leadership’ and ‘transformational leadership’ are used as references to the same model and style of leadership (Mittal 2014). Also, the concept of a visionary leader fits into both of these theories since they contain the strong and clear vision of the future goals as one of the core features of a leader.
Comparing the style of Al Abbar to the charismatic and transformational models, it is possible to notice that this leader is quite diverse in his behaviors, and thus can display the attributes that can fit in both theoretical approaches, as well as the concept of a visionary leader. For instance, Al Abbar’s vision of an exceptionally tall skyscraper in Dubai as one of the major places of attraction promoting the UAE as a highly developed and civilized state was a good example of his visionary leadership skills. Based on his vision, Al Abbar was able to start and plan for this massive and extremely risky construction project that was completed and fulfilled its major function successfully. To be more precise, Burj Khalifa, built by Emaar Properties, still serves as one of the most famous symbols of Dubai and the UAE and attracts thousands of tourists annually.
Moreover, the situation with barriers between employees and clients in the Dubai Department of Economic Development that were removed by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum is a demonstration of the transformational leadership displayed by Al Abbar in response to the ruler’s comment. In particular, Al Abbar made a request for the doors in every room that is a working space in the department to be taken off. This created the ultimate atmosphere of trust and friendliness in regard to the communication between employees and clients. Moreover, the absence of the doors served as a transformational impact on the workers as they always had to work on their feet and remain active due to the complete transparency that the leader’s plan facilitated. In this way, Al Abbar brought the atmosphere of honesty and openness in the department for the time while he worked there. The change embraced by this leader stimulated the rest of the staff to reevaluate their workplace behaviors and habits and become more productive and open-minded with the clients.
Finally, when it comes to the elements of the charismatic leadership of Al Abbar, one of the examples that can be mentioned is present in his interviews and public speeches. Addressing individuals and groups of people, Al Abbar begins with a strong appeal to emotion by means of demonstrating an old black-and-white photograph of his father’s trading vessel on which he worked as a captain. Al Abbar uses the image as an illustration of the environment from which he comes, a reminder of what Dubai used to be several decades ago, and the long way it came over the last years. Bringing back memories about all the transformation and changes the city of Dubai, as well as the rest of the country, underwent, Al Abbar inspires his audiences and makes them proud of the excellent work done by leaders serving to improve the economy and facilitate development. At the same time, sharing his wisdom and experiences, Al Abbar empowers the established leaders and beginners to strive for excellence, focus on constant growth and development, and always aim for perfection.
One of the aspects in which Al Abbar, as a visionary leader, demonstrates controversial approach is his demanding attitude towards hiring people. In particular, just like most perfectionists and experienced visionaries, he prefers to recruit only the best and the most valuable talent. Al Abbar is a hard worker, and he expects everyone around to put out to the fullest just like he does. However, this attitude results in an approach according to which mistakes are not tolerated and only perfection is expected. In that way, transformational aspects that make a leader more understanding and patient are subdued by the elements of the charismatic and visionary leadership aiming at the successful completion of high-achieving projects and leaving no time or effort to the potential of raising and training a new generation of leaders for the country.
Conclusion
The major focus of this report was to explore personal leadership behaviors and style of a well-known entrepreneur in the United Arab Emirates. The person selected for the analysis in this paper was Mohammad Al Abbar – a renowned leader and a businessman who serves as one of the advisers to the leader of Dubai, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Also, Al Abbr is known for his massively successful projects such as the construction of Burj Khalifa – the world’s tallest building that was created due to tireless efforts of Emaar Properties, a company led by Al Abbar. Numerous achievements of Al Abbar demonstrate his huge and extremely valuable contribution to the development of Dubai, as well as the economy of the entire country.
The exploration of his leadership approach was carried about based on several interviews Al Abbar kindly gave to various Western and Middle Eastern mass media and the descriptions of his work, habits, attitudes, and behaviors. As a result of this research, the leadership of Mohammad Al Abbar was evaluated as having elements of visionary, charismatic, and transformational leadership models. These models and their respective theories are often viewed as a combination because some of their characteristics are related or similar. All in all, Mohammad Al Abbar is a highly successful entrepreneur who displays a variety of unique skills and abilities and thus serves as a role-model for many of the existing and future business leaders.
References
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Dhammika KA 2014, ‘Visionary leadership and organizational citizenship behavior: an assessment of impact of sectarian difference’, in Proceedings of the first middle east conference on global business, economics, finance and banking, Al Murooj Rotana Hotel, Dubai, pp. 1-10.
Hill, J 2016, Failures make for better leaders, says Emaar Properties chairman Mohamed Alabbar. Web.
Jeffrey, S 2016, 10 attributes of visionary leadership. Web.
Luzajic, T 2016, On the top of the world: Mohamed Alabbar’s success story. Web.
Mittal, R 2015, ‘Charismatic and transformational leadership styles: a cross-cultural perspective’, International Journal of Business and Management, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 26-33.
UAE Today 2017, ‘Al Abbar Reviewing His Leadership Model’. Web.