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Why Sheikh Mohammed's vision, leadership style should be taught in schools

Dubai - Dubai's creative leadership paving the road for emirate to light and shine

Think of leadership and vision and the first name that comes to mind is His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of UAE and Ruler of Dubai. Hence, academia, researchers and business executives have suggested that the vision and style of leadership of Sheikh Mohammed should be taught in the schools and be made a part of the curriculum.
"Dubai's creative leadership is paving the road for this emirate to light and shine. The unique style of leadership of Sheikh Mohammed is inspiring all of us. The environment that Dubai created paved ways for individuals like us and this is the reason for being here and what I am now. I am indebted to His Highness," said Dr Manahel Thabet, president of the Economic Forum for Sustainable Development.
"Being a resident of Dubai, I believe his leadership style should be taught in schools. Sheikh Mohammed has taken critical, crucial and quick decision to tame the complicated financial issues that Dubai faced in the past 10-15 years. His vision is distinguishing him from the rest of the world."
Dr Thabet has been ranked among the 30 smartest people alive worldwide by SuperScholar and is a Guinness World Record holder in mind ability.
She highlighted different styles of his leadership such as Dubai's march towards being a knowledge-based economy, as well as the creation of incubators and accelerators, which she suggested they should be followed by emerging economies.
Dr Raed Safadi, chief economic advisor at Dubai's Department of Economic Development, pointed out that the critical element of Sheikh Mohammed's vision is flexibility, which helps seize an opportunity that arises and also foresee future challenges.
"This emirate has embraced technological changes before they were common currency. There was fear that technology is going to take away jobs, but we are embracing it - not fearing it," he said during a panel discussion on leadership organised by Accounting, Audit & Advisory Services Focus Group (AAA), a unit of the Indian Business & Professional Council, in Dubai.
Sanjay Manchanda, CEO of Nakheel Properties, said Sheikh Mohammed is a great inspiration.
"Thanks to the vision of His Highness, they realised that there is somebody capable of [handling Nakheel] and that is how I took my seat as CEO," Manchanda said during the panel discussion on leadership.
He strongly recommended public to read Sheikh Mohammed's latest book, Qissati, which reveals a strong message of how Sheikh Mohammed shaped the business and the emirate with his vision. Citing an example, he said: "Dubai started the Government Summit and that has taken his entire vision to global platform of bringing global audience to the UAE."
Naweed Lalani, head of audit and credit rating agencies supervision at the Dubai Financial Services Authority, also recommended reading 50th chapter of Sheikh Mohammed's latest book, which talks about leadership.
"His Highness said either innovate or leave - you cannot sit without innovating. The leaders need not necessarily be creative but catalyst for the change."
Naveen Sharma, convener at AAA Focus Group, said creativity will be an essential talent that people will be judged on by 2020.
"IBM had conducted a global CEO study and the results surprised the world. Creativity was selected as the most crucial factor for future success - way ahead of integrity, openness and even fairness."
Other keynote panelists, speakers and attendees were Mishal Kanoo, chairman of Kaaf Investments; Abbas Ali Mirza, past president of the IBPC and ICAI Dubai Chapter; Dr Mohammed Abu Ali, dean of the school of business administration and professor of economics at American University; Rahul Mahajan, vice-president fpr digital transformation at Nagarro; and Mahmood Bangara, chairman of ICAI - Dubai Chapter.
- waheedabbas@khaleejtimes.com