The January edition of the Wharton Leadership Digest (WLD) features an interview with me on the topic of “Leading the Gulf: Making Sense of Business Leadership in Dubai and Beyond.” The interview touched on a wide range of interesting topics, including:

  • how much of Dubai’s success is a “leadership story,”
  • the degree to which business leaders need to adapt to thrive in the Gulf environment,
  • women in the workforce,
  • effects of the Dubai Ports World controversy, and more.

An excerpt from the interview is below and the full text is available here.

WLD: Is the story of Dubai’s success a leadership one? Has leadership been critical to the emirate’s prosperity?

Rehman: Dubai’s remarkable success – and that of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) overall – is very much a story of visionary leadership. Dubai’s current ruler has built on the legacy of his father and brother to foster an “open-for-business” environment with superb infrastructure, streamlined government services, and business support facilities. Abu Dhabi, the dominant emirate in the UAE, has also benefited from extraordinary leadership. Other Gulf states were blessed with more oil, larger populations, and greater wealth – yet not all have developed and pursued a vision with the same effectiveness as the United Arab Emirates has.

Dubai’s inherent advantages were limited: the emirate has little energy resources and a small indigenous population. Over the decades, however, it has built itself up as trade center through infrastructure excellence and a welcoming business environment. For example, the government reportedly uses “mystery shoppers” to evaluate the quality of service at public agencies like airport immigration and motor vehicle registration. Dubai was short on resources but long on vision, and that has made a huge difference.

Other emerging markets can learn from Dubai’s example not by imitating its practices, but by understanding the approach the emirate took. Its leaders have focused on the emirate’s areas of comparative advantage – most notably location, trade, and legacy of business services – and fostered the “right” industries to capitalize on these areas of advantage, providing government stimulus and developing physical and social infrastructure with amazing vigor.