Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid al Maktoum is the Prime Minister and Vice President of the United Arab Emirates and the Ruler of Dubai. His new book 'Flashes of Thought' offers us his insights in leadership, business and life. What lessons can we learn from this world leader on how he manages his teams?
"It is important to empower and reward people, but the top priority must be to listen. Only a manager who listens will succeed."
The first key to motivating a person towards better performance is to empower him or her to achieve. Nothing motivates an employee more than seeing the results of his own achievements. Granting power in this way is also an expression of trust and respect. I sometimes receive complaints in my personal email from employees who spend long years in their jobs without any real power, and therefore without any real achievements that they can call their own. Do not be afraid to give real power to your employees, because you too once stood in their shoes, and if you had not been given the power to achieve, you would not have arrived where you are today.
We must believe in the capabilities of our teams. Every person has tremendous capacities. A true leader is one who creates a favourable environment to bring out the energy and ability of his team. A great leader creates more great leaders, and does not reduce the institution to a single person. We sometimes look for second-line and third-line leaders in an institution, but find none, because the person in charge has not sufficiently empowered his team to bring out and refine their capacity for leadership.
The second key to motivation is the need to reward distinguished and creative employees. They should be held up as examples for the whole institution. Human competition is central to every aspect of our life. Even our religion requires us to compete in doing good deeds. You can never create a competitive environment unless you reward and praise creativity. Praising employees means giving credit for success to them, and not only to yourself. It means honouring their accomplishments and showing your belief that the success of the institution embodies the success of every single one of them. If employees see their leader attributing success to them rather than to himself, they will hold him in high esteem. They will regard him as their role model, not only as their leader.
The third driver of motivation is related to the idea that the job of the government is to ensure the happiness of society. Well, employees are part of this society, and so it is necessary to ensure their happiness in order that they in turn can bring happiness to others.
A happy employee is more productive, more energetic and more creative – hence the importance of creating a happy environment within every institution. In order to make employees happy, we must show that we care about them, we must share in their joys and pains, we must help them to create balance in their lives, and we must add value and motivation to their jobs. Most importantly, we must listen attentively to what they have to say. A successful leader listens to his or her employees, for listening is an expression of respect and appreciation.
It is important for managers to work in this way to nurture their employees’ happiness; for one’s job is a major part of one’s life, and life is too precious to spend in misery.
Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid al Maktoum is the Prime Minister and Vice President of the United Arab Emirates and the Ruler of Dubai. Having grown up in a house without electricity or running water, he has presided over Dubai’s extraordinary growth over the past several years. Only 5% of Dubai’s revenue comes from oil, the rest is a direct result of this man’s entrepreneurial flair and impressive leadership: the Burj Khalifa, Emirates Airlines, Jumeirah Group etc. His new book Flashes of Thought (Profile Books, Spring 2015) offers us his insights in leadership, business and life, and is available now at all good bookstores and online.
