Running Head: APPLICATIONS OF LEADERSIP PORTFOLIO 1

Abu Dhabi Campus

College of Business

Course Title Applications of Leadership Portfolio in a Diverse Culture in UAE

Course Code 0505620
Exam Project
Date/Time
Academic Year 2022-2023/1st Semester
Instructor
Student’s ID
Students Name
APPLICATIONS OF LEADERSHIP PORTFOLIO 2

Applications of Leadership Portfolio in a Diverse Culture in UAE

Introduction
Leadership can be referred as the aptitude to support and convey confidence among
individuals with an aim of achieving organizational objectives (Karl, 2011). Peoples in
leadership positions acts as team builders, team players, negotiators, figureheads and problem
solvers for the individuals they lead. A competent leader establishes achievable objectives,
incorporates everyone within the organization, and recognizes each member's skills. Enthusiasm
is the most fundamental feature for a good leader. Leadership portfolio is an individual or group
reflection based on their skills, accomplishments, programs, activities and other similar
experiences contributed to their leadership developments. Any situation can be used as a
leadership portfolio to demonstrate one leadership abilities like a job interview. Kearns (2019)
highlights that leadership portfolio practice adopts both social and learning skills discover and
develop managerial experiences. This paper aims to discover the best leadership practices in a
high-context and diverse culture of UAE. It evaluates the ethics, motivations, styles, cultural
intelligence, behaviors, values and traits factors of the leadership. Therefore, this paper will use
the resulting data for learning and teaching purposes.

Question a. Leader’s Personal Mission Statement

I will perform a self-reflection leadership portfolio to demonstrate the type of leadership
style to practice in order to embrace diversity among individuals in hospitality industry in UAE.
The personal mission statement for this research is, “To assist humankind in flourishing by
empowering diverse groups to effectively collaborate”. My beliefs is that to achieve effective
leadership practices in a high- context and different culture requires understanding and respect
among individuals. Cultural complexity is a complicated topic that involves strongly rooted
attitudes as well as subtle and explicit biases. According to Fayes (2018), increasing diversity
requires planning, time and willingness to eradicate. For instance, financial incentives acts as a
major factor of increasing diversity in a workplace. Diverse workplace takes many forms,
including ethnic, linguistic, national, economic, and organizational cultures (Inegbedion, 2020).
Embracing high-context and culture differences enables a firm to recruit employees with various
ideas and skills fostering innovation and problem solving skills. Therefore, my leadership will
ensure cultural diversity is promoted to ensure wide range of staffs with different abilities are
hired.
Transformational leadership plan is incorporated since it embraces cultural diversity by
ensuring inclusion within a company or industry. Additionally, transformational leadership
requires participants to re-evaluate on aspects such as how they view others who are different
enabling them to identify their faults and prejudice (Khan et al., 2020). As a leader, I will uphold
cultural values and provide, judgmental free working environment and supportive team that will
allow growth by emulating people they admire and make mistake along the way to change.
Transformational leadership is adopted in this study since it exhibits traits like empathy, self-
awareness, integrity and authenticity. Furthermore, transformational leaders realize the
importance of continuous learning, which is essential when dealing with diversity and cultural
competency because these ideas are dynamic and not a set of abilities that can be mastered in
APPLICATIONS OF LEADERSHIP PORTFOLIO 3

alone. Therefore, transformational leadership style will ensure employees from different cultures
work in a conducive environment without undergoing discrimination and other demeaning
actions at workplaces.
I chose hospitality industry in UAE of its recent development on key performance
indicators like higher revenue collection and increased cultural diversity. Based on World Bank
and International Labour Orginisation (ILO), the UAE labor force participation rate is at 91% of
both males and female population above 15 years (Warner, R., & Moonesar, 2019). Workplace
diversity has become a significant challenge for human resource management in both the public
and private sectors as a result of the UAE's demographic make-up and its status as a center for
migrant labor. This intuition has resulted in coming up with leadership plans that incorporate all
individuals at the workplace. Thus, hospitality sector is chosen to show my leadership portfolio
in a diverse culture environment.

Question b. Personal and External Leader Traits, Characteristics and Motives

Effective leaders’ traits, characteristics and motives enhances group performance and
satisfaction. Personality traits of a leader can be categorized as general personality like
trustworthiness and self-confidence and task associated traits like internal locus of control. The
trait-based perspective acknowledges situations that influence which trait to emphasize (Derue et
al., 2011). For instance, a management of highlight technical department can emphasize on
certain traits among employees to increase problem solving abilities. On the other hand,
characteristics related to leadership can be grouped into motives, personality traits and cognitive
aspects. I will choose Self-confidence, trust worthiness, flexibility and adaptability, passion for
work and people and drive and achievement motive as leaders’ traits, characteristics and
motives.
Self-confidence enhances the individuals’ performance in various activities such as
leadership. Members of a team are inspired to believe in themselves by a leader who exudes
confidence by encouraging and motivating them (Derue et al., 2011). Most researchers identified
self-confidence as the first leadership trait and since it has received significant attention and the
key contributor to efficient leadership. I consider myself a self-confident leader in UAE’s
hospitality industry due to my abilities of inspiring my group members to believe in themselves
in what they are doing and embrace diversity among different races and cultures. Additionally, I
possess self-confidence trait since I maintain composure when dealing with issues like managing
the tourists.
Secondly, trustworthiness is a fundamental leadership trait as it is used to evaluate the
firms’ performance and credibility. An effective management should be trustworthy by
portraying between words and actions. It emphasizes the leaders to practice what they preach and
make their behaviors consistent. Additionally, trustworthiness enables management of entities to
look for best problem-solving approaches when there is an issue instead of blaming the
employees when something go wrong (Derue et al., 2011). I am a trustworthy leader since I
honor confidences, maintain high-level of integrity, admit mistakes, telling the truth that my
associates can verify and make trust payment when rewarding my employees.
APPLICATIONS OF LEADERSHIP PORTFOLIO 4

Thirdly, flexibility and adaptability are leadership characteristics where individuals

embrace change. Management of organizations are expected to be flexible enough to cope with
changes like technological advancement, global outsourcing of labor to increase diversity,
changing workforce and shifting customer base (Derue et al., 2011). Flexible leadership adjust to
changing conditions demands easily making the industry to move with current trends. I consider
myself flexible leader because of my ability to embrace change swiftly such as moving with
current hospitality trends in UAE.
Additionally, passion for work and people is a dominant characteristics of effective
leaders. Passion extends beyond enthusiasm and frequently manifests as an obsession with
attaining company objectives (Derue et al., 2011). Leaders who are passionate about people and
work are evident despite the type or size of the business. I have passion for work and my
employees as I begin my day very early and extend leaving time to conduct more business as I
am obsessed with achieving the business objectives.
Lastly, drive and achievement motive are the factors that put management of firms to put
more effort to achieve set goals and persist in applying the energy. High level leaders and
business entrepreneurs have strong achievement motivations. Drive is physically demanding
since many leadership jobs entail long working hours and extensive travel. I possess drive and
achievement motive since I have a consistent desire to take medium risks, receive responses on
performance levels, introduce creative and innovative solutions and plan and set objectives.
Question c. Features of Charismatic Leadership and Ways in Which Leaders
Exhibit at Workplace
Charismatic Leadership is a management style where the leaders use their
communication skills, charm and persuasiveness to influence the workers. The following are the
characteristics of a charismatic leadership. First, they are charismatic such that they can lead,
attract and motivate others. This means that charismatic leaders have a right way of approaching
challenges affecting the employees and work together to solve the problem (Sacavém et al.,
2017). This feature is possessed by me through the ability of encouraging my team to work
smartly to achieve the goals of the company and give them incentives for any accomplished
objective. For example, a charismatic business executive can emotional warmth and
expressiveness with action orientation abilities in hospitality industry in UAE to encourage and
motivate the employees.
Secondly, they are visionary since they can offer an amazing organizational image and
give a way on how to approach it. A vision is described by an ideal version of the future of a firm
unit or whole organization (Sacavém et al., 2017). I am a visionary leader because my leadership
tactics are aligned toward achieving the objectives of the company by assigning every member
responsibilities to be attained at a specified time. For example, as a leader in UAE’s hospitality
industry, I would encourage the personnel to work toward achieving particular objective by
allocating duties where everyone is specialized.
Thirdly, charismatic leaders have best communication skills. These leaders use colorful
language to inspire their employees on daily basis (Sacavém et al., 2017). I am a good
communicator since I adopt these communication concepts namely; completeness, coherence,
clarity, consideration, courtesy, concreteness and conciseness. For instance, being a leader in
APPLICATIONS OF LEADERSHIP PORTFOLIO 5

UAE’s hospitality industry I ensure a good communication with my team members by clearly
communicating the issues on time and address them instantly.
Additionally, charismatic leaders have the ability to inspire trust. They can risk their
careers to protect their workers since they strongly believe in integrity (Sacavém et al., 2017). I
ensure my workers trust by leadership abilities by ensuring their issues are addressed effectively
and having a robust approach toward coming with solutions in case of any challenge to embrace
diverse culture and achieve the company objectives. For example, UAE leaders in hospitality
industry can inspire trust among their workers to effectively work together without doubting one
another.
Lastly, charismatic leaders demonstrate an action and energy orientation. This can be
explained by how leaders serve as role models to their employees to ensure things are done
correctly and on time (Sacavém et al., 2017). I possess this abilities as I correlate with my staffs
well by expressing my positive felling such as praising, hugging and cheer them as well as
expressing negative feelings at lesser extent. For example, this characteristic can be adopted in
UAE’s hospitality industry by ensuring leaders have positive energy toward achieving good
performance while ensuring best customer experience. Other characteristics of charismatic
leaders include; they risk averse and self-confident.

Question d. Leadership Task Oriented and Relationship-Oriented Behaviors

Task oriented behaviors refers to the attitudes, traits and skills focusing on the activities
to be performed on the interpersonal factors of leadership. Adaptability to the situation and
concentrating on the strengths of group members are the leadership task oriented behaviors
discussed in this paper. First, adaptability to the situation ensures a manager is reflective on
contingency viewpoint. Adaptable leaders possesses tactical traits to handle any unique situation
at hand. A leader who is adaptive to situation can achieve positive performance by understanding
the capabilities of the staffs and supervise the based on their strengths. Also, an adaptable leader
will chooses an organizational structure that best meets the needs of the circumstance, such as
deciding between a committee and a brainstorming group. Secondly, concentrating on the
strengths of the group members help to enhance employees’ skills while capitalizing on their
capabilities. A team can have the best interpersonal skill but performance dismally because of
poor technical skills. Therefore, management emphasize on allocating the workers duties based
on their interpersonal skills and help them improve their technical skills. A leader adopting this
strategy emphasize on capitalizing individual skills pattern which saves time since they are
allocated tasks on areas where they are best suited. Shaked and Stampf (2015) posit that
management should develop a job description that best fit every individual’s uniqueness to
achieve the best results on a company.
On the other hand, relationship-oriented behaviors refers to influencing individuals to by
following effective leadership aspects, practices and behaviors to deal with interpersonal
associations. Giving emotional support and encouragement and promoting values and principles
are the relationship oriented behaviors discussed in this paper. First, giving emotional support
and encouragement increases leadership effectiveness among workers by giving them morale.
This can be done by encouraging and praising them frequently as well as showing kindness and
care on both work and non-work related matters such as health of individuals’ relatives. This trait
APPLICATIONS OF LEADERSHIP PORTFOLIO 6

will yield best results at the work place since it improves morale and productivity. Basford and
Molberg (2013) searched for empirical evidence that showed that encouragement at workplace is
linked to improvement of job performance and attitude. Lastly, promoting values and principles
contributes to the individual welfare in a company. This aspect directly affects attitude and
emotions of employees and tasks. This factor ensures better job performance by encouraging the
leadership and team members to conduct their activities at high morale.

Question e. Leadership Scenarios and How to Use Different Leadership

Approach
According to the situational theory of leadership, leaders should use a variety of
leadership philosophies depending on the circumstances and the degree of team member
development. It is a successful leadership style because it adjusts to the requirements of the team
and creates a win-win situation for the entire business. First, in my organization I experienced
ineffective communication between the management and the employees which resulted in the
bad performance. For instance, the management had minimal conversation with the workers as
there was animosity between the parties leading to miscommunication. Also, there was no
holistic approach of assigning duties among workers leading to negligence at the workplace. This
scenario could be mitigated by adopting situational leadership II (SLII) approach developed by
Kenneth and his colleagues which explains how it’s important to match the leadership plans with
the workers strengths on a particular tasks (Graeff, 1997). For instance, skilled employees need
less guidance compared to unskilled ones performing new tasks. Additionally, this approach
encourages continues and quality conversation among individuals about professional and
performance development to increase competence, commitment and decrease turnover among
talented employees.

Secondly, my organization experienced non-matching leadership style to the situation.

The firm was using every leadership style which sometimes exposed some employees to
discriminations based on their race, ethnicity and culture. For instance, dictatorial leadership plan
subject junior staffs to discrimination since their contributions are not recognized by the
institution. This approach could be handled well by adopting matching leadership style to
situation. According to the path goal theory, leaders are supposed to choose the best leadership
style to attain maximum results in a given situation (Farhan, 2017). The leaders are required to
access relevant variables in a working environment before adapting path goal theory. After
selecting the path goal theory, the management are supposed to select one of the following
contingency factors; directive style, supportive plan, participative style or achievement-oriented
plan. For example, during crisis such as COVID 19 which disrupted hospitality operations in
UAE, the management could use directive style to help the workers take immediate actions.

Question f. Practice of Ethical and Social Responsible Behavior

Recently, I encountered the employees in my organization are engaging in fraud activities
placing our firm at high level unethical practices. This situation lead to mistrust between the
APPLICATIONS OF LEADERSHIP PORTFOLIO 7

leadership and the employees. For instance, the finance department were involved in fund
misappropriation scandals leading to losses. This approach can be avoided by adopting honesty
and trustworthiness and have integrity when dealing with others as an ethical leadership
behavior. This approach supports truthful and honesty as result integrity is achieved. An ethical
manager or worker is trustworthy and honest thus has integrity. According to Becker (1998),
ethics quality goes beyond conscientiousness and honesty, but integrity as it encourages leaders
to act what they advocate. For instance, a manager with integrity would know that workers
should be treated fairly and pressure should cut across the organization not instilled to some
worker at expense of others.

Question g. Power Influence at Work and Solutions Using Political Tactics

Organizational politics can be defined as informal method of attaining power through
dubious means other than merit or luck. Effective oragnisational politics can be used to enhance
purpose of group leaders and obtain valuable resources. During elective positions at our firm, the
finance manager was contesting for chief executive position of the company and used money to
bribe workers to vote for him and threat his opponents. He was seeking to enhance his powers
illegitimately using various malicious tactics. The leadership of the company noticed his tactics
and he was fired suspended for 1 year. Such case can be dealt with by effective use of
organizational politics educate the contestants on using particular political strategies and tactics.
This can be done by supporting their learning programs frequently and encourage innovative
political ideas. Coming up with new political tactics at workplace promotes healthy completion
among workers.

Also, the company should encourage ethical political tactics and strategies. Ethical tactics
and strategies are aimed at building a good association between management and employees,
avoiding political blunders and gaining power through merits. Attaining power the power
legitimately help the mangers to prosper and work in a stress free environment. Ethical politics
tactics and strategies are interpersonal style of leadership that advocates for social astute and
promotes trust, sincerity and confidence (Perrewé et al., 2000). Therefore, ethical and social
political tactics advocates for attaining power through the right approaches defined by the
constitution of the company.

Question h. Enhancing Teamwork and Motivation among Group Members

Teamwork is defined as jobs completed by all members of the team who understand and
commit to the group's aims. Enhancing teamwork and motivation among group members can be
done using two major approaches, namely; fostering teamwork and motivation using own
resources and enhancing teamwork and motivation relying on organizational structure. First, I
can promote teamwork and motivation among the group members by defining the mission of the
team. Clear mission helps the workers to work toward achieving specific goals and they are
answerable when the goals are not attained at specified time. Secondly, it can be enhanced by
establishing trust among members. I should ensure the employees trust my leadership abilities
APPLICATIONS OF LEADERSHIP PORTFOLIO 8

for credibility reasons and engage in trustworthy behaviors. Thirdly, I should develop teamwork
norm based on cooperation theory. Promoting the mindset that effective cooperation is required
among teammates is a key method for teamwork development (Locke& Latham, 1990).
Additionally, I would develop an emotional intelligence by helping the members to solve both
work and non-work related issues at personal level. Another way of enhancing teamwork and
motivation is by serving as a role model including power sharing. Other ways of enhancing
teamwork and motivation by leaders using own resources include; using consensus leadership
plan, encouraging healthy competition with another group and reducing micro-management.

On the other hand, enhancing teamwork and motivation relying on organizational

structure include the following. First, I would design a basic structure that facilitate effective
communication. Members’ cohesiveness foster teamwork and they can interact freely and easily.
Communication among members on matters related to group work should be clear to avoid
misinformation along the way (Kozlowski, 2018). Secondly, I would emphasize on group reward
and recognitions. This will encourage the team members to work effectively to attain the best
results to get the reward and recognition. Furthermore, I would select team oriented members.
Members serving in the same group should have a good relationship to work effectively without
experiencing any discrimination. Other approaches of enhancing team work and motivation
relying on organizational structure include; adopting technology that promotes team work,
practicing open book leadership and initiating ceremonies.

Question i. Working Effectively With Individuals from Diverse Demographics

and Culture
To attain diversity among organizational leaders requires firms to practice leadership
diversity that incorporates heterogeneous group of leaders. Majority of global companies have
attained leadership diversity in terms of ethnicity. Employees’ gender is another main area of
leadership diversity as many firms today have many women in executive positions. The
managers attempting to influence others from different countries must know the existence of
cultural differences. Therefore, they must be willing to learn other people’s language and culture.
A cross-cultural leader must be adaptable, flexible, patient and willing to learn and listen. Thus,
the following are initiatives to be taken to support workers from diverse demographics and
culture.

First, I should recognize the nuances in customs. An individual with cultural sensitivity
will be able to identify subtleties in customs that can help them interact more effectively with
coworkers from various cultures. Secondly, I should embrace multicultural association in my
organization. This will help workers to become multicultural workers and they can fit in many
places of work globally. Additionally, I should recognize potential issues of cultural
misunderstanding. Due to cultural misunderstanding challenges, leaders should be aware of
cluster areas such as generational differences, women roles, language differences, work habits
and acceptable personal behaviors and appearance.

Moreover, I would treat transgender individuals same as the straight employees. Given
the increased prevalence of transgender workers in the workforce, leaders and managers must
APPLICATIONS OF LEADERSHIP PORTFOLIO 9

exercise tremendous cultural awareness. Therefore, the leadership should be flexible and
adaptable to eliminate the risk of transgender discrimination in terms of their appearance and
dressing code. Lastly, I should be flexible when dealing with others. Cultural training can
improve cultural sensitivity through paying close attention, observing and listening. Being
adaptable when interacting with individuals from other cultures is a fundamental tenet.
Therefore, following the above approaches it will ensure a conducive working environment for
employees from different cultures and demographics.

Conclusion
A leadership portfolio is a reflection on one's or a group's abilities, successes, programs,
activities, and other related experiences that have helped them develop as leaders. Cultural
complexity is a complicated issue that comprises deep seated attitudes as well as implicit and
apparent prejudices. The traits, behaviors, and reasons of effective leaders improve group
performance and satisfaction. A leader's personality attributes can be divided into two categories:
general personality traits like trustworthiness and self-confidence and task-related traits like
internal locus of control. Leadership diversity should be encouraged in UAE’s hospitality
industry to ensure conducive working environment for workers, best customer experience and
attain company objectives. The paper advocates for adoption of cultural diversity strategies to
ensure any individual can work anywhere globally.
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10

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