Relationship between Leadership Styles and Leadership Virtues –

An Investigation of Managers in UAE

Dr. Damodharan Varadarajan

Business Faculty Dubai Women’s College
Damodharan.varadarajan@hct.ac.ae

Dr. Sudipa Majumdar

Business Faculty Dubai Women’s College
Sudipa.majumdar@hct.ac.ae

ABSTRACT:

The classic leadership styles are autocratic, delegative and democratic. Much has been written about leadership
styles and leadership traits because, no matter how you look at it, leadership and decision-making is a matter of
trade-offs. A significant number of companies in the United Arab Emirates are family businesses and in spite of
being successful, competition and sophisticated customers' demands urge them to evolve by adopting creative
leadership styles in order to militate the risk of losing businesses and staff. In this research paper we will discuss
about the Leadership styles and virtues of the top managerial level executives in the UAE. Our sample consisted of
115 managers of whom we interviewed 75 females and 40 males. The age groups that we had in our dataset ranged
from 21 to 50 years, dominated by the age group 21 to 30 years that comprised 64% of the data. Our respondents
were from various companies, departments, and at different managerial levels. We conclude that the successful
managers in the UAE adopted a Democratic Leadership Style, where education and work experience were the most
important factors amongst the managers of the UAE. Finally, the Leadership Virtues that explained the leadership
style amongst the top managers were their Judgment Score (at 99% confidence level) and their Enthusiasm Score (at
95% confidence level).

KEYWORDS

Leadership Style, Virtues, Culture, Nationalities and Managerial levels.