Leadership in Arab Culture
For the purposes of this chapter we can define the Arab Middle East as those countries that lie between the Atlantic Ocean and the Arabian Gulf, often described as the MENA region (MENA stands for Middle East and North Africa), although there are clearly geographical inclusions that do not entirely fit this ‘Arab’ profile. Egypt is not entirely ‘Arab’ and yet shares many cultural features.
Leadership in Arab organizations in this region is sui generis, not a failed attempt to copy Western models nor a hangover from a decaying traditionalism, and in many ways constitutes a distinctive paradigm of organization (Weir, 1998). But the styles of leadership in this region are still not widely appreciated and their strengths not always accepted, even by those who live and work in the region. One of the reasons for a lack of appreciation of how leadership operates in these milieux is that, compared to some other approaches, much less is known about them, for in general multicultural bases for leadership are rare (Mangaliso, 1991). This situation is changing but only slowly, so this book with its global, comparative perspective is timely and welcome.
Three features of society are key to understanding leadership in the Arab world: first, overall this is a Muslim region; second, there are specific histories of the various nation-states in the region; and third, organizations in this region operate in distinct and identifiably different ways to those that form the framings of the patterns of organization typically taught in Western universities and business schools.
Islam is rather more than a religion, that claims in principle universal provenance and, unusually in terms of Western understandings of religion, is based on practice rather than dogma. It is, like Christianity but unlike Judaism, a unitizing religion. This word is not, as is sometimes claimed, a neologism, but has a precise connotation in this context. The OED gives the definition of ‘unicity’ as ‘the fact of being or consisting of one, or of being united as a whole’ and this is a very good characterization of the intrinsic nature of Islam as a cultural force (Weir, 2005). This is not the place for a theological discourse but it is impossible to understand the concepts of Tawhid or of Ummah, for example, without comprehending that in Islam there is a strongly integrative meme around the one-ness of all creation. ‘Tawhid is the realization that God is One, is the Creator and Master of creation. He alone is the ultimate cause of all that is, as well as the ultimate end of all that was, is or will be’ (Al-Faruqui, 1985). A good leader is one who creates the condition for collective unity.
In principle, Islam represents a pattern of behaviours and beliefs that affect the whole of human life, no segment being exempt (Tripp, 2006). Thus, to a believer, economic and business life are governed by precepts that can be known and must be followed. Neither leadership in general nor organizational leadership in particular and business and management as a sector are regarded as exempt domains within which normal communal obligations need not be maintained. Economic activity is subject to the same moral frameworks as those that regulate society at large. The practical obligations of the five pillars of Islam (Testimony of Faith, Duty of Prayer, Provision of Zakat, Self-modification and Purification – including Duty of Fasting during Ramadan, and Obligation to make the Hajj to Mecca) contain the structural foundations of the ethical basis of all behaviour for a believer, including the beliefs and practices of organizational leadership. Of these Pillars of Islam, Zakat is perhaps the hardest to grasp for non-Muslims because it relates to the giving from those who have to those who have not under the general prescriptions of Sharia. The term does not precisely translate as ‘charity’ or ‘alms giving’ and no fixed quantity or percentage is determined, but the failure to give Zakat appropriately is generally considered to be a source of shame for those who could give but choose not to.
Education is a central virtue in Islam and an often-quoted hadith of the Prophet enjoins that one should ‘study knowledge from everywhere, even from China’. Thus, managers are enthusiastic to become qualified: MBA programmes are well subscribed and to be well educated is a source of honour and influence. Leadership behaviours that are incompatible with these under...
