Dubai Customs organizes workshop on 'Leadership and ECi 360 degrees'

This comes inline with the Department's interest in developing human resources and administrative capabilities. The workshop was conducted by Doctor Martyn Newman, an expert on Emotional Intelligence and Leadership and the Director of RocheMartin Pty Ltd Company.

Doctor Martyn Newman has highlighted a number of factors that are directly linked to emotional management and its positive impact on administrative matters. He pointed that emotionally intelligent leadership enables those in-charge to invest their energies and abilities to attain the best outcome from their employees and team members.

This workshop comes as part of the Department's implementation of the "Leadership and ECi 360 degrees" program which is in tune with Dubai Customs' vision for outstanding leadership and also with Dubai Government's vision for excellence. Boosting employees' administrative competencies and overall performance is also part of Dubai Customs' vision which is enhanced through holding such workshops.

"Emotional Intelligence & Leadership" program provides indicators that point out the certain distinguishing characteristics for those who have leadership traits in comparison to their colleagues and employers. For the entire duration of the program; six months, the attendees will be able to learn how to bridge the gap and get closer to employees to understand their viewpoints in order to enhance overall performance.

Doctor Newman pointed out ten competencies that distinguish successful managers and enable them to intelligently use emotions while managing and solving problems to achieve the targeted productivity for the Department by managing themselves and others. He cited experiences have shown that employees function better when dealing with trustworthy managers and directors who are able to generate mutual friendly relationship.

These ten competencies include: Self-Awareness which is a leader's knowledge of his influence on others, Self-Confidence where leaders believe in themselves and their team members' capabilities, Optimism which means taking advantage of opportunities and turning failures into success, and being able to give clear instructions, Self-Reliance which enables managers to initiate their own vision, Self-Assertiveness Actualization which is part of their inner power that urges others to give their maximum effort at work, Flexibility which the ability to adapt to changes, Relationship Skills which is having good social skills that help having a good relationships with co-workers, Self-Control and finally Empathy which is often described as the ability to "put oneself into another's shoes" when making a decision and to be able to build and increase their loyalty to the company.

According to Doctor Martyn Newman, "If managers seek efficiency, they have to be creative and innovative. They should avoid the conventional approach for management and instead concentrate on the emotional one while dealing with the employees and team members. Applying the aforementioned Ten competencies, managers should be able to treat the employees appropriately to achieve successful emotionally intelligent leadership."

Mr. Khalifa Abu Jamhour, Senior Manager of Human Resources Department at Dubai Customs, said:

"The Department gives a great interest to the Human Resources development and considers it the key to success at any business environment. This includes enhancing professional competencies and abilities on every level to maintain performance progress and productivity growth."

He added, "Dubai Customs is keen on applying the best international standards in all aspects including management processes that are inline with the Department's policies. Emotional leadership is considered a new praiseworthy concept that has positive impact on international firms. It also corresponds to the Department's policies and objectives that are related to employees' development."

Not a new concept, Emotional Leadership is being scientifically implemented now across big firms based on new philosophies that emerged in the twenties of the last century. Martyn Newman mentioned that it has been efficiently and practically applied in the past few years.

"These scientific theories have given us the ability to manage more efficiently towards achieving success. Previous theories stated that Cognitive Intelligence is the key to success at the worplace, whereas it is Emotional Intelligence that plays a great role in achieving career success," Martyn Newman said.