Aim, objectives and feasibility of the dissertation The United Arab Emirates are making a considerable progress in creating unprecedented opportunities for its citizens to enable them compete in the global labour market. Emiratisation is a national programme launched by the UAE government at the beginning of the millennium to assist nationals in their attempts to meet job requirements of both public and private organisations (Bealer and Bhanugopan, 2014). Namely, the government sponsors various business, development, and research initiatives, provides grants, and creates favourable conditions for its nationals to take leadership roles and compete with expats. This initiative has been implemented for more than a decade; however, it is still not successful, especially in the private sector: the UAE citizens represent no more than 0.3% of the workforce despite the fact that the programme is aimed to provide better leadership education and development opportunities to them. The problem that Emiratisation has not yet achieved its goals is now among the most pressing ones in the country. Despite the fact that the majority of UAE job applicants are well-educated, their preparation is insufficient to compete with expats (Hanna and Latchem, 2013). Unfortunately, the majority of educational institutions in the UAE are still unable to provide leadership education that would allow future graduates to meet the requirements posed by the world of work (Bealer and Bhanugopan, 2014). There are numerous reasons for this, including that most educational institutions in the west have already transferred from outdated models to innovative leadership, which makes their professionals more advanced (Bealer and Bhanugopan, 2014). However, the major reason seems to be that the majority of UAE students do not recognise the importance of leadership and therefore do not value the opportunities they have. The major aim of the research at hand is to find out why. Although there are those, who are sure that the new targets of Emiratisation (including advanced leadership, human resource development, and nationalisation of business practices) are met, yet, there is also a widespread opinion on the level of maturity of national leadership capacity as there are currently no educational programmes that would satisfy leadership requirement posed by the new age. There are numerous educational challenges to overcome to unleash the leadership potential and re-balance the labour force (Hanna and Latchem, 2013). In one hand, it is hard for nationals to compete with expats, and on the other hand, the government cannot resolve this problem by artificially integrating them into businesses. Emiratisation is a complex process that cannot be reduced to the idea of making space for intentionally created positions designed for country nationals. They need to be ready to take them (Prabhakar and Yaseen, 2016). Thus, there is a growing need to focus on the role of leadership in this effort that may assist nationals in moving onwards and upwards into positions with due confidence and realisation of their positive contribution. Currently, there is no clear picture of what great leadership must look like against the c