The Future is Feminine // Why Leadership Needs Empathy, Authenticity & That Human Touch

Imagine stepping into boardrooms across the UAE and finding something positively refreshing: leadership infused with heart. The kind of leadership that demands empathy, authenticity and emotional intelligence, qualities once dismissed as 'soft'. Well, I believe the future is here and it's unapologetically feminine. In today’s complex race towards embracing AI, our world demands more human-led, values-driven leadership. And who better to provide it than the women reshaping the entrepreneurial landscape in the UAE?

Let’s burst that bubble of misconception: emotional intelligence isn’t fluff, it’s fundamentals. Empathy builds loyal teams and customers. Collaboration drives innovation in ways hierarchical power plays never could. Adaptability ensures resilience when change strikes. Let’s illustrate with a vignette: an empathic leader in a hamster-wheel startup recognises burnout in her team, not with side hugs but with flexible schedules and meaningful acknowledgement. Productivity doesn’t plummet, it soars. Hearts and invoices both swell. In short, feminine leadership doesn’t come at the expense of profit. It enhances it.

But first, let's lean into the data. A breakthrough moment, if ever there was:

Women now make up 34.6% of the UAE workforce, a jump from 32.5% last year.

They constitute 18% of all UAE entrepreneurs and 77.6% of those are under 40. Nearly half are executive directors, and 61.4% fully own their businesses.

Emirati women launched over 2,000 new businesses in just the first half of last year, 22% of all new companies.

Why mention these numbers? Because they signal seismic cultural change, underscored by a national ecosystem primed to support female-led ventures. The UAE ranks first in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (2024), offering world-class ease of starting businesses, access to finance and female-friendliness.

As a go-to-market strategist and partnerships leader in Dubai, I’ve been privileged to work intimately with female founders building mission-aligned businesses. Through my collaboration with several startup incubators,  I’ve observed not just smart business models, but leadership with heart. Women don’t just disrupt markets, they reshuffle mindsets. When we lead through empathy, the game changes: diverse hiring, flexible policies, impact-led growth. My work with female founders has revealed that impact, sustainability, inclusion: these are fetch-worthy new KPIs. To further this cause, I’m hoping to launch a female founder startup accelerator bridging the glaring funding gap for female founders – only 2% of global VC funding goes to female entrepreneurs. Imagine a curated gem combining funding, mentorship, tailored go-to-market support, emotional resilience workshops and pitch finesse. Because female entrepreneurs don’t just launch startups, they cultivate ecosystems. They lead with humanity.

In a world eagerly chasing AI wizardry, feminine leadership offers the missing human wiring. Mastercard found that 75% of female entrepreneurs use AI, with 85% reporting significant time or cost savings. Through a blend of the rational with the relational, our women in tech culture can unlock powerful synergies: bots powered by empathy, algorithms driven by ethics. And if that isn't admirable, what is?

Here’s where we need more action:

For governments: invest in female-tailored accelerators, mentorship programmes, funding pools.

For corporates: embed feminine norms: flexible hours, remote options, emotional wellbeing. Policy is not passive; people are.

For investors: fund female founders sooner and at scale. Don’t just green-light numbers, green-line values.

Success is no longer a solo sprint up the greasy pole. My forthcoming book, The Mother Shift (The Dreamwork Collective, releasing in October 2025), explores this paradigm: ambition with balance; influence without burnout; working parenthood that benefits not just individuals and corporations but society at large. Having spent over a decade navigating male-dominated industries, first in the high-octane corridors of investment banking and later in the sharp-edged world of fintech, I learned early on that softness was seen as a flaw, not a strength. Empathy, emotional intelligence and authenticity - the very qualities that define so many women - were often dismissed as liabilities. Success demanded a kind of professional shapeshifting: lowering your voice, muting your instincts, fitting into spaces that were never built with women in mind. But the tide is turning. Today, female entrepreneurs are no longer contorting themselves to squeeze into old frameworks. Instead, we are building our own spaces: bold, inclusive, radically human. We are curating our own tables rather than waiting, politely and silently, for a seat at someone else’s. And in doing so, we are not just redefining success, but redesigning the very architecture of leadership itself.

The future is feminine. Not because of gendered binaries, but because the traits that have made women leaders all over the world are precisely what the next era of leadership demands. Female entrepreneurship in the UAE is no longer a trend, it’s transformation towards better gender equity and stronger leadership values. Revolutionising leadership isn’t optional, it’s essential. After all, if the future is feminine, it is also dynamic, empathetic and fabulous.

About the author:

Musata Matei is a go-to-market strategist and business development leader based in Dubai, with over 12 years of experience in fintech and tech ecosystems across EMEA. She advises startups via Hub71, Ignyte, Bedayat Business Incubator among others and is working with female founders to close funding and mentorship gaps. Musata is the author of The Mother Shift (The Dreamwork Collective, releasing in October 2025) - a journey through identity, working motherhood, resilience and redefined success. Fluent in five languages, she melds commercial rigour with compassionate leadership to champion a future where values, humanity and, perhaps a little flair, lead the way.