What defines a good leader? Look for these six qualities

WHAT DEFINES A GOOD LEADER? LOOK FOR THESE SIX QUALITIES

Modern business challenges can require new approaches. Leadership will need to evolve in order to continue to guide organisations in tomorrow's world of work. But what are the characteristics of a good modern leader in the workplace - and how can organisations develop them? 

Many studies draw parallels between effective leadership and solid organisational performance. But whether they’re a junior manager or a senior executive, the qualities that leaders need are changing.
 
Nearly 1,500 HR professionals ranked leadership development as the number one priority for 2025, with managers feeling 'overwhelemed' by the expansion of their responsibilities. In today’s unpredictable world, you must combine traditional leadership skills with new abilities. So, what does an effective modern leader look like?
 

1. Remember what makes a good leader

Before looking at the new skills future leaders may need, it is worth reflecting on what a leader actually is.
 
What are the qualities of a good leader? It’s not what you may think.
 
Being in charge of colleagues does not necessarily make you a ‘leader’. Former Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg explains: “Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.”
 
Retired astronaut Chris Hadfield believes that good leadership is: “Not about glorious crowning acts. It’s about keeping your team focused on a goal and motivated to do their best to achieve it. Especially when the stakes are high and the consequences really matter.”
 
There may be varying opinions on the strengths and weaknesses of leaders. But overall, most people believe that great leaders motivate their team members to perform their best and achieve common goals.
 
What traits do you need to achieve this in the modern workplace?
 

2. Use blended leadership styles for a VUCA world 

Stacey Philpot from Deloitte Consulting maintains that the core skills needed historically in leadership roles have remained unchanged.
 
“These skills allow someone to become a leader faster than their peers. This is even true in today’s volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) environment,” she says.
 
The core skills for leading in a VUCA environment include:
 
  • Pattern recognition
  • Motivation
  • Agility
  • Emotional intelligence
  • Ability to understand, control and express emotions
 
This represents psychological assessments of 23,000 senior leaders globally over the past 25 years.
 
Consider introducing servant leadership:
 
Leaders need new styles of leadership to deal with changing cultures. Being comfortable with not having the answer and owning failure can create an environment of trust and openness.
 
Collectively, these behaviours form ‘servant leadership’. The Chartered Management Institute (CMI) defines servant leadership as emphasising behaviours and values such as:
 
  • Active listening
  • Empathy
  • Leading by example
 
These are instead of opting for a more authoritative, ‘command-and-control’ leadership style. Leaders create the conditions for team members to excel by displaying vulnerability. But given the stigma around servant leadership, how can organisations encourage it?
 
How to combat stigma surrounding servant leadership:
 
Alsu Polyakova, HR Leader for GE Healthcare, says reducing stigma around servant leadership will take a specific strategy. Most importantly frequent performance appraisals for leaders.
 
“We give leaders lots of opportunities for self-reflection, so they understand how they behave,” she says. GE Healthcare’s most successful leaders help to encourage behavioural change, Polyakova says. The company measures success by how well employees rate leaders on achieving GE Healthcare’s ‘cultural pillars’. These pillars include inspiring trust and empowering employees.
 

3. Create a culture of trust in the workplace

Gaining workers’ trust is more important than ever. One way to build trust is for leaders to take action on issues such as climate change. 71 percent of employees consider their CEOs’ social awareness as critically important, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer.
 
Social awareness may yield rich rewards. The Edelman poll shows that workers who trust their employers are far more engaged and remain more loyal than their more sceptical peers.
 
Leadership styles are clearly changing. The most effective leaders will need to tailor their styles to suit different scenarios, says Professor Sattar Bawany. “Leaders need a broad repertoire of management styles and the wisdom to know when each style should be used,” he says. “In crisis scenarios like cybersecurity breaches, for example, leadership should be authoritarian because the scenario is unstructured.”
 

4. Adapt your leadership style for different generations

Managers must also balance leadership styles to suit different generations. Modern workplaces will soon house up to five generations under one roof. Therefore, there will be many people with differing preferences on leadership style.
 
As of 2023, millennials are the biggest group in the UK workforce, at 35 percent. Modern leaders must mix old and new leadership styles that meet the needs of younger generations. Doing so will future proof organisations. However, new leadership approaches cannot come at the expense of alienating older workers.
 

5. Commit to lifelong learning

With the workplace evolving so rapidly, leaders cannot rely on past experience alone to get by. Ben Farmer, Head of HR at Amazon UK agrees: “Experience is not always synonymous with wisdom and judgement. And naivety doesn’t always engender novel thinking and openness to change.”
 
Organisations should look for leaders who understand the future as well as those with experience. “Success comes from the ability to combine understanding of exciting, new trends with the experience required to put that knowledge into action,” says Farmer.
 
But what is the right balance? There is no one-size-fits-all approach when balancing experience with adaptability. Achieving the right balance will mostly depend on the organisation and the sector it operates in.
 

6. Be conscious of culture

Organisational culture is an important factor. Risk-averse firms may prefer experience over novel thinking. Leaders may be fearful of a backlash from stakeholders should novel thinking fail. To lower risk, companies should seek leaders who use both scientific evidence and intuition when making decisions.
 
Ultimately, there’s no single blueprint for an effective modern leader. Each organisation must tailor their approach to leadership development. There must be a focus on organisational culture, industry nuances and employee mix.
 
But above all, leaders should recognise that today’s reality may be old news tomorrow.
 
 

For more expert advice, take a look at the following articles: 

Blog title V2

BLOG

 
 

Asset Publisher

null 3 questions to ask when implementing a new MSP

3 QUESTIONS TO ASK WHEN IMPLEMENTING A NEW MSP

A great idea is only as good as its implementation. Whenever I talk to anyone about a Managed Service Programme (MSP) or even just a Vendor Management System (VMS) I can’t emphasise enough the importance of a solid implementation. I’m assuming since you’ve read this far, you’re one of those people who gets that. So based on our 24 years’ experience as a Managed Service Provider here are the key things to consider to ensure you avoid the most common contingent workforce programme mistakes.

Who do you need to involve and what do they need to know?

The most important part of a successful implementation of your Managed Service Programme is having all key stakeholders and governance team on board in the process. Many programmes fail due to having weak stakeholders or governance that either do not have the authority to enforce processes and policies or because they don’t know or care enough to enforce them at all.

Therefore how these stakeholders are organised and communicated to will play a big part towards the overall success. During your implementation you’ll be making some pretty big decisions that will impact established policies and processes that will impact how many people across your business access the resources they need. Those impacted will each have different requirements and concerns and these need to be mapped out in the communications. You’ll be changing their behaviours, which requires change management and a clear communication plan. Identifying the desired behaviour of each stakeholder and an engaging benefit to the user will help you effectively impact the change.

All users, including the MSP team, the hiring managers, the staffing suppliers and the actual workers need to be communicated to about the functionalities. For example:

  • Hiring managers need to know how it works and what to do when they engage a contingent worker
  • Staffing providers need to understand how they can get access to requisitions and how rate cards work
  • Workers need to know how to enter timesheets, expenses and where to go for problems
     

Keeping communications frequent and relevant is important to keep key stakeholders engaged through each stage of the implementation process. This will also help to keep one consistent way of users using the system.

However, in addition to these there are other departments you might not think of. For example, successful programmes will have strategies in place before the system goes live to help with a smooth transition and creating stage gates is a great example of this. Stage gates, where people can’t procure contingent workers without going through the programme will ensure no one can engage workers outside of the programme. This means engaging teams like accounts payable and implementing processes via them where hiring managers can only pay a vendor if they are an approved supplier of the programme.

IT can also support you in implementing stage gates, this is common in larger companies by implementing things like lockdowns that will mean individuals need a worker record to enable them access to the system and physical access into the building.

What exactly is covered and what isn’t?

It needs to be established what practically is in scope and out of scope, especially when it comes to exceptions and rules of a programme. This includes clearly outlining the escalation process and clearly defining how and when exceptions should be made. It needs to be decided what type of workers go through the programme and what is excluded. Once this has been decided exceptions shouldn’t be accepted lightly and strong management of this will prevent the implementation turning into a shambles. Key to this is having the governance board in place for sign off and a robust change control process.

Where is your data now and where does it need to go?

If you already have an existing programme in place your technology will probably stay the same, which will help towards an easier transition. However, if you change systems or implement a new programme suppliers will play an important part during this process, as the data exported from the current Vendor Management System (VMS) will need to be validated by them to ensure data put into the new system is up-to-date.

Additionally, if this is your first time building a Managed Service Programme there are some other data factors you will need to consider. You will need to review your current supply chain of vendors and your stream of workers currently on assignment as well as those that have been recently. This data will need to be exported from the various systems currently in place and this is something your IT team should be able to assist with. However, it is likely you will also need to speak to finance, as well as your key sourcing/ procurement contacts are critical to arranging the supplier information and the general stakeholders of the programme.

The role of an MSP is to make your business run more smoothly and efficiently, your job is to give them the information they need to make this happen. By asking who (do you need to include), what (is in scope) and where (your data is), you can be sure you have the key areas of your implementation covered.

AUTHOR

Kimball Norup
SVP, Head of Growth at Hays Talent Solutions Americas
With nearly two decades of experience in the human capital management industry. Kimball has experience in structural engineering, publishing entrepreneur, and running a successful strategy consulting firm. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo and an MBA with honours from the University of California, Davis.

Now his expertise is used working cross-functionally with the Hays Talent Solutions global leadership team to build the strategic plan for the expansion of Hays Talent Solutions in the Americas region. Focusing on business growth and client acquisition, activation, retention, and upsell across the region.