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 Contingent workforce programmes in Asia and their benefits

CONTINGENT WORKFORCE PROGRAMMES IN ASIA AND THEIR BENEFITS

Last week over 150 HR and Procurement professionals came together at Staffing Industry Analysts’ Contingent Worker Summit (CWS) in Singapore. The aim of the summit was to share how organisations, in Asia and globally, can get the most from their contingent worker programmes.

This is third time to summit has been held in Singapore and we are pleased to have been invited each year to share our experience as guest speaker and panelist. One of the key observations from the summit this year was the diversity of attendees, from the type of organisation and functions represented to the level of visibility and control they currently have over their contingent worker population.

Questions raised ranged from:
• What is a “contingent worker programme”?
• What benefits can I expect?

To the more complex: 
• How does this change over time?
• How does this apply in Asia?
• What's next here and globally?

Over the next few weeks I will sharing some thoughts and observations on these questions and some of the wider discussions from the summit.

What is a “contingent worker programme”?

Whilst the phrase “temps” once conjured up the image of a fill-in covering while your full-time employee was on leave. This is no longer the case. Contingent workers are those vacation cover staff and many more types of workers, from light-industrial workers to highly skilled specialists, consultants and even robots (more of that in a later post). As professionals seek out increasingly flexible working options this growing talent pool is rapidly changing how companies fill jobs and the make-up of their workforces.

A contingent worker programme is designed to manage this new mobile and highly agile workforce – ensuring organisations have visibility and oversight of these workers. These programmes often fall under HR but also can be managed by procurement. However, as the prevalence of these programmes increases I have noted specialist “Contingent Worker Management” functions and professionals are becoming more common, a trend reflected at the summit.

There are many options for your programme from Managed Service Programmes (MSP) to Vendor Management Systems (VMS) and Contractor Management Offices (CMO).

What benefits can I expect from a contingent workforce program?

The biggest advantage of any staffing programme, for contingent or permanent workers, is the increased ability to connect you with the top talent. However you can also derive a number of other benefits, including:

• Cost- effective management of wages, candidate attraction methods and fees
• Risk- visibility and management of statutory, employment and business risk
• Quality- improved stakeholder management and feedback, worker productivity and attrition
• Efficiency- reduced time to hire and transactional costs

How do I realise the benefits of a contingent workforce program?

Whilst there are many benefits and factors to consider when exploring if a contingent workforce programme is for you, the first thing you should reflect on is the why. Why are you looking to implement a contingent workforce programme? Out of all of these benefits what are you looking for?

Over 15 years developing talent solutions for organisations of all sizes I have found the best way to deal with this is to think of it as four box/quadrant model of the afore mentioned factors:

Cost Risk
quality Efficiency


Contingent workforce programmes can help with each of the above, but you need to consider which is the most important to you. Does each of the criteria have equal weighting, 25% each or equal quadrant? Or is one more important than the others?

If your focus is on revenue generating roles then time to market, the efficiency quadrant, may be largest. However, in highly regulated industries it may be more important to place the greatest emphasis on risk, making this the dominant quadrant.

Whilst the old cliché ‘if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it’ may not always apply, when it comes to the recruitment and the management of a contingent workforce it certainly does.

To effectively focus your programme you need to understand, prioritise and define what success looks like for you and then mirror these on your contract measures, Service Level Agreements (SLAs) or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

 

If you have any questions about getting started in workforce management or would like to discuss the potential benefits to your organisation in particular please contact me.

AUTHOR


Robert Moffatt
Senior Vice President Corporate Solutions for the Americas, Hays Talent Solutions
With a 20 year plus track record of designing, implementing and managing resourcing services Robert has a wealth of knowledge on the challenges and opportunities facing employers and providers in maintaining a competitive advantage in talent acquisition, engagement and retention.

As Director of Corporate Solutions, initially in Europe, then APAC and now the Americas, Robert is one of a global team responsible for innovation and product development for Hays Talent Solutions, the Hays’ Managed Service Programme (MSP) and Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) division.

He has a passion for new ideas, markets and opportunities and has been instrumental in a number of Hays recent global projects including the roll out of a global research and insights programme, new social media engagement strategy, the evolution of our direct sourcing approach and a quick deploy RPO service for start-up and high growth companies.