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: 

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null Creating a competitive advantage from your recruitment technology: part 1

CREATING A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE FROM YOUR RECRUITMENT TECHNOLOGY: PART 1

In a bid to attract, engage and manage workforces more efficiently and effectively, many organisations are turning to technology. But building, adopting and implementing an agile HR and recruitment ‘tech stack’ can prove complex.

While our recent UK Recruitment Technology Survey illustrated ‘blockers’ as varied as cost, user enablement and complexity, successful implementation offers the possibility of a competitive advantage amidst a tough talent market.

In this first of this two-part series, Nathan Cayless, Product Technology Manager at Hays Talent Solutions, explores the gaps between possibility and reality in reference to implementation, the progress made in the use and adoption of recruitment technology during the pandemic and his expectations surrounding the continued integration of automation.

 

Closing the gap between expectation and reality

In a recent survey of the Talent Solutions LinkedIn community, nearly half (46%) of participants felt that the market had failed to keep pace with changes in recruitment technology over the last two years.

I believe that the gap between the expectation of technology and the reality of implementation exists for three, closely interlinked, reasons: Integration, Data and Automation.

Integration: It’s not uncommon for large organisations to have unique processes for different areas of the business, which are often inconsistent with one another. You’ll likely see different technology deployed for a range of recruitment workflows – these might span Candidate Relationship Management, Application Tracking, Vendor Management and Human Resources Management.

And while the individual technologies are accomplished at achieving objectives in isolation, it is a lack of seamless integration or misalignment in key touchpoints that causes frustration, forcing users to operate across multiple systems, manually shift and share data or develop ‘workarounds’.

While technology is often the perceived source of frustration for complaints, in my experience, it is often overly complex or flawed processes that technology is attempting to support, that are at the root of the issue. HR and recruitment technology is too often used as a sticking plaster to cover poor processes.

Data: We are operating in an era of Big Data. A wealth of tech-based tools, such as Power BI and Tableu, facilitate regular reporting across all aspects of an organisation.

Many have been sold the ‘big data’ dream. However, a gap often exists between expectation and reality, and with data, this is often driven by a lack of understanding or knowledge of how to best interrogate and draw logical insight from data to add business value. Large quantities of raw data do not always correlate with better business decisions, such as increased productivity or cost efficiencies. To unlock the benefits of a data driven organisation, it is key that relevant, concise and well visualised data is available to the right stakeholders at the right time.

Automation: We have only just scratched the surface in terms of what automation can offer the world of HR and recruitment technology.

However, a gap often exists between actual and expected performance due to a lack of pre-implementation optimisation.

Many look to automate processes that are inherently complex or have multiple failure points. But for technology to truly add value, organisations must take a step back and review their entire recruitment process, ensuring these are clear, logical and as simple as possible.

This is far from a ‘quick win’, but without detailed consideration of the structure, size and nuances within existing systems and processes, there is a risk that automation will not succeed in achieving business objectives.

 

Pandemic inspired progress

Diving deeper into the recruitment process itself, a key area of focus in recent years has been the deployment of onboarding tools, as many workers shifted to a remote recruitment process.

Feedback gathered as part of the recent UK Recruitment Technology report illustrated that onboarding tools are generally considered ‘poor performers’, with 75% of survey participants rating them as ‘average’, or lower.

While onboarding tools have certainly lagged in comparison to the rest of the recruitment ‘tech stack’, the coronavirus pandemic has instigated a much-needed mindset change.

Just a few years ago, the majority of these tools were focused upon facilitating administrative processes.

Post pandemic, there has been a notable shift towards onboarding and integration, with many recruitment tools championing the employee experience. Tech stacks have expanded to include videos from hiring managers, introductory calls and pre-employment training.

Those organisations who transition from contractual exchange to connection stand to benefit from an increase in speed-to-productivity and higher retention rates.

 

Starting (and sustaining) something new

In response to many of the challenges presented by the new world of work, organisations are eager to expand their HR and recruitment technology stack to help attract, source and retain top talent.

While technology offers a wealth of opportunities, it often brings with it resistance to change. Implementing and sustaining the adoption of new tools represents a critical barrier that must be overcome if recruitment technology is to deliver a competitive advantage.

Aligning the implementation of new technology to wider objectives and business goals is fundamental to success.

Often, we see projects fail due to a lack of visibility, interest or perceived benefit. Connecting the dots can help to combat all three. Throughout the process, you’ll need to continually engage with and support implementation with clear communication, active listening and in-built agility, to deliver a result that works for you, and your teams.

For those organisations witnessing a recurrent issue with sustained adoption, I would recommend a review of the end-to-end process of the change management process. Companies must understand the problem they are trying to solve, the key players across the organisation and the stakeholders that are essential to success.

 

Automation incoming

Perhaps unsurprisingly, over 60% of respondents in our LinkedIn survey flagged Automation and AI as their leading technology focus areas for 2022.

Fears of displacement prompted by automation have largely been replaced by the understanding that technology will automate many mundane tasks, allowing individuals to leverage uniquely ‘human’ qualities such as communication, critical thinking and problem solving.

This holds true in the world of recruitment technology. Organisations should look to deploy tools to refine, rather than replace. Chatbots, for example, can facilitate streamlined communication, tackling frequently asked questions or conducting an initial screening of candidates, allowing individuals to refocus their energy into nurturing top talent through the recruitment pipeline.

We touched on the prevalence of big data earlier, and it is here that humans will continue to play a key role in the form of Analysts and Project Managers. The raw data produced by round-the-clock reporting will need to be combined with insights, experience and feedback to inform better decision making.

Finding a balance between the ‘art’ and ‘artificial’ will prove the greatest challenge to organisations.

 

Looking ahead

It is evident that there is still much progress to be made in order for organisations to realise the full suite of benefits that technology can offer to the recruitment process . However, with the support of a dedicated workforce solutions provider, businesses can improve efficiencies, reduce risk and yield the maximum value from their investment.

In part two of this series, I offer my predictions for the future of HR and recruitment technology, including commitments to ED&I and the ongoing battle for talent in an increasingly candidate-driven market.

 

AUTHOR


Nathan Cayless
Technology Product Manager, Hays Talent Solutions
Nathan is a technology focused Product Manager, experienced in MSP, RPO and SAAS technology implementation as well as solution design/configuration.

Being with the business for 10 years, spanning operational and project management roles, as a PRINCE2 practitioner, Nathan has a depth of experience in recruitment technology and change management.

 

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