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 2

CREATING A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE FROM YOUR RECRUITMENT TECHNOLOGY: PART 2

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.

In the first of this two-part series, Nathan Cayless, Product Technology Manager at Hays Talent Solutions, reflected on the current state of the market, exploring the gap between expectation and reality in the implementation of recruitment technology, the progress made during the pandemic and the value that automation is starting to unlock.

Part 2 sees Nathan give his predictions for the next 12 months, offering valuable advice to organisations eager to leverage HR and recruitment technology as a source of competitive advantage in a tight talent market.

 

Changes on the horizon

In the first blog, I reflected on the sheer pace and volume of change that, although already on the horizon, had been accelerated by the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic, as both teams and technology adapted to accommodate the virtual sourcing, onboarding and management of workers.

Looking ahead to the next 12 months, HR technology will play a key role in shaping the focus and direction of how workers collaborate, are engaged and upskilled.

As we continue to operate across borders and time zones, technology will be vital in enabling connectivity, but also ensuring disconnection from work, as remote and hybrid working continues to blur the lines between our personal and professional lives.

We are already witnessing these developments. The widespread integration of Office 365 apps such as Microsoft Teams and Viva within business offers deeper analysis into activity, reminding employees to book out ‘focus time’ or create a ‘Virtual Commute’.

These tools have provided the basis for a significant shift over recent years from a culture of work being completed in isolation - as team members tackled individual tasks and then shared progress with colleagues via email - to a culture of collaboration, driven by document sharing, virtual whiteboards and mind-mapping.

Technology will continue to encourage companies to consider how they communicate with people in their organisation, how success is recognised and how individuals are trained and retrained to meet demand.

HR and recruitment technology will play a key role in bringing together these different elements, facilitating microlearning and creating a clear line of two-way communication through organisations. I’m eager to see how this focus on wellbeing and development will unfold over the next year.

 

Delving into diversity

Research indicates that technology can help tackle concerns or barriers linked to diversity and inclusion, such as unconscious bias. However, the data from our LinkedIn survey indicates that just 41% of organisations use some form of technology to support ED&I.

I think there are several factors that are preventing businesses from leveraging technology to help them reach important ED&I milestones.

The first challenge lies in the collection of accurate data. Disclosure of applicant and worker ED&I data is optional, placing increased importance on the messaging surrounding any requests for data, which should include how the data will be held, used and the benefit of providing it. There are also considerations to be made around the quality of questions posed to applicants and employees and at which process points these are asked, to ensure that ‘temperature checks’ can be taken at multiple points in the recruitment workflow.

The sensitivity of ED&I-related information adds further complexity. Even if accurate data is available, this information must be interpreted and translated to offer actionable insights. This can be a complex process, which requires input from relevant ED&I champions and other stakeholders in the organisation, to ensure that data driven decisions are reviewed and agreed upon.

Forward-thinking organisations will currently be reviewing their processes in a bid to capture better data to drive forward ED&I initiatives. This does, of course, demand a degree of trial and error, requiring regular assessment of the various touchpoints across the recruitment, onboarding and management cycle to optimise the information on offer.

 

Battling for Talent

HR and recruitment technology will play a vital role in supporting organisations as they compete for talent in an increasingly candidate-driven market.

With a recent PWC survey indicating that 49% of candidates would turn down a job offer due to a poor recruiting experience, technology is crucial to maintaining engagement. But to thrive in the new world of work, organisations must not only consider how they communicate with successful applicants, but also those that narrowly miss out on the opportunity. Technology, for example, can be deployed to relay personalised feedback, with bespoke videos from hiring managers surging in popularity.

When operating in today’s tight talent market, those organisations who strive to build and maintain connections will benefit from a greater pool of skills and experience from which to source their next employee.

Beyond their in-house ‘tech stack’, organisations must also consider how they interact with third-party technology in a bid to win top talent. The growing popularity of social media platforms such as Instagram and Tik Tok, for example, cannot be ignored. These channels have changed the way in which younger generations communicate, forcing companies to consider if their corporate-centric branding is still fit for purpose.

 

Preparing for the new world of work

It is safe to assume that most organisations of a certain size will be using some form of HR and/or recruitment technology to support the sourcing, selection and management of candidates.

Therefore, to simply have a suitable technology ‘stack’ in place offers no real form of advantage.

Instead, the competitive edge lies in how and where this technology is deployed.

Prior to implementation, I’d advise businesses to dive deep into their recruitment processes, undertaking market research, examining existing data sets, attraction channels and their Employer Value Proposition (EVP).

Having mapped out these aspects, organisations should consider where issues frequently occur or if an evident USP exists and consider how technology can support in solving a problem – or maximising an advantage.

To sustain this competitive edge, organisations must acknowledge and account for the ongoing resource required to avoid HR and recruitment technology stagnating. A rigorous framework for implementation and adoption will support this, with regular performance analysis to ensure that technology is fit for purpose not just for today, but also in the months and years ahead.

 

Some final thoughts

The pace of change is relentless. In order to meet demand, drive forward ED&I initiatives and secure top talent, organisations must deploy a range of HR and recruitment technologies to their advantage.

Partnering with a dedicated workforce solutions provider can help organisations to shape a ‘North Star’ vision that is more efficient, reduces risk and drives value – allowing the business to achieve more.

For more information, contact a member of the Hays Talent Solutions team today.

 

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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