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 an agile workforce: A guide to MSP benefits

CREATING AN AGILE WORKFORCE: A GUIDE TO MSP BENEFITS

There’s a common misconception that you need to be a ‘big business’ to engage a Managed Service Programme (MSP) provider. However, you don’t need to be a large organisation to do so.

MSP arrangements are put in place to save companies time and money, and these arrangements have been growing in popularity for over a decade. This growth is largely due to MSP solutions improving in many areas, including:

  • Becoming more easily accessible.
  • Improvements in technology allowing MSPs to operate in a way that suits today’s fast paced business environment.
  • Solutions becoming more scalable, allowing for success regardless of the size of an organisation.

 

Effective contingent workforce programmes deliver the same features and benefits to SMEs as they do to large organisations. MSPs offer the ability to ensure you are gaining maximum value and efficiency from contingent labour in your organisation.

Here’s what to look for when searching for your next strategic partner.

What is an MSP provider? A brief overview:

An MSP arrangement means an employer enters into a single contract with an outsourced service provider. This contract is to manage its temporary workers and contractors.

The MSP team sits between internal procurement or hiring managers and recruitment firms, supplying contractors and temporary staffing solutions. An efficient MSP should monitor key trends, including:

  • Changing skill sets and mismatches.
  • Rate fluctuations to enable employers to reap the benefits.
  • Allowing employers to focus their time on what they do best.

 

It’s the responsibility of the MSP to consider all stakeholders, technology and systems. They must remain neutral at every stage and create a level playing field for competing suppliers. By ensuring fair competition, the client receives the best service at the most competitive price.

What to look for in an MSP recruitment provider:

Any MSP provider you consider should have a proven track record. Their staff should show high engagement levels. An effective MSP provider should also use the right technology and processes to ensure maximum value to your company.

The right provider has all these qualities plus:

  • An effective network of downstream supplier relationships.
  • An efficient supply management system.
  • A user-friendly technology platform to oversee your entire contingent workforce.
  • The ability to create and drive market intelligence and cost-saving initiatives.
  • A well-defined authorisation process that captures all relevant costs, not just headcount.

 

What should your MSP add to your business? 

An MSP ensures you are getting the greatest value and day-to-day performance from your panel of suppliers. Additionally, an MSP also provides access to the best available contingent talent.

Some of the best people prefer contract arrangements over a permanent role. An MSP ensures you don’t miss out on seeding your existing talent network with experts who can add real value to your work.

However, there are two other major benefits of having an MSP. This includes reducing costs and ensuring your use of contingent talent aligns with your wider people strategy.

How an MSP can make your contingent workforce spend more cost effective:

Your MSP partners are experts in negotiating the best possible rates with suppliers. But they also take care of much more than that, they will also:

  • Ensure the consistent application of statutory on costs.
  • Perform pay rate benchmarking keeps rates competitive.
  • Use data analytics to track and understand salary and payment trends over time.
  • Leverage data trends to accurately interpret trends and changes.

 

Using an MSP also means the removal of contractor administration fees. The team can also reclassify Statement of Work (SOW) spend into lower cost channels.

Making contingent workers part of your people strategy:

An MSP should support a holistic people strategy.

Companies ‘going it alone’ rarely have the time or tools to include their contingent workforce in any strategic plans.

Ingraining an MSP as part of your operational function provides real time visibility of your contingent workforce. In turn, this integration unlocks access to quality business intelligence to inform the decisions you make.

The ability to monitor and optimise transaction processes using AI is becoming a critical skill. This growing importance of AI proficiency is especially true as these systems continue to evolve.

How your data should provide a blueprint for action

When partnering with clients to build an MSP solution, we put data analytics at the centre of our strategy. Our focus on client challenges and expertise in capturing and translating data into action provides a superior experience.

We configure the Vendor Management System (VMS) to provide a real-time picture of your contingent workforce and its costs.

We customise intelligent dashboards to provide a summary of your programme on a monthly and quarterly basis. By interpreting medium to long-term data, we can identify trends and opportunities for strategic decisions and improvements.

Next steps for your agile MSP recruitment strategy

Complexity demands agility. An MSP draws on robust data, deep understanding of the market and well-developed expertise to help you make the right decision, at pace.

Learn more from the experts here: 

 

Or speak to the team at Hays today and discover the value we add as your lifelong partner.

 

AUTHOR


Shane Little
Managing Director (APAC), Enterprise Solutions at Hays
As Managing Director (APAC) for Enterprise Solutions at Hays, Shane is responsible for the delivery of market leading Talent Solutions to a range of clients across Australia, New Zealand and Asia.

He has a unique insight into total talent management, talent acquisition and contingent workforce programs having been involved in early stage PSL arrangements, first generation programmes and mature workforce solutions.