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 Fighting to do what’s right for our planet

FIGHTING TO DO WHAT’S RIGHT FOR OUR PLANET

‘Every three seconds, the world loses enough forest to cover a football pitch’.

Last year in celebration of World Environmental Health Day on 26th September, we launched a month-long Hays ‘Fight To Do What’s Right’ challenge, encouraging our teams to help contribute to a better planet.

The response was phenomenal, with hundreds of people participating in the event and undertaking activities such as litter picking, planting trees and cycling to work. So we relaunched the event for 2022, encouraging our colleagues to consider how even the smallest action could support collective efforts against climate change.

 

Marking Awareness Days

This year, we’ve sandwiched our campaign between Earth Day (April 22) and World Environment Day (5 June), two essential dates in the climate change calendar.

The theme for Earth Day 2022 was ‘Invest In Our Planet’. Coordinators called on us all to act boldly, innovative broadly and implement equitably, in partnership for the planet.

Looking ahead to World Environment Day, led by the United Nations Environment Programme, the event will see millions of people from across the world engaging to celebrate, protect and restore our planet.

2022 is milestone moment for the community, marking 50 years since the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, from which the awareness day was formalised.

 

How our teams ‘Fight To Do What’s Right’

The premise is simple. With the support of our Internal Communications Team, individuals are encouraged to consider what activities they’ll complete during the allocated time period. Ideas range from hosting an awareness event and volunteering with a local eco-friendly charity to donating clothes and setting up collection stations for recyclables such as batteries.

A little healthy competition is layered in, as each activity captured and submitted is worth 25 points, with a global leaderboard tracking the top individual performers and ‘greenest’ regions.

 

Here’s what our colleagues had to say

"I loved this challenge to increase the awareness for a healthier and more sustainable life and work balance among the people around me. It is very important to protect our environment and planet, but it’s also very easy – everyone can and needs to contribute. Start your day, every day and do the right thing!"

"Climate change affects everyone but disproportionately impacts poor and vulnerable people. This cause is important to me because future generations deserve to grow up in a world that isn’t impacted by extreme weather events, rising sea levels and loss of species. Together we can stop this; every action no matter how small will make a difference.”

"I wanted to get involved with this initiative as I believe all positive change in the world starts with one person’s action, and we mustn’t underestimate our contribution. There’s definitely a lot more I can do to help the planet, but I would encourage others to start small. Changing daily habits like limiting meat and dairy consumption, reducing plastic use, and buying recycled products is a great step in the right direction.”

 

Activities

I get milk directly from the farm in refillable glass bottles, so I save the plastic and stay local.

I get the coffee grounds from the coffee capsules and use them again, e.g. as fertilizer or homemade cosmetics.

I dry fresh fruit myself to preserve them and to throw away as little as possible. As a result, I can also do without sulphurized industrial goods and save on plastic packaging.

I save up to 50l water a day. I collect water with every shower or handwash and use it for flushing the toilet.

Wild garlic picked during a walk after work to make delicious things like butter, pesto, vinegar,....

Use the more than 40years old kitchen devices from my grandma, instead of producing e-waste.

Holding Earth Day Fair for Team and participating in Discussions on how we can impact our local community.

For Mother's Day I asked my boys to buy me a fruit tree. Something we can watch grow, but enjoy. My younger son hopes to buy another lemon tree so we can grow lemons to make lemonade.

I get my nieces to interact with important practices such as Recycling. They help me crush my cans and then we take them to the recycling center.

 

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