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 Is it possible to unite a remote workforce?

IS IT POSSIBLE TO UNITE A REMOTE WORKFORCE?

The concept of virtual or remote teams is not a new phenomenon. However, advances in technology, globalisation, organisational structures and ways of working have meant that this approach has grown significantly over the last few years.

Working within virtual teams and managing from afar requires a different approach to managing people who are in the same room as you.

It means new communication methodologies and techniques to get the best out of each other, whilst improving organisational and personal performance.

Not having employees working in front of you can at times create obstacles to communication, collaboration, relationship building and knowledge sharing within your team. Therefore the idea of having both a unified and remote workforce can seem contradictory. However I believe that having a team of employees that are both remote and joined up can be possible, you simply need to make sure you are following the below steps.

1. A clear communication strategy

When managing remote workers, it is important that you establish the best means of communication and keep this communication frequent. Regular and inclusive conversations will enable you to communicate common goals whilst establishing the skills each team member contributes toward achieving them. This will build a stronger sense of team spirit and unity.

Email can be a great way to get a message across in certain instances, for example when sharing documents, videos and images to a widely dispersed workforce. In addition, some of your team may be working in different time zones, so a phone call at 3am their time may not be appreciated.

However, the danger of constant email throughout each stage of a wider project is that you can end up with a never ending email thread, people forgetting to cc other people in, conversations getting side-tracked and the common objective being lost.

The way to combat this is by scheduling regular conference calls during which you can effectively lead a real-time conversation with a clear, unified objective. Send an agenda across beforehand and encourage everyone on the call to add to it so that nothing is missed out. Keep the conversation open and give each attendee a chance to speak and provide updates. In doing this, you can have an inclusive conversation, make sure everybody is on the same page, aligned and informed.

2. Minimise absences

Try to avoid any absences on the call – as these calls are your equivalent to team meetings. You need to hear and give updates to each individual, and in turn each individual needs to listen be heard. This is the only way to make sure every remote worker is being kept in the loop and part of their team.

If you find it tricky to find a call time that works for everyone, use an automated scheduling assistant-your email calendar software may come with one or alternatively, try Doodle. When scheduling conference calls, consider the time differences, and keep the calls as close to standard office hours as possible. If you find it is difficult to do this for each team member, then rotate the timings to make sure each worker gets their preferred time slot.

3. Improve intra-communications

In an office environment, team members have ample opportunities to build up both a professional and personal rapport with one another- whether it’s sharing random work ideas across the desk or catching up about the weekend in the elevator. These kinds of impromptu interactions between your staff can foster working relationships and open up lines of work related communication. More so, they help bring your team members together.

Of course this is a tricky thing to replicate, say, when you have one of your team members is in Singapore, another in the UK and six more in America. Conference calls provide the opportunity to encourage small talk and build relationships. However there will be many occasions when conference calls aren’t possible or necessary.

Keep the communication on-going by setting up a group chat – for example in my team we use Yammer to share successes, ask questions, and mention changes which crop up across our global network on a day to day basis.

4. Encourage knowledge sharing

Time zones won’t be the only thing that will vary between your remote workers. Consider your team’s different strengths and skills, and encourage a culture of knowledge sharing. Just because you aren’t all in the same room, doesn’t mean you cannot get one of your employees to create a webinar, podcast or PDF on their specialist subject.

This will help to unify your team and encourage them to appreciate one another’s value and purpose. You can also do this by publicly praising different members of the team when appropriate.

5. Be perceptive

In a meeting – you can read people’s body language and facial expression to gauge mood, which can help you to identify and diffuse any possible conflicts, tensions or issues between team members. This is something you cannot get on an audio call – so where possible, arrange for group Skype sessions.

Whilst video calling can help mitigate the problem, it can still be tricky to read people’s body language and facial expressions, particularly when you factor in aspects like camera quality and angle. Therefore you should also pay extra attention to people’s voices- identifying any changes in tone, pitch or pace- thereby nipping any potential problems in the bud.

To sum up, uniting a remote workforce mainly involves being conscious and proactive about the potential barriers to joining up your team. These barriers include differing time zones and locations, which can lead to a lack of communication and relationship building between staff.

Moreover, you need to find technological solutions to these barriers, such as video calling, instant messaging and diary scheduling technology, whilst remaining perceptive, inclusive and communicative. In doing this you can achieve what you thought was impossible – a unified, remote workforce.

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AUTHOR


Matthew Dickason
Global Managing Director, Hays Talent Solutions
Matthew is the Global Managing Director for Hays Talent Solutions, having joined Hays in 2005. Previous roles held at Hays include Business Director in the UK and Chief Operating Officer for Asia Pacific. He is now responsible for leading the global business of Hays Talent Solutions and investing to ensure clients retain a competitive advantage in talent acquisition from the delivery of Hays MSP, RPO, technology and modular service solutions. For more information about Hays Talent Solutions, visit our website.

Prior to joining Hays, Matthew worked within Engineering, Research, Operations and Commercial areas at Johnson Matthey and Corning Inc. He has formal qualifications in Organisational Psychology and Industrial Engineering.