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 Piecing together the pharma puzzle: part 2

PIECING TOGETHER THE PHARMA PUZZLE: PART 2

By 2040, the pharmaceutical industry is predicted to look drastically different to the world we recognise today.

Emerging technologies are driving many of these changes, with rapid digital transformation prompting a shift from the institution to the individual. As a result, the future of pharma will see a focus on sustaining wellbeing, targeted treatments and the early detection and subsequent prevention of many illnesses.

In the first of this mini-series, we reflected on the current state of the market, exploring how technology is transforming the provision of care. In part 2, we examine the challenges that lie ahead for the pharmaceutical industry – and what this means for your workforce strategy.

 

Patient-centric care: The future of health will see care organised around the consumer.

Following a diagnosis, patients could be offered a treatment tailored to their genetic profile, eradicating much of the trial-and-error process that is commonly associated with contemporary medical treatment.

To support this welcome reduction in the time from diagnosis to treatment, the pharmaceutical industry will need to embrace new technologies in order to advance research and develop more effective therapies. Machine Learning and Big Data are predicted to unlock ‘more profound insights’ into disease progression, tapping into the wealth of unstructured data currently held in electronic health records. ‘Always-on’ digital health devices and wearables will facilitate real-time monitoring, marking a departure from static clinical trials.

As well as embracing the opportunity offered by advances in technology, the pharmaceutical industry will also be required to review their manufacturing processes, with personalised treatment requiring much smaller samples of medication tailored to the genetic profile of the individual.

 

What this means for your workforce strategy: As we look ahead to an era in which ‘blockbuster drugs’ are no longer used to treat large portions of the population, those who embrace the shift towards modular manufacturing, in which companies produce multiple batches of various types of drugs, will be best placed to thrive in Pharma 4.0.

Pharmaceutical organisations of all sizes will need to consider how they source skills in a way that enables them to scale quickly to match peaks in demand, while simultaneously remaining agile enough to accommodate an ever-evolving production line.

For some, the solution will lie in dedicated strategies such as Direct Sourcing, which allows organisations to engage talent from pre-established candidate pools. With immediate access to contingent talent who have already been vetted to ensure suitability for the role, pharmaceutical companies will benefit from a faster time to hire and an increase in the speed-to-productivity.

 

Precision intervention: In addition to an overhaul in the patient experience, the future of the pharmaceutical industry will also be impacted by technologically driven changes to the way in which illnesses are treated.

Medtech companies are investing in robotic technology that is predicted to advance surgical capabilities. It is hoped that these developments will bring previously inoperable or high-risk sites, such as the spinal cord or brain, within reach, reducing our reliance on systemic therapies and radiation.

Nanotech particles have the potential to enter diseased tissues and deliver more precise intervention. Similarly, 3D-printing and tissue engineering offer customised, low-cost medical intervention tailored to the unique physiology of the patient.

 

What this means for your workforce strategy: For many pharmaceutical organisations, these innovations will demand dramatic repositioning. Advances in technology will reduce or eliminate the current reliance on prolonged drug therapy to manage many diseases, with questions raised regarding the relevancy of major classes of drugs including chemotherapy, insulin and drugs for inflammatory conditions.

Organisations will need to consider not only how they embrace innovation, but also how to tap into the skills needed to drive forward these changes.

With ‘talented techies’ in short supply, many companies are looking inward, encouraging high-potential employees to undertake short-term secondments. Equipped with a fresh perspective, these individuals are unblocking barriers to innovation, while also developing new skills that can be taken back to their regular roles. KPMG labelled secondments a vital ‘capability build’ for forward-thinking organisations, but also a quality retention tool for top talent.

To leverage the value sat within their talent ecosystems, pharmaceutical companies will require an advanced HR and Recruitment technology stack that offers a holistic overview of current capabilities.

 

Facing the challenge ahead

As technology increasingly facilitates a mindset focused on prevention rather than cure, greater tailoring of drug regimens and the deployment of advanced medical procedures, the sales volumes of drugs are predicted to decline.

How pharmaceutical organisations respond to this shift today, will dictate their ability to compete tomorrow. An overhaul of operating models and a fresh focus on innovation will be vital if they are to secure their space amid a ‘drastically different’ industry.

In the final part of this series, we’ll tackle two more challenges facing the pharmaceutical industry, reflecting on how an evolution in process will need to be matched with a change in culture – and how organisations can attract, source and retain the skillsets needed to thrive in ‘Pharma 4.0’.

 

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