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 Six workplace trends set to impact 2024

Six workplace trends set to impact 2024

Businesses are battling to enhance productivity and secure growth amid challenging economic climates, but they also need to keep one eye fixed firmly on the future, understanding how 2024 will shape their workforce strategy.
 
With so much ‘noise’, it can be difficult to separate the ‘hype’ from the highly important. To help you focus your efforts where it matters most, we’ve identified six key areas need to be on your radar in the year ahead.
 
 

Trend 1: Strengthening talent networks with skills-first hiring

 
In 2024, talent shortages will remain a serious challenge and digital, green and healthcare roles will continue to surge in demand. Indeed, 62% of senior decision-makers globally view a shortage of personnel with IT skills as one of the main threats to their business, and in the current climate this means significant change in hiring strategies is needed.
 
Continuing to hire exclusively using traditional criteria (such as formal education, degree qualifications and relevant experience) will see organisations at the mercy of highly competitive labour markets - and failing to meet their ambitions.
 
In the year ahead, it’s skills that will triumph over experience, with 75% of recruiting professionals predicting that skills-first hiring will become a key priority for their company. And with it will come much-needed access to a broader, more diverse pool of workers. In practise, implementing a skills-first approach means:
 
  • Defining and mapping skills by identifying the core technical skills needed across your organisation;
  • Creating defined career paths and learning journeys based on skills gaps, not roles;
  • Curating targeted learning interventions including formal training, experiential and mentoring/peer learning; and Enabling internal talent mobility by posting key roles internally.
 
 

Trend 2: Striking the balance between people and technology

 
2023 was the year of breakthrough technology. Generative AI exploded into our offices without standing on ceremony. ChatGPT made history as the fastest growing consumer application, reaching 100 million monthly active users in its first 2 months.
 
Technologies are advancing so quickly they have the capability to render current ways of working unrecognisable in a matter of months. In 2024 AI will leap forward once more, aiding everything from immersive interviews to writing job descriptions, and organisations are eager to embed its potential across working practices.
 
“Given its growing capabilities for tackling tasks of all shapes, it’s no surprise that companies are keen to harness AI’s potential”, stated Christiaan Cumine, Chief Product Officer at Hays.
 
Amidst all the excitement of plugging skills gaps and boosting productivity, organisations must ensure AI (and technology generally) is leveraged appropriately and that people see it as an aid, not a threat. Organisations need to build an ecosystem which carefully balances the promise of technology with a people-first culture – and for Christiaan, this means taking the time to understand what your business goals are, getting your data in shape – and only then can you align your AI strategy with your business goals.
 
Legislation is still yet to catch up with innovation when it comes to AI, but we’ll be seeing an influx of consumer protection laws rolling in over the next few years. In New York City, for example, the current administration has launched an ‘Artificial Intelligence Action Plan’ which will evaluate the risks associated with AI. Similar programmes are expected globally, so it’s important to keep track of imminent legislation that could change the way your organisation uses this developing technology.
 
Learn more about finding the balance between people and technology in our upcoming episode of the Executive Edge.
 
 

Trend 3: Office or WFH? A growing tension…

 
Four years on from the outbreak of COVID-19, the debate around where work gets done rumbles on.
 
There’s no doubt that the lockdown-enforced WFH experiment was a success. Workers globally proved they could be just as productive and effective as they were in the office – if not more.
 
And they’re happier too. A Gartner study of more than 4,000 employees found that 39% said they would be likely to quit if their employer tried to enforce a full-scale return to office mandate.
 
But with global productivity growth set to slow for the third consecutive year, employers are itching to get their teams back in the office, with nearly a quarter of employers anticipating that their hybrid working policies will change to require more in-office attendance over the next 12 months.
 
But Elly Boggis, our People and Culture Director for Enterprise Solutions, notes that a return to office can’t be a forced ask, with consultation a key aspect of achieving a successful hybrid policy. The debate is more about asking where the best place is for your workers to be successful, rather than just home vs office.
 
And remember, for your employees it’s not about the office, it’s about belonging. Make space for socialisation and collaboration, as well as focus and concentration. And as workers are increasingly concerned about whether their employers are taking sufficient action on environmental issues, enhancing the sustainability of your workplace could also have a positive impact on getting people to return to the office on a regular basis.
 
 

Trend 4: Agile staffing in response to economic uncertainty

 
Instability and disruption in the economy is a huge driver of change and the current geopolitical climate presents an opportunity for companies to rethink not only how work gets done, but by whom.
 
The contingent workforce offers niche skillsets that can be utilised as and when required – and when deployed in conjunction with permanent staff, you’ll have a workforce that is both reliable and agile.
 
It’s essential to have complete visibility across your workforce, both permanent and non-permanent workers - which will likely require breaking down established silos. Ruth Munday, our Global Head of Client Development (Enterprise Solutions) highlights the importance of uniting your Procurement and HR teams to create this synergy. Strategic and tactical alignment across these departments – supported by your tech stack - enables organisations to become far more efficient and resilient to shocks.
 
Get all this right - utilise a flexible contingent workforce, align your in-house staffing teams and enhance your tech - and you’ll be in a position to respond quickly to economic uncertainty and tackle external challenges.
 
 
 

Trend 5: Dialling back up on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives

 
44% of employees feel alienated by their organisation’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) efforts, and this discontent is mirrored in DE&I teams which have high attrition rates and lower hiring intent. With the rise in ‘employee activism’, businesses need to act quickly or lose credibility, trust – and, crucially, skills.
 
An inclusive company culture can reduce employee turnover by 50%, so, in 2024 we expect to see a renewed focus on embedding DE&I initiatives into culture, processes and communications. As my colleague Bianca Stringuini (Global Head of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion here at Hays) stated:
 
“You have to have psychological safety and trust in place so that employees can actually come and share their thoughts, their feelings, their ideas, and help every company to improve.”
 
It’s also increasingly important to consider the diversity and inclusion efforts targeted towards your non-permanent population, as they account for a rising proportion of the workforce.
 
 

Trend 6: Managing a multi-generational workforce

 
Today’s workforce is the most age-diverse ever witnessed.
 
In the year ahead, ongoing talent shortages mean organisations will need to get even more from their multi-generational teams. Central to this will be strong talent pipelining that will attract, secure and engage with the brightest talent at all stages of their careers, including:
 
  • Doubling down on efforts to hire more people early in their careers;
  • Exploring opportunities to reengage the ‘unretiring’ populations;
  • Training and reskilling those with experience across the organisation; and
  • Exploring the opportunities of Hire-Train-Deploy models, whereby candidates are trained for specific skills requirements and armed for deployment at client sites.
 
Securing in-demand talent will also require organisations to look beyond a competitive pay strategy and consider job satisfaction, training and career progression – and how this will need to adjust to support employees across differing life stages.
 
Is your value proposition working across generations? Discover how you can leverage the benefits of age diversity with our ‘3 top tips for leaders’.
 
 

Prepare for tomorrow’s challenges

 
Ask any CEO to predict the business-critical challenges they’ll face in 2024 and you’ll likely see a list that includes talent shortages, the impact of technology, productivity concerns and a desire to optimise costs, albeit in various guises.
 
At Hays our experience and insight can help you turn the dial on strategies that enable you to prepare for tomorrow’s challenges. Contact us to find out more.

 

AUTHORS

Nigel Kirkham
CEO of Enterprise Solutions at Hays

Nigel Kirkham has spent the last 30+ years driving growth in major global businesses. A strong, transformative Chief Growth Officer, he brings a Big 6 Consulting Partner background as well as large-scale BPO and outsource business experience. A blend of strong business acumen and C-level operating experience help deliver high revenue growth and business expansion. His most recent positions include TMF Group, the global Financial Services business where he sat on the ExCo as Chief Client Officer; Avanade, the JV between Accenture and Microsoft, a global tech giant and largest implementor of Microsoft technology in the world, where he was Global Head of Sales; CSC (Computer Science Corporation), the tech giant (now DXC Technology), where he ran several Industry Verticals, including Financial Services, Retail & Consumer Goods, Transport and Technology. Prior to this he ran Xansa’s consulting business in the US, where he was based in New York. He also spent 12 years in KPMG Management Consulting, the last 5 years as a Partner in KPMG Consulting in the UK. In this role he also spent c 4 years in the Middle East, setting up and running KPMG’s business in the Lower Gulf, where he was based in Abu Dhabi.

Outside of work, he spends his time between houses in Hampshire and Cornwall in the UK, with his partner Daisy. His son Toby works as an Account Executive for Sony Entertainment, and his daughter Milly has recently started a Graduate Management Training programme with tech giant DXC Technologies. .

 

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