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 Statement of Work: More problem than solution?

STATEMENT OF WORK: MORE PROBLEM THAN SOLUTION?

Article First Published on the ATC Hub September 2016– Contingent Workforce

For a while now, engaging contingent workers via a Statement of Work (SOW) has been touted as the answer, but is it the right answer?

Workplace trends are tied to business confidence and economic conditions and the SOW has been offered up as a way for employers to ride the waves of change and ensure headcount flexibility.

In this blog, I will take a hard look at the SOW starting with an examination of what this contract is really all about… What is in the fine print that employers often miss – or the true biggie – what should be included?

In my next blog I will outline typical problems with the SOW and explore an alternative to reduce your contingent labour costs, so stay tuned if you want to reduce your contingent labour costs.

So, let’s take a closer look at the SOW

Routinely used in the project management and enterprise space to provide maximum flexibility, the SOW is used to bring in talent when needed and to exit them from the bottom line when their skills are no longer required.

However, many employers of a large contingent workforce struggle to find effective ways to control growing SOW employee volumes and their associated costs.

Research released in 2014 showed SOW spend in the Vendor Management space in the United States was equal or even larger than other temporary labour spend.

“Many employers of a large contingent workforce struggle to find effective ways to control growing SOW employee volumes and their associated cost.”

The reason is the belief that bolstering a permanent workforce with SOW contractors engaged to work on specific projects provides the greatest value – the organisation receives the skills and specialised knowledge it needs only when it needs it and gains some commitment to the outcome or quality of service delivery.

Sure, resources engaged under a SOW command a premium as that premium should bring genuine IP, expertise and commitment to the outcome. Interestingly, while employers initially drove this trend, some top talent now prefer the intellectual challenge, career highs and greater autonomy offered by contracting under a SOW over a permanent role.

So these arrangements can work, but is it working for you?

What the SOW fails to spell out?

Does the SOW contain a commitment to deliver an outcome?

Many resources engaged under a SOW override the contracted responsibilities in a master agreement for the provision of services but this is often overlooked by the hiring manager.

Who and what type of resources are you gaining under the SOW?

If your service provider is simply on hiring contractors and tagging on significant margins, what are you paying for? If they are providing you permanent or bench staff that come with considerable IP or expertise, surely the cost is worthwhile. But if they are simply on hiring contractors or body shopping, are you getting value for money?

“If your service provider is simply on hiring contractors and tagging on significant margins, what are you paying for?”

What must be included in your SOW

  • Be clear on whether you are contracting an outcome or simply resources on a rate card;
  • Ensure that the SOW ties into your master agreement and doesn’t absolve your supplier of any of their responsibilities – responsibilities that someone in your organisation worked hard to ensure they committed to;
  • The level of experience and type of resource provided by your service provider – i.e. permanent staff member, bench contractor or on hired agency contractor.
     

How to ensure a more effective ROI

  • Include specific deliverables and timelines for each key role engaged as part of the SOW;
  • Outline how these deliverables and timelines tie back to the master agreement;
  • Spell out expectations for each person brought in under a SOW to achieve a specific level of quality for the work undertaken. Lines of accountability and cost penalties for failing to meet those expectations should also be detailed in the SOW.
     

I’m sure you’d agree that if SOW resources are being engaged via a traditional consulting firm, that firm should be responsible for their quality of service and outcomes.

Yet in many instances, this isn’t the case. A SOW commits a firm to supply certain individuals at a daily rate, yet some suppliers also use it to absolve themselves of nearly all risk related to those individuals’ outcomes.

That shouldn’t be good enough.

AUTHOR


Shane Little
Managing Director APAC, Hays Talent Solutions
As Managing Director for APAC at Hays Talent Solutions, 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.