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 Empower staffing suppliers with supplier enablement

EMPOWER STAFFING SUPPLIERS WITH SUPPLIER ENABLEMENT

Our approach to managing Managed Service Programmes (MSP) ensures the best talent, at the right time and place, for a fair cost. This is regardless of source or worker classification. Our tailored strategy recognises that the world of work has fundamentally changed.

Today, most traditional contingent workforce MSP programmes are ineffective and failing to deliver on their original promise.

What is supplier enablement?

Supplier enablement is the process of connecting and onboarding your chosen suppliers to your systems.

Many companies use a supplier enablement framework to work effectively with their talent supplier base. Supplier Partner Enablement also helps to build a client-of-choice reputation in the marketplace.

Is your MSP broken or inefficient? 

Many legacy MSP programmes have become ineffective. These errors often reach the point of causing an adversarial relationship between the staffing suprppliers and the programme team. The unfortunate outcome is that the client is no longer getting the talent they need.
 
In these programmes, the MSP often exhibits classic command and control management solutions. The MSP becomes a gatekeeper between the client and its staffing supply chain. Some client stakeholders appreciate the simplicity of an MSP buffering the business from the suppliers. Others feel this approach has a negative impact on programme performance, as well as talent attraction and retention.
 

Common issues with supplier networks

With increasing frequency, new clients are asking Enterprise Solutions to re-envision a stagnant workforce management programme. It is not uncommon for our programme teams to hear staffing supplier complaints about what is not working.
 
Here are some real-life examples:
 
  • We have no access to hiring managers, even though they are the ones creating the job requisitions, we can’t ask them questions.
  • Instead of coaching for improving performance, we receive negative scorecard marks and punitive repercussions.
  • Rate cards are unrealistic and not benchmarked to the local talent market.
  • We get no feedback on submittals – it often feels like we are aiming in the dark.
  • We have to follow a cumbersome process and inflexible programme policy results in lost talent.
  • There is no reward for suppliers that go the extra mile.
  • We have no transparency or insight to the business, or its upcoming needs. Without visibility it is impossible for us to source proactively or build a talent pool.
  • Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) have become sessions for criticising suppliers for not following management processes or meeting arbitrary performance metrics.
 
Many traditional MSPs look at staffing agencies through a narrow lens. These MSPs view agencies as having the sole purpose of filling job requisitions as quickly and cheaply as possible. In a competitive job market, using outdated methods can be ineffective. Additionally, outdated approaches may not attract the top talent for the client.
 

A better solution for supplier enablement

The talent supply chain plays a very important role in the success of the client organisation. Organisations rely on the talent supply chain to quickly find, screen and engage much-needed workers.
 
We recognise the need to treat staffing suppliers like strategic and trusted partners in every client programme. That’s why we call staffing suppliers our Supplier Partners.
 
As the MSP provider, we want to enable client organisations to engage the best talent from the best supplier partners. Most traditional programmes focus exclusively on controlling the supply chain. The team at Hays focus on enabling our client managers and supplier partners to connect. We strive for effective and efficient communication.
 

How does our vision happen? A framework for Supplier Partner Engagement 

The Enterprise Solutions team here at Hays have the experience of running over 120 Managed Service Programmes across the globe. We have developed a comprehensive six-stage supplier partner engagement framework:
 
Define your strategy: To define a Workplace Supplier Partner strategy, framework and approach to set up and continuously improve our services. 
 
Identify, assess & select a portfolio: To identify, assess and select a portfolio of world class Workforce Supplier Partners.
 
Accredit and onboard partners: To accredit and onboard our Workforce Supplier Partners in a high quality, consistent and efficient manner.
 
Engage your partners: To enable our Workplace Supplier Partners to perform at their best. We achieve this by engaging with them in clear, open and equitable supplier relationships.
 
Measure and develop results: To recognise, develop and support our Workforce Supplier Partners to enhance performance.
 
Audit your requirements: To ensure compliance and legislative requirements are met through a robust programme of checks and audits.
 
This proven framework enables us to tailor and optimise the talent supply chain for each unique client situation. Following these steps enables us to build partnerships with staffing supplier partners, motivated to deliver the best talent. The MSP should actively work with those supplier partners who are doing a good job. We will continue to coach our partners into even better performance and the opportunity to earn more business.
 

Key learnings on strategic supplier enablement strategies 

Operating a successful enterprise MSP programme in today’s talent environment is a complex undertaking. Many elements need to come together at once. Here are a few key learnings on Supplier Partner Engagement we’ve gained from our client programmes:
 
  • Our role as MSP is to protect the client and ensure we are meeting programme objectives. A key element of this is to remove roadblocks that prevent the talent supply chain from being effective.
  • An important function of the MSP is to educate. We teach managers and supplier networks how the programme works and their roles in the procurement cycle. We also offer talent market insights to the client.
  • It is important to maintain open and honest communication between company hiring managers and Supplier Partners.
  • Supplier Partners don’t operate well in a vacuum. Supplier Partners need regular programme updates to understand both their own performance but also the client’s evolving requirements.
  • The MSP is the advocate for Supplier Partners. The best suppliers should be actively learning how to grow their business.
  • Supplier Partners need detailed and descriptive job descriptions. The Supplier Partners must receive prompt and actionable feedback from hiring managers on the candidates they submit.
  • It is best to manage performance with encouragement rather than scorecard reviews and punitive repercussions.
 

Never forget the value of contingent workers 

Contingent workers come in many forms. In today’s era of talent scarcity, contingent workers have many options. Most workers choose to work for clients (and in MSP programmes) that:
 
  • Treat them fairly
  • Pay market rates
  • Allow them to engage with minimal hassle
 
The best suppliers and talent will choose programmes managed in a more enlightened and talent-friendly way. Is your company a client of choice for the best talent suppliers?
 
If not, it’s time to invest in a supplier enablement system that helps you to stand out.
 

Discover more benefits for your organisation: 

We think about the world of work differently. Our experts are strategically positioned to deliver a unique and powerful MSP solution to our clients. If your company needs more guidance on establishing a Supplier Partner Engagement strategy, contact us to find out more.