From COVID to conflict and climate change: Supporting teams through continued uncertainty
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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FROM COVID TO CONFLICT AND CLIMATE CHANGE: SUPPORTING TEAMS THROUGH CONTINUED UNCERTAINTY
October 10th is World Mental Health Day, dedicated to raising awareness of mental health and driving positive change globally.
As economic uncertainty and geopolitical instability topple skills shortages in the list of concerns facing CEOs for the first time since 2019, we are reminded that organisations do not operate in a vacuum.
And workers are feeling the effects. A study by the CIPD found that nearly four-fifths (79%) of respondents reported some stress-related absence in their organisation over the last year.
The question is no longer whether organisations should support their teams. A growing number of workers are willing to turn down opportunities from organisations that do not align with their values, which includes a clear commitment to their health and wellbeing.
With uncertainty the only certainty, organisations must shift from ad-hoc strategies and instead embed resiliency into their operations, allowing them to continually evolve in the face of uncertainty. Here’s our top tips:
Learn from previous crises
The coronavirus pandemic offered a steep learning curve for many organisations, who were required to adjust to rapidly changing expectations from employees, including financial, physical and mental health provisions.
While each event requires a tailored response, some common coping mechanisms resurface.
An enduring lesson from the pandemic is the importance of clear, timely communication during a crisis. After two years of communicating changes in legislation and amends to public-health guidance, employers should have an indication as to how frequently your employees expect or need contact, as well as their preferred method for receiving news, such as statements from the CEO or informal discussion forums to share their thoughts.
Whichever method you select for your organisation, you’ll need to communicate three vital points of interest to your teams:
- Messages to employees in locally affected areas, whose physical safety may be threatened by the crisis.
- Messages to employees regarding the support systems available to help them cope with the crisis.
- Messages that inform employees about the actions the organisation is taking in response to the crisis.
Determining who creates, sends and responds to these messages' links to a second key lesson: the importance of carefully crafted teams to act as the nerve-centre of your organisation. These high-performing, cross-functional teams can increase your agility in responding to disruption or devastation.
Leverage your technology
HR tech has an important role to play in helping businesses to meet employee expectations. Primarily, tech offers a means to stay connected. Leaders can lean into the capabilities of virtual assistants and chatbots to engage with their workforce.
Advances in Artificial Intelligence also enable a greater level of understanding amongst teams. AI-enabled workplace analytics that analyse company data can help identify those who are struggling.
Running silently in the background, these tools can detect earning signs of stress or burnout that may be missed by managers when working remotely. Armed with an array of data, managers can reconnect individuals with their peers, or signpost them to relevant support services to help mitigate or manage the impact of the crisis on their wellbeing.
Create an outlet for action
Organisations are often best placed to generate the momentum required to coordinate the additional financial, material or human resources that a crisis demands.
By centralising your response to devastating or disruptive events, organisations can channel the collective power of people. This could include distributing a list of charities to allow individuals to make personal donations or allowing employees additional time off to support volunteering efforts.
And with 65% of workers wanting to work for organisations with a strong social and environmental conscience, companies must consider their impact on wider society, or risk alienating the talent they need.
Sharing the burden of stress
As we collectively navigate an uncertain future, the leaders who proactively manage or mitigate the effects of stress will benefit from engaged teams with improved retention rates, enabling them to thrive in a more complex world of work.
To discuss how we can enhance your Employer Value Proposition, including your commitments to health and wellbeing, talk to the team at Enterprise Solutions today.
