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 How will the skilled labour shortage change your hiring methods?

HOW WILL THE SKILLED LABOUR SHORTAGE CHANGE YOUR HIRING METHODS?

Nearly every organisation is facing a talent crisis, with 9 in every 10 businesses reporting skills shortages. Talent mismatches and skills shortages globally are already affecting organisations, with quiet quitting and employee dissatisfaction on the rise, as well as high staff turnover and low productivity levels.

What is causing the skilled labour shortage?

Employers say the key drivers for these mismatches are a lack of available training and development. Employers also report fewer highly skilled people entering their industry, in addition to seismic demographic changes impacting the volume of talent readily available. 

Organisations need to be proactive in attracting, developing and retaining their workforce. We’ll discuss this in more depth in our upcoming report, but for now – here's a snapshot of the strategies we’d recommend to an organisation struggling to hit their hiring targets.

How to combat the skills shortage

Here are some of the ways that you can tackle talent mismatches and a shortage of skilled workers. Your organisation will need these methods to attract and retain the most appropriate and best-skilled candidates.

With Enterprise Solutions at Hays, you can bridge the skills gap.

Be flexible in your approach to hiring: look in-house first

Consider your existing employees rather than immediatelty turning to the labour market. Current workers are a rich source of information and have already demonstrated their commitment and ‘fit’ within the organisation.

Other ‘flexible’ strategies include:

  • Considering transferable skills.
  • Recruiting based on candidate potential, also known as skills-based hiring.
  • Ensuring greater internal mobility across your organisation.

Flexibility allows you to open a vacancy to a larger pool of candidates. There are potential employees who have experience and can become a valuable asset with little technical training.

Embracing flexible working options allows an organisation to retain critical skills and widen the pool of potential talent. Many employees today need flexibility to remain in the workforce.

Create a robust plan for future recruitment

Have a plan to identify the key roles and likely requirement patterns in your organisation. At the most basic level, this means examining where you are heading. Then, compare your trajectory to the skills you currently have within your organisation.

Workforce planning should involve the development of a succinct process and a tailored offer. Additionally, the effective use of temporary assignments and mobile technology should also be part of the planning process.

Celebrate your brand values to attract skilled employees

Create an employment brand to attract like-minded candidates, who are aligned to your values. If in doubt, consider localised versions of editions such as the UK's Best Workplaces 2024. Organisations on this list have strong employment brands.

Due to their strong branding, these companies receive tonnes of applications from people who want to work for them.  

Leverage under-utilised talent networks, globally

Make sure your organisation is sourcing talent from far and wide. There are many under-utilised talent pools including highly skilled workers overseas, mature candidates and former employees. Enhance your search with emerging technologies and key insights on talent ‘hotspots’.

Invest in training and development to fill skills shortages

Training and development involves reskilling and upskilling existing employees. Use progressive training programmes to make the most of existing talent. With effective training schemes you can build a stronger workforce capable of handling what the job requires.

And remember, training doesn’t always have to be in the classroom.

Prioritise retention to avoid a shortage of skilled workers

Focus on retention and start with the benchmarking of great performers, then recruit to these criteria. A retention plan also includes training people well, performance management, career development, succession planning and engagement.

Also critical is assessing your internal reporting structures and culture; people join companies and leave poor or toxic managers.

Develop a talent pipeline even when not actively hiring

A talent pipeline is useful for identifying potential candidates that your organisation can approach when vacancies arise – and it starts with a concrete Early Careers strategy. Playing the ‘long game’ and implementing a sourcing strategy for future talent can help to develop relationships with the innovators and change-makers of tomorrow.

And when they’re ready to join the workforce, you can shorten the time to hire, improve the interview process and minimise business disruption.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Closing the skills gap: Next steps for your organisation 

Adopting one or two of these points in isolation is not enough to overcome ongoing talent mismatches. By shaking up your methods and using many of these techniques at once, you can forge a robust and effective talent management strategy.  

We hope to offer innovative solutions to help our clients to win today’s highly competitive talent race. Keep your eyes peeled for our upcoming report that tackles these talent challenges, due for release in June 2024.  

For more insights, make sure to read: 

 

AUTHOR


Travis O’Rourke
Chief Commercial Officer at Hays, Americas
Travis has been with Hays for over a decade. He has well over 30,000 hours of hands-on contingent workforce management experience.  

Travis is focused on bringing Hays' niche expertise, and global reach, to the North American marketplace, mobilising best in class global strategies and technologies to ensure our customers win the war for talent, and our candidates have the choice to work for largest companies in the region, or the startup around the corner.