Humanising leadership: people-first strategies for transformation

What qualities do leaders need to thrive in a more complex and uncertain world?

There has never been a more exciting – or daunting – time to be a business leader, depending on your appetite for risk. 

Over the next five years, companies face an array of opportunities and threats including geopolitical instability, persistent skills shortages and economic uncertainty. 

According to research from PwC in January, some 45% of global chief executives think their company will not be viable in 10 years if it stays on its current path and fails to adapt, highlighting an urgent need to rethink strategies.

As ever, the buck will stop with leaders if things go wrong. So what should they be doing to ensure their firms not only survive but thrive in the challenging period ahead?

Given the circumstances, any sensible leader will look at ways to future-proof their businesses. But, there is significant uncertainty about the direction of travel when it comes to trends such as AI or geopolitical risks like the war in Ukraine. 

Companies also have to deal with shifts such as digital transformation, as they migrate their operations to the cloud; continued consumer uncertainty; and a high rate of economic inactivity which has contributed to skills shortages. 

To make matters worse, changing demographics have led to a squeeze in the pipeline of new leaders. 

In a Censuswide survey commissioned by Right Management this year, more than a thousand HR managers in firms of more than 500 employees were asked for their views on leadership, and around half predicted a shortfall of leaders in the next five years.

Why empathy matters

Jacques Quinio, talent management solutions director at Right Management, specialising in research-driven assessment, leadership and coaching solutions for clients worldwide, offers an example of how mindsets around leadership skills must change to navigate future challenges.

“In an uncertain world leaders must focus on business agility, ensuring that the company is prepared for what might come in terms of skills and capabilities. 

Organisational change is rarely straightforward, but it is an inevitable part of business life and a good leader needs to have the resilience and ability to adapt”.

There is also a demand for decision-makers to embody empathy and emotional intelligence in an age when employee well-being is top of the agenda in every company. And they need to be able to cascade those values across the organisation. 

“It is critical that leaders are in tune with their employees’ personal and professional needs,” says Quinio.

Achieving business agility

There are several measures businesses can deploy to prepare for uncertain times in terms of skills and capabilities. 

It could include fostering an environment of continuous learning to help workers upskill in tandem with new tech trends such as AI. 

They should also embrace technological change within the business, invest in employee culture, focus on talent acquisition and retention, and ensure leadership strategies align with the organisation’s mission and values. 

Achieving these goals typically requires large-scale company-wide transformation, and bosses must secure buy-in from staff for these initiatives to succeed. 

That helps to “build a sense of ownership” among workers and “minimise disruption”, says Dave Williams, president of UK & Ireland at Slalom, a global technology consultancy.

Hear and be heard

A good leader must also be able to listen to and learn from staff feedback, although many appear to be failing on this measure. 

According to Right Management research, a staggering 75% of HR professionals feel their leaders do not welcome feedback and fail to take any on board 

“This is hugely worrying in today’s VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) workplace,” says Quinio. 

“Staff today expect a two-way conversation with leaders, with our research showing that over half (54%) of workers believe bosses need to meet their needs to retain them”.

One solution for working more effectively with feedback is to adopt closed-loop learning whereby organisations adopt a no-blame approach to errors, failures and near misses. 

In these circumstances, individuals can share feedback and ideas fully without seeking to protect themselves. 

“This full disclosure approach means that systemic issues can be spotted and corrected quickly, including issues with technology, processes, training, behaviour and reward systems etc,” says Quinio. 

To secure a future aligned with their vision, CEOs must clearly communicate their mission to attract leaders who drive lasting impact.

Organisations that have succession plans and development strategies in place for future leaders are more equipped to progress internal talent into senior roles.

So how can we get to this stage? Quinio advises firms to assess leaders, encouraging and empowering a growth mindset by focusing on individuals who want to learn and develop. 

According to Right Management research, one in five business leaders said they wouldn't be the leader they are today if they hadn't benefited from development programmes; while a further 33% are keen to do more of them.

“Through self-awareness, leaders should be aware that you don’t need to have the answers all the time but must be willing to adapt and develop,” Quinio adds. 

“A strong coaching culture will foster open feedback and honest conversations, creating psychological safety amongst colleagues and leading to improved creativity, productivity and resilience.”  

Steering high-risk waters

Leaders will always have to balance short and long-term decision-making, particularly when it comes to investments. 

However, the financial risks involved have increased significantly since 2022 when post-pandemic supply crunches and the war in Ukraine drove inflation to multi-decade highs. 

Interest rates have soared, having a chilling effect on chief executives and their ability to take risks and innovate. 

According to Right Management’s survey, the increased pressure and stress that leaders are now having to navigate in their daily lives has resulted in 75% seriously considering leaving their positions.

To deal with this pressure, the best leaders take a systematic approach to big decisions, categorising them in order of priority. 

Thankfully boardroom culture is evolving to be more supportive. Today, directors are encouraged to create a safe space for chief executives to allow discussion about difficult topics. 

Directors can also remind busy bosses who are caught up with day-to-day issues to focus on equally important long-term objectives. 

Corporate leaders often find themselves facing new challenges as they ascend to senior positions. While many have spent their entire careers within the corporate environment, their roles at the top require them to engage with a diverse array of stakeholders beyond the business world.

For business leaders to create long-term success and evolve with external challenges ahead, agility is clearly the order of the day.

As the world of work continues to evolve at pace with artificial intelligence advances and a rapid shift to hybrid working, organisations are facing continuous change and accelerated transformation. 

In the face of such uncertainty, leaders need to understand that they may no longer have all the answers and expertise. 

Instead, modern leadership is about empowering the talent you have, setting the right culture and creating an environment where individuals can thrive - taking a human-centric approach to leadership. 

“Leadership is and has always been about creating followership. Today, it’s also about how fast you can transform and how quickly you take your people with you. This means building talent that has agility, resilience and the confidence to speak up,” says principal consultant at Right Management, Lorraine Mills.

Creating this environment means leadership can no longer be a sole pursuit, but rather a team game. Having different voices and opinions in your organisation - and giving them the freedom to challenge leadership - is vital in the new world of work. 

“If everyone in your organisation wants to be a striker, it’s not going to work. You need diversity across your team to spot the bits that aren’t working - and then you need to listen to them. The whole push around human-centric leadership is that it is now a joint effort,” Mills says.

Leadership is learned

For leaders brought up on top-down management styles, this shift to a more collaborative approach can be jarring. However, as McKinsey & Co points out, leadership is something you do, not something you are. 

This means that effective leadership is expressed through behaviours and actions, rather than job titles and positions. And if that’s the case, good leadership is a skill that can be taught. 

However, not everyone sees it this way. According to research by Matthew Syed Consulting, just four out of 10 leaders believe that leadership skills are developable, with the figure falling to three in 10 people when speaking to those early in their careers. 

“The idea that leadership is something you're born with and not made is a fallacy. Thinking that you’re born with all the talent you’re going to have and that’s all you’ll ever have is a fixed mindset. It’s a sure-fire way to damage the development of a business and its people,” Mills argues. 

Talent management solutions director at Right Management Jaques Quinio explains why mindsets around leadership behaviours must change.

“I was talking to a leader recently about empathy. Can it be developed? Is it important? The problem with empathy is that it is a word that describes both a personality and a behaviour. I can have an empathetic personality, but I can choose to be cold. Or, I can be a person low on empathy, but I can develop warmth. I’m not an empathetic person, but I’m displaying empathetic behaviours. These are absolutely behaviours you can develop,” he says. 

McKinsey & Co surveyed more than 200,000 people across 81 organisations to discover what makes leadership effective. 

It found four key behaviours that account for 89% of leadership effectiveness: being supportive, operating with a strong orientation to results, seeking different perspectives and solving problems effectively. 

For Quinio, human-centric leadership must focus on dealing with negative behaviours, just as much as focusing on positive action. “It’s not just about what leaders need to do, but what they need to stop doing,” he says. 

“How do you manage your negative behaviours when you’re under pressure? You might be too pushy, too bold, too arrogant. As soon as you are ‘too’ something, you don’t have the impact you need to have. Human-centric leadership helps you stop and reflect on the influence you have on others,” he adds.

People want purpose

For the C-suite, effective leadership is about having the self-awareness to understand that what worked previously may not work now. Engaging your people around their individual needs, desires and motivations is vital if you want to retain talent. 

“People want meaningful work, they want their leaders to communicate their vision and they want to know how they can be involved and contribute to that. Money is often seen as the big reward, but there is a greater diversity in what people desire from work. Many people would sacrifice some salary for a more meaningful job,” says Mills. 

“Another thing we’re seeing is a difference around how challenges are dealt with in the workplace. From a generational perspective, there’s a real need to be able to say what they think and have that validated, which other generations didn’t do so much. That shift in expectations is a challenge for leaders,” she adds. 

For Quinio, it’s a much simpler equation. “People simply want to be listened to and heard,” he says.

“Leaders don’t always have to act on this conversation, but they do need to acknowledge it. And because the boundaries between personal and professional lives have blurred, people want to be listened to as a whole person, not just a professional,” he adds.

Self-awareness and change

Empathetic, collaborative, results-driven, visionary - is there a danger that we start asking too much of our leaders at a time when they are consumed by both short-term challenges and long-term uncertainty?

Perhaps the argument should be that building human-centric leadership capabilities is the best solution to solving these problems. 

A 2022 study by Saïd Business School and EY found that 85% of leaders had been involved in at least two transformation projects in the past five years. Of those, two-thirds said they had experienced at least one transformation programme that had underperformed. 

The study identified six key characteristics that increased the likelihood of a successful outcome by 2.6x to 73% - inspire, lead, care, empower, collaborate and build - all of which are rooted in human-centric leadership.

With talent pools becoming smaller and businesses looking to reduce costs, building your own leadership programmes and creating future managers can be a much safer way of ensuring new leaders fit your culture. 

As Quinio points out, organisations are increasingly understanding that building skills is cheaper and less risky than buying them in. 

“It all starts with self-awareness. You can invest thousands in developing leaders, but if they’re not open to change and to developing, it won’t work. You can absolutely acquire leadership competencies, but you must have the right mindset first,” Quinio says. 

“The second part of this is that one size doesn’t fit all. You can’t lead another individual the way you lead me. Leaders need to be like marketing people - they need to segment their message depending on their audience. That ability to flex your leadership style is going to be critical,” he adds. 

Mills agrees that the future of leadership is about flexibility and self-reflection. “The prime part of leadership for me is about being humble. It’s about a preparedness to listen and to see your role as getting the best out of your team. So many leaders think they have to know it all and be the smartest person in the room. Real leadership is about bringing people together who are smarter than you. That’s how you get value,” she says.

Leaders need to be more empathetic and agile to evolve with shifting expectations.

Leadership today bears little resemblance to its past incarnations. Sure, bosses still need to increase profits, mitigate risk, improve efficiency and uphold the firm’s brand reputation. But they also have to consider relatively new trends, such as improving staff well-being and promoting corporate social responsibility. 

So what qualities do leaders need to excel in to meet these changing demands and expectations?

Perhaps the biggest recent change in the traits desired of leaders is a need for self-awareness and empathy. Bosses are expected to be more self-reflective of their strengths and weaknesses, while genuinely understanding the importance of staff wellbeing.

This trend was accelerated during the pandemic when millions of people were forced to work from home and needed much greater support from leaders and peers. The rise of workplace stress and burnout has also led to the shift. 

When firms face an uncertain future, transparency, decisiveness, resilience and integrity are other key attributes that leaders need to embrace. 

As companies grapple with prolonged economic instability, skills shortages and near-constant technological change, it is vital that bosses can empower and motivate their staff. 

Yet, many leaders struggle to lead by example, according to a Censuswide survey of over 1,000 HR professionals commissioned by Right Management earlier this year. It found that some 32% of professionals lacked confidence in their leaders’ ability to lead their organisations effectively over the next two to three years.  

“Since leaders shape the direction and culture of an organisation, their effectiveness directly affects all aspects of business performance,” says Lorraine Mills, a principal consultant at Right Management who uses research and business insights to develop powerful people solutions.

“In an era of rapid change, an insight-driven approach to leadership development is more crucial than ever. That means a willingness to embrace self-awareness, welcome staff feedback and promote assessment.”

Building a positive working culture 

There is a growing acceptance that promoting staff welfare is not only the right thing to do, it makes good business sense. Today’s leaders are expected to find a healthy balance between holding workers to account while also factoring in their personal needs to get the best out of them and retain them.

Decision-makers are encouraged to give staff the freedom to push boundaries, as tricky as that may seem. Not only does giving workers a sense of control motivate them to work harder, but it also helps the company to innovate and grow.

Fostering feedback cultures

Being able to welcome and learn from feedback is also crucial, as it helps leaders to develop and guide business improvement, says Mills. However, not everyone finds it easy.

Given the importance of leadership, companies should think hard about the qualities they need from senior executives and how to obtain or nurture them. 

Ineffective leaders are hugely damaging to firms as they are typically unable to communicate clearly, reluctant to accept feedback and lack respect for their teams. They may also be unduly lenient or overly authoritative; too stubborn to change, or too idealistic. 

This is particularly relevant at the moment when businesses must navigate a host of complex challenges and the outlook for the economy is uncertain. 

Some 40% of HR professionals feel that senior managers in their company are unprepared to tackle business challenges anticipated in the next three to five years, according to Right Management research. 

So why is adaptability such a crucial skill to master? “Ultimately, an organisation won’t reach its goals without people,” says Right Management’s Lorraine Mills. “In a changing world, bosses need to be quick to create an environment where honesty is paramount, mistakes are shared quickly and corrective actions taken”. 

“They must also create clarity on what is needed for success and cultivate the right environment to allow creativity, productivity and resilience to thrive,” says Mills.   

With the right leadership framework in place, organisations thrive, she adds. But worryingly over half (58%) of businesses either don’t have a leadership framework, or believe it is no longer relevant, according to Right Management’s survey.

Building better teams

It is one thing to embody the human touch as a leader, but another to foster it in your teams. 

For modern leaders, all signs point to achieving success through leading by example and being authentic when it comes to policies and programmes to improve staff wellbeing. 

Platitudes and vague buzzwords should not be a substitute for genuine action. 

Yet Right Management’s research found that nearly half (43%) of HR professionals believe their leaders fail to role model behaviours that align with the culture they want to create.

“If you tell staff not to work past a certain time or on weekends to protect their wellbeing, they are unlikely to listen if the boss does it themself,” says the head of HR consultancy Let’s Talk Talent, Jo Taylor.

“Bosses also need to show they genuinely care about their people, looking at things like [career] recognition and not just focusing on mental wellbeing”.

This pays off in the end because leaders with a human touch tend to attract better talent from outside the business while nurturing it within.

If it all seems like a far cry from what you would have expected of a chief executive 20 years ago, it is, but this evolution is helping guide businesses forward and preparing their leaders to steer these positive changes.

Embodying empathy and self-awareness as a leader isn’t always easy, especially when a company is struggling to meet consumer or investor expectations.

Yet most experts agree with the direction of travel given the undeniable link between long-term profitability and sustained employee wellbeing.