Commander or collaborator: What kind of leader are you?

Leading a team can often bring challenges. Whilst you’re managing your day-to-day, you’re also taking responsibility for the work and results of others. To make things more difficult, leadership styles and complexities are changing. Advancement in technology, a multi-generational workforce and boundaryless teams are just some of the aspects of managing a team that is making the job harder.?

It’s becoming clear that many leaders are not ready for these new challenges, and they’ll need to adapt their style in 2025 to be successful. The times of command-and-control are long gone, as employee expectations from their workplaces develop.?

Many professionals recognise this need for improvement. In a 2024 study, Gartner found that approximately 1,500 HR professionals ranked leadership and manager development as their number one priority for the new year. The study also noted that managers felt “overwhelmed” by the expansion of their responsibilities.??

That goes hand in hand with the notion that Gen Z workers are shunning middle management positions due to a perceived lack of rewards for extra stress. As Fernando Calvo, People & Culture Director, Hays Southern Europe said: “Gen Z has grown up in a very different context compared to many of us. Emotions are recognised, discussed and worked on, which diminishes the concept of authority, and the imposition of adult will and negative reinforcement.”?

Emma Taylor, Head of Management and Leadership Development, Hays UK&I, observes that this appears to not just be an issue for younger members of the workforce: “We’ve seen a trend towards management roles becoming less appealing generally. This can potentially be attributed to many factors, but there is a perception that it’s challenging to continue to achieve results in the day job, whilst juggling the requirements of managing people. It is important to note however, that often the perception is far from the reality of the role itself, especially one as rewarding as inspiring, guiding, and supporting others, to help them realise their potential.”?

The importance of good leadership cannot be overstated. We’ve all heard the saying ‘people leave bad managers not bad jobs’ but did you know that a Gallup study found that 70% of variance in team engagement was determined by the manager? If you have poor leaders, you’ll have poor results and higher attrition rates.?

So, how do you train your leaders and managers to be better equipped for tomorrow’s challenges? It all starts with a change in attitude.?

Future focus: How to develop your leaders for tomorrow?

The command-and-control style of leadership is over. Having one person as the authority figure is not going to work in 2025, or beyond. As put in a recent article by Hays: “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.”?

This is known as servant leadership, and often features behaviours such as active listening, empathy and leading by example. This helps build psychological safety, which creates a culture of trust, thus allowing direct reports to flourish.

To truly shift the mindset of leaders, INSEAD Professor Gianpiero Petriglieri, an expert on leadership and learning in the workplace, argues that we must start seeing work in a more humanistic way.??

“Leaders of knowledge organisations of the past 50 years have been a lot better at building monumental machines than they have been at building human-friendly maisons (houses),” argued Gianpiero. “We are much more likely to be concerned about productivity and efficiency than we are about vitality, inclusion and freedom.”?

Stephen Bungay continues this notion, when he outlines the differences between managing, leading and directing. “If organisations are organisms made up of people, then the performance of the organisations will depend to a large part on the motivation of the people in them, and they need to be led.”?

Investing in leadership development is therefore crucial. At Hays, we’ve been recognised for the investment we make in this through the International Leadership & Management Programme (ILMP), organised by Will Tasho. ILMP started in 2018 and has been attended by over 260 leaders at Hays, who have all learned new ways and techniques to lead their people. As with anything, we recognise the need for ILMP to evolve, and we are currently taking a holistic approach to improve the programme and ensure it’s as inclusive as possible, and open to more of our employees and colleagues.?

After being awarded the Princess Royal Training Award from the City and Guilds of London Institute for ILMP, Will said: “It is a prestigious award that recognises the importance we place on investing in our leaders. Most importantly, it recognises the effectiveness of how we have gone about doing this and the benefits it has produced for our employees and our organisation.”?

To shift the mindset of your leaders and future leaders, consider setting up a similar programme, where you provide training on techniques that help your leaders empower their teams.?

In their book, ‘The leadership pipeline: How to build the leadership powered company,’ Ram Charan, Steve Drotter and Jim Noel point out that, “the internal strategy to grow leaders in many companies is dry or non-existent.” Don’t let your organisation fall into this category.?

In terms of upskilling Gen Z into managerial positions, Fernando continued: “We need to adapt learning to Gen Z’s way of thinking. Organisations must demonstrate the importance of being part of a team and how leaders can truly transform their people's professional lives, giving their careers greater meaning.??

“We must link leadership to helping and serving others, and seek tangible and inspiring examples of what it means to be a leader.”?

Hayley Southward, Head of Learning & Development, UK&I continued this: “Organisations can encourage younger generations into managerial roles by giving better clarity on what the role of a manager really looks like and identifying role models in the business to showcase this.”??

Step forward, the mentors.?

Career corner: Setting yourself up to manage?

Whilst we have focused on some of the difficulties leaders face, spearheading a team can also bring great self-satisfaction and personal growth.?

It’s important to consider ways that you may be exposed to leadership roles, to see if it’s for you or not. One such way could be to seek out a mentor, typically a more experienced colleague who can offer support and guidance to help you develop your skills.??

But it’s not just a one-way street. Reverse-mentoring has become more popular and gives you the chance to pass your expertise to senior members of staff. As Kirsty Green-Mann, Group Head of Sustainability at Hays said: “A reverse mentorship program involves junior (often younger) employees sharing their knowledge with senior colleagues. This stems from the notion that, while experienced workers have lots to teach their juniors, they too have gaps in their knowledge, in particular around modern trends and skills.”?

Reverse-mentoring can have several benefits. It can boost your engagement with the company you work for, as it shows your value to a wider audience, and it can nurture relationships whilst improving your communication.?

These are just some of the things that Fernando argues are important for younger employees to develop, in order to see if leadership is part of their future. Here are his tips for you to work on.

Watch back: the anti-trends 2025 webinar?

As a calendar year ends and a new one starts, our social feeds and email newsletters are often flooded with predictions on trends that will impact the world of work in the next 12 months.?

At Hays, we wanted to buck the trend and focus on what we are calling the anti-trends of 2025. One of these anti-trends is ‘Leaders aren’t trained for the challenges ahead.’?

Our colleagues in Hays Americas hosted a webinar to discuss this further. If you want more in-depth knowledge on why leaders aren’t equipped for the challenges, and what factors are causing the most issues, watch the webinar back below.