Future managers ‘lack leadership skills’, but what makes a good leader?

Yet another piece of research appeared this week highlighting the management skills gap we face in tomorrow’s leaders.

The survey by global HR consultancy Penna found that only 14% of managers would described themselves as ‘visionary’, while just 9% said they felt ‘authoritative’ – qualities we have traditionally considered important in business leaders. Under half of the employees questioned for the survey thought their manager was an excellent team leader.

But while this highlights a worrying trend in what workers think of their managers and managers’ own perception of their skills, could it be that we’re not always focusing on the right things? Having a visionary leader may be exactly what you need if you’re Virgin or Apple, but other organisations might be better suited to someone who is a good listener and role model. There are plenty of examples in business history of ‘visionary leaders’ who also turned out to have questionable ethics – so it’s not a catch-all perfect quality.

‘Authoritative’ isn’t always a good determiner of someone who’s leading a business well, either – it just means they’re still operating in a very traditional, ‘command and control’ way that’s arguably outdated as increasingly companies move to more collaborative and flexible working models. Again, having authority will improve efficiency and drive up sales in some businesses, while in others it might instil a culture of fear.

McDonald’s produced a report last year that looked into the need for soft skills among our future managers, proposing we instil qualities such as empathy, emotional intelligence and being able to solve problems in tomorrow’s leaders. These skills should be rated more highly than qualifications, it argued, but many young people felt uncomfortable talking about them or found it difficult to give examples of when they had demonstrated these qualities.

Future workforces will have visionary leaders who everyone respects – that’s not under question – but developing other soft skills and qualities should not go amiss in the meantime. Just as there are now, there will be many successful managers who listened to staff, who put themselves in their shoes, and still achieved their business goals – they’re just the ones less likely to shout about it.