Summit Blog: Within People: The leadership qualities of a 21st century business

Kerry Watkins shares her takeaways from Within People's Brighton Summit workshop on the leadership qualities of a 21st century business. 

This was my second Brighton Summit. Now, I was pretty blown away by how brilliant 2017 was so I had high expectations this year. And, of course, I was not disappointed.

One of the highlights for me was Nicole Bradfield from Within People who ran a workshop about Leadership today. And I wanted to share these for anyone that didn’t attend this workshop as I found it really useful.

Nicole explained that the set of qualities a leader needs in today’s world are different because both the workplace and young people’s aspirations and expectations have changed. It seemed obvious once she had pointed it out but, in the past, people were more defined by the jobs, there was a hierarchy and a strong focus on the 9-5. Today, however, flexible working and a less hierarchical structure are becoming more popular, where employees have ownership over their roles and are defined by their purpose, not their job title.

With this in mind, Within People help leaders think about how to effectively lead, manage and motivate their people to ensure they are growing the business. For most businesses, you can’t grow without people and that’s certainly relevant to my business.

So here are Nicole’s 7 qualities of leadership and a little about what I took away from the session:

1.           Vulnerability

If we are prepared to share times of weakness and vulnerability as a leader we can earn trust from those that we lead. I think this quality can make us very authentic leaders and sets an example to our teams that we can fail and be scared but it doesn’t stop us succeeding. Perhaps it helps the people we are leading to be more open and share more with us.

2.            Empathy

If we can put ourselves in our employee's shoes and understand how they’re feeling about work, we are better placed to support them. I believe that being able to empathise with our employees is just as important, if not more so, as understanding our customers and clients viewpoints so in the pursuit of customer service. It’s interesting to look back at our past jobs and think about how empathetic they were (not so much, in my experience)

3.            Curiosity

Being curious about people means that we get to know more about them. I think if this doesn’t come naturally, it’s definitely worth trying to build this trait as knowing more about people and their goals and aspirations will help us manage them better.

I like to think of myself as curious, (definitely not nosey!) and I think this has really helped in situations such as general catch ups with the team as well as more structured appraisals where you can learn a lot more about the people you’re working with, giving you the insight you need to help them develop and thrive.

4.            Creativity

Nicole made each table in the room a focus for each of these qualities and we were to choose the one that resonated with us the most. I sat at the creativity table amongst a group of people who either felt that creativity was a strong point of theirs or something they struggled with. We all discussed the ways in which creativity plays a key part in being a leader. Finding new opportunities for growth is one outcome of being creative but we all need the space to be creative which I know some larger, more traditional businesses struggle with.

I felt very lucky that it’s one of my strong points and that I’ve always loved problem solving and looking for new ways of doing things, but it was good to offer support to others who didn’t feel creative at all.

5.            Conviction

If a leader has conviction and believes in their business then others will follow. For me, it’s important to find a balance between your strong belief and vulnerability. Believing in your vision and your purpose and showing that to your team will mean that they believe in it too. This triggered memory of a couple of people I worked for in the past; one boss had 100% conviction in the business, he was passionate and that shone through in every meeting we had.

He had a clear vision and everyone else cared as much about the business as he did. Another boss was in it for the money and consequently, I found myself (as did others) treating that job very much as a ‘job’ and not somewhere I saw myself remaining doing for long. And it was hard to motivate the people I was leading in that business because I didn’t believe in it.

Luckily now, I run my own business and have 100% conviction and I hope this is evident to my team, clients and collaborators. But I realise it’s important for everyone in the business to feel that conviction because I think it can have a big impact on how we communicate with our clients and customers.

6.            Courage

Courage obviously makes an entrepreneur take that first leap into starting up a business but I think courage is needed at every stage of the journey. Nicole talked about having courage in our teams and trusting them to make decisions and I think this is really key in today’s workplace. There is (or should be) more trust, flexibility, ownership of our career paths and commitment to personal development. Having the courage to trust our employees should give them courage in their work too.

7.            Patience

Patience is an interesting one for me as I have two contrasting situations. When delivering a training session I am ultra-patient because I’m really committed to helping people understand social media and i’m in ‘trainer’ mode. But, when I’m back on email and dealing with the wider picture of work, I can sometimes struggle because I always seem to be so busy and just trying to get everything done!

So I felt Nicole’s last quality of leadership really complemented the whole theme of the summit this year, which was to keep looking up. Which, for me, means I need to remember to take time to slow down when life is hectic and busy and keep my eye on the bigger picture of leading a brilliant, happy team in a growing business.

Thanks so much, Nicole, it was so thought provoking and really, really useful!

Thanks to Kerry Watkins, MD of Social Brighton for writing this blog.

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