2 What employers look for
Employers place an emphasis on different leadership skills depending on their context, as can be demonstrated by reviewing a variety of leadership frameworks. You will now look at five frameworks from a variety of sectors, from healthcare to corporate finance. It should be noted that organisations tweak and update these frameworks regularly, so these examples are correct at the time of writing.
1. In the healthcare sector, the NHS has developed six core principles, branded ‘Our Leadership Way’ and focusing on the heart, head and hands of leadership:
Heart: We are Compassionate
We are inclusive, promote equality and diversity and challenge discrimination.
We are kind and treat people with compassion, courtesy and respect.
Head: We are Curious
We aim for the highest standards and seek to continually improve harnessing our ingenuity.
We can be trusted to do what we promise.
Hands: We are Collaborative
We collaborate, forming effective partnerships to achieve our common goals.
We celebrate success and support our people to be the best they can be.
2. Across the humanitarian sector, the UN’s Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) has agreed a series of competencies that are critical for humanitarian coordination and leadership. They are:
Leadership
Formulating strategies, applying humanitarian principles and norms
Deciding and initiating action
Managing Relationships
Relating and networking
Fostering humanitarian teamwork
Influencing and Representing
Advocacy and negotiation
Presenting and communicating information
Managing complexity
Analysing complexity
Planning and organizing
Adapting and Coping
Coping with pressure and setbacks
Adapting and responding to change
3. In Higher Education, the University of Cambridge presents its leadership attributes framework visually, as follows in Figure 4:
4. From the private sector, PwC is a professional services company providing specialist advice to businesses. One of the five attributes in their PwC Professional leadership development framework is ‘Whole leadership’, which is explained as:
‘The ability to lead yourself and others to make a difference and create a positive impact in a responsible, authentic, resilient, inclusive and passionate manner.’
This is followed by the questions:
- Can you lead yourself?
- Can you lead others?
- Are you purpose-led and values driven?
5. The technology sector often takes a less formal approach to listing leadership qualities, for example, an in-house research project at Google identified 10 behaviour styles common to highly rated managers:
- Is a good coach
- Delegates to the team and does not micromanage
- Has an inclusive approach that takes into account not only the team’s performance, but also their well-being and fulfilment
- Is highly productive and results-oriented
- Communicates effectively – listens carefully and shares information
- Supports career development and discusses performance
- Has a clear vision/strategy and shares it with their team
- Has the expertise to advise the team
- Collaborates across departments
- Is decisive.
Common themes across these frameworks focus on developing people, inclusion and communication. Other themes reflect the priorities of the different sectors, for example, influencing and representing are key skills across the humanitarian sector, and compassion is understandably high on the NHS agenda. The idea of emotional intelligence, which you looked at earlier, also runs through many of these frameworks, supporting inclusivity, authenticity and relationships with others.