What Does Good Leadership Look Like In 2024?
- On January 15th, we remember one of the greatest nonviolent leaders in world history, Martin Luther King
- In 2024, there are lots of factors to take into account when considering your leadership style, from AI to DEI to empathy
- We take a look at the latest research about how to be a good leader in 2024
When we think of how to become a better leader, we often take inspiration from individuals like Martin Luther King Jr who inspired people to create positive societal change.
Martin Luther King Jr was born on this day (January 15th) in 1929. King is celebrated for being the chief spokesperson for nonviolent activism in the Civil Rights Movement which protested racial discrimination in federal and state law. On this day every year, people honour the life and legacy of this civil rights leader.
There are many leadership lessons we can take from King. His extraordinary commitment to motivating his followers, his passionate “I have a dream” speech, and his commitment to his cause helped him organise and stage countless marches and boycotts, advocating for equal rights for African Americans. He is remembered as one of the greatest nonviolent leaders in world history, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.
With great historical leaders like King in mind, what does good leadership look like in 2024? Here is a glimpse into some of the latest research on leadership from business schools:
Leaders should be overconfident – but only if coming into a struggling firm
Overconfidence can often be thought of as a negative attribute when it comes to leadership. Erratic leaders like Elon Musk come to mind, making rash decisions without fully considering their repercussions. Despite this, overconfidence may not always be a bad trait for a CEO to have, finds new research from Mannheim Business School.
An overconfident CEO can either help or hinder a firm’s turnaround performance. This, however, depends on whether they are the leader who steered the organisation into difficulty or a successor hired during the decline.
When brought into a struggling company, CEOs with an inflated view of their own capabilities may help a company’s performance with their bold visions for organisational recovery. This can reassure stakeholders and encourage employees in situations that reward vigorous decision-making.
On the other side, though, overconfident CEOs already at an organisation that is heading into decline might hurt performance by ignoring opposition to their strategy, or by attempting to ride out organisational decline.
The researchers analysed data on firms’ turnaround performances and CEO overconfidence at 240 companies in the S&P 1500 index during the fiscal years 1992-2016.
Leaders shouldn’t be too empathetic
Would you want your manager to be more empathetic? Most people would answer yes. However, empathising with colleagues can leave you feeling drained and in need of more recovery, finds new research from Trinity Business School, so it may not be the best trait in a business leader.
The study, undertaken by Dr Wladislaw Rivkin, Associate Professor in Organisational Behaviour at Trinity Business School, and colleagues in Germany, found that although being empathic towards a colleague will leave that colleague feeling supported, it will leave you feeling depleted.
“To ensure that it doesn’t harm our own well-being, it is important to consider our mental resources and engage in perspective-taking only when we feel energised,” said Dr Rivkin.
Leaders should hire people with patience
Hiring people with patience is good for team performance, finds a new study from the University of Cologne. Therefore, leaders can positively influence collaboration and productivity by strategically assigning employees with high levels of patience to long-term projects.
The study, conducted by Professors Felix Kölle and Thomas Lauer, found that assessing an applicant’s level of patience during the recruitment process can be a valuable strategy for identifying candidates with the necessary attributes.
“This can easily be implemented by incorporating relevant questions and tests in interviews. Our findings further suggest that recognising and appreciating individual differences in patience may be essential when assigning projects,” says Professor Kölle.
In this way, business leaders can help to create a workplace culture that values and encourages patience can be a promising strategy for promoting productivity.
Leaders shouldn’t avoid AI
Since 2022, AI has been at the forefront of many business conversations, with senior leaders going over the pros and cons of introducing it into the workplace. One of the most replayed fears is that it will replace workers, particularly less experienced ones. However, a recent large-scale study of AI in the workplace has found that AI chatbots can benefit less experienced employees — and make customers happier.
The study from the Stanford Graduate School of Business found that providing workers with a generative AI tool similar to ChatGPT can lead to more productive workers, happier customers, and higher employee retention.
Based on a sample of nearly 5,200 customer support agents at a Fortune 500 software firm, the study found that those who had help from the ChatGPT-like chatbot were 14% more productive, on average, based on the number of issues they resolved per hour. The effect was largest for the least skilled and least experienced workers, who saw productivity gains of up to 35%.
The study suggests that leaders should not shy away from encouraging the use of AI in the workplace, as it may have significant benefits to productivity.
“The lesson is that, more often than not, you’ll benefit by augmenting workers rather than trying to replace them,” he says. “A smart company is going to make sure they compensate and retain the high-skilled workers, so the system can continue to learn from them,” explained Erik Brynjolfsson, one of the researchers on the study.
Leaders should be ethical and authentic to attract diverse talent
A company with good leadership will likely attract a diverse workforce. Ethical and authentic leadership styles can help to attract a diverse workforce, but which one is better depends on the leader’s identity, research from NEOMA Business School reveals.
The study examined when racial minority applicants are less likely to expect prejudice in their future job due to their ethnicity, depending on whether leaders display ethical or authentic behaviour.
“Most firms want to build a diverse, talented workforce. But when employees feel they might be impacted by negative stereotypes at work, they are more likely to withdraw their application and seek positions elsewhere,” says Prof. ?agowska, one of the researchers in the study.
The study found that racial minority applicants respond better to authentic leadership when they are of the same racial background as the leader but respond better to ethical leadership when they belong to different racial groups.
In this context, ethical leadership draws on moral values from community norms to create the perception of similarity between all members of a group, which can lessen discrimination concerns in intergroup contexts.
In contrast, authentic leadership is focused on a leader’s internal compass, indicating the value of a distinctive sense of self and following one’s intuition, which can affirm a candidate’s identity when the leader shares the same identity group as them.
“Our findings offer a path forward for leaders of less diverse organisations looking to reassure job candidates from racial minority backgrounds,” says Prof. ?agowska.
Have any of these studies surprised you? Have any of them made you rethink your own leadership style? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
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