Integrity is important to women

Good communication, the ability to motivate, and integrity are seen by UK workers as the most important attributes to lead a successful business, research finds. However, the majority of bosses don’t demonstrate these qualities in the workplace, according to a study of more than 1,000 employees by leadership consultancy Korn/Ferry Whitehead Mann.

Only 21% believes the boss of their business is a good communicator and just 13% think their boss is a good motivator. Having a good moral compass is seen as a crucial ‘factor’, but just 14% think their boss has integrity, a quality that is much more important to female workers, with 13% of them seeing it as the most important attribute compared to just 7% of men. 9% see their organisation’s leader as inspirational, and just 16% think they have long-term vision. Only 17% of UK workers think their boss is decisive, and only 12% think their boss has charisma or personality.

UK workers think bosses that are bad leaders are those that are arrogant, have poor communication skills, and are uncaring. Employees are also critical of the type of boss who is obsessed with targets, places more interest in investors than employees, is indecisive or risk-averse, or focus on cost control rather than growth.

APA Director General, Gareth Osborne, says: Leading a business is like managing a football team; as long as you are winning, everyone is on your side, but readers shouldn’t underestimate the complexity of the task or the level of skill needed to pull it off. Great leaders are born, good leaders can be trained and poor leaders can be replaced by better ones. Sadly the investment in management and leadership training in the UK is desperately low and all too often managers are ill-prepared for the task in hand.

“That is why APA teaches PAs to understand leadership and management on the Diploma programme – PAs have to recognise deficiencies in company management teams and suggest revisions.”

APA