What qualities do you need to be a good leader?

Her World’s “Can We Just Talk: Career Edition” is based on our 2024 What Women Want survey, which is an islandwide questionnaire where we profiled Singaporean women largely between 25 to their 40s to find out their thoughts on the most pressing issues when it comes to the career and the workplace.

In this episode, Lyn Lee, chief diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) officer of Shell and Eugenia Ye-Yeo, founder of Nodspark talk to Her World editor-in-chief Elizabeth Lee about the traits of effective leadership, why authoritarian and top-down leadership styles no longer work, the importance of reverse mentoring and how not being afraid to fail might make you a better leader than you think.

If you’re a leader or in a managerial role in the workplace, do you consider yourself a good leader? Or if you’re an employee judging your line manager for the choices they’ve made, do you think you would do differently if put in the same position?

Many of us have experienced bad leadership within our own career experiences and then vowed to ourselves to never do the same when placed in a similar position of power. But is managing a team and being an effective leader as easy as we think? With hard work, dedication, and a little luck, almost anyone can climb the corporate ladder. You can get that corner seat and boss people around – but what does being a good leader truly mean?

It starts with being conscious about the culture you are trying to build

Well, according to our 2024 What Women Want survey, many of our readers are not confident in the current leadership in their workplaces, with 81% of the respondents citing “unconscious bias” from managers hindered their career progression and another 37% citing “bad management” as the highest factor causing stress at work.

“I don’t like the term” ‘unconscious bias’ because it’s an excuse for people to behave in a certain way. It’s passive, and the person receiving the bias just has to accept it. People should be thinking about conscious inclusion, an active term,” Lyn Lee, chief diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) officer of Shell shares.

“[As a leader] you need to understand expectations. In a workplace, there must be a culture where everyone feels included because that’s the only way your job can be done. Accommodating different preferences might make an organisation or line manager who’s never had to deal with it uncomfortable, but that doesn’t mean you don’t do it. It’s good to understand that if it’s uncomfortable, it means it’s a new situation.”

Inclusivity in the workplace is crucial, and as a business owner, Eugenia Ye-Yeo, founder of Nodspark highlights the importance of implementing that culture. “As a business owner, I had to think about my actions – what kind of policies would I put in place, how inclusive can I be, what kind of setup would I have for my workers, especially if they were mothers who wanted a flexible working arrangement.”

To be a good leader, you have to learn from other leaders

If you’re within a large organisation, there’s a higher chance for you to learn from your peers and prior managers. But what if you’re running a business of your own and can’t learn from example? That’s where both women preach the importance of seeking out mentors.

“For my journey, I was always searching for a mentor. In my previous business, I was very lost. When I started my second business Nodspark, the entrepreneur space [in Singapore] had grown and I was able to reach out to similar profiles to ask for support,” Eugenia shares. 

“Even as a mentor, I need to have my own mentors and coaches as well as it’s a lifelong process of learning. Having another lens brings you a better perspective as a leader, and opens you up to your blind spots.” 

In the spirit of giving back, Eugenia has since participated in the Her World Mentorship Programme and signed on as a mentor in 2023 as a way to help other women who were in similar positions as her.

And while you’re out there looking for a senior leader to mentor you, do take pride in some of the reverse mentoring that might happen. “I’ve had mentors and mentees as well, and there’s something to be said about reverse mentoring,” Lyn shares.

“As I get more senior in the organisation, I appreciate being mentored by someone younger because wisdom goes both ways. Sometimes when you’re in a senior leadership position, you don’t always get the truth – it’s been filtered so that you only hear what people think you want to hear, so it’s good to have a reverse mentor who can speak the truth.”

Why authoritarian, top-down leadership only works in the short-term 

While many of us have experienced offices where traditional and authoritarian leadership styles have reigned supreme, Her World editor-in-chief Elizabeth Lee notes that the trend has shifted towards more inclusive and mentorship-based leadership.

“I definitely see [more or a mentorship-based leadership] it in Shell. What are the traits of a good leader? Being able to observe what other people need, which means that you need to be empathetic. You probably need to listen, because sometimes people don’t always tell you exactly what your needs are, so you need to be listening carefully. So here I’m talking about inclusive behaviour, what is accepted versus not, and also what are the consequences of both good and bad behaviours.”

“Being authoritarian is probably easier as it doesn’t require the leader to do anything except hand out orders. But that doesn’t work [in the long run] if we’re talking about people who have different needs, expectations, talents and skills,” Lyn advises.

As a business owner, who had the opportunity to craft her office culture from the ground up, Eugenia agrees wholeheartedly. “Handing down orders might sound like you would be able to move faster, [but] it’s short-term thinking because in the long run, you get a lot of high turnovers,” Eugenia warns.

And while creating a culture built around inclusivity over fear has its benefits, there are potential pitfalls if boundaries are not established. 

“One thing I enjoy about running my own business is that I get to dictate what kind of culture I want in the workplace. But the thing about being more inclusive would mean that you need to draw a lot of boundaries as well. It sounds very favourable from the employee’s point of view, but for the business owner, there’s a lot that we have to deal with in terms of drawing the line – are they my friend or not? How can I put across a message that they need to buck up in certain areas? There are a lot of grey areas when you have that kind of setup, even more so for a small business owner,” Eugenia shares.

“But I would say that you get a lot of intrinsic returns in terms of your employees working their hearts out for you because they know that you have that back. One thing I tell all my new staff is not to worry if they’ve made a mistake because I’m not here to pick on the things that they’ve done wrong. We’re here to move on quickly – right the wrong and just go with the flow thereafter. So with that, then they become a lot more confident in terms of how they’re going to be delivering the work to me and know that I’ve got their backs.”

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