Leadership is often evaluated by financial outcomes, strategic achievements, and market reputation. Yet Gallup’s Global Leadership Report: What Followers Want reveals a more foundational truth: leadership success is deeply rooted in meeting core emotional needs. These needs remain remarkably consistent across industries, countries, and generations.
Based on responses from over 30,000 individuals across 52 countries, Gallup’s research identifies four universal expectations employees have of their leaders: hope, trust, compassion, and stability. These findings carry significant implications for leadership in the insurance sector, where the stakes are uniquely high, and organisational health depends on both operational performance and human connection.
1. Hope Is the Single Most Critical Expectation
Gallup’s study shows that hope accounts for 56% of all leadership attributes people value most. This emphasis was consistent across every region studied, from Asia-Pacific to North America, and was even more pronounced among the youngest generation of employees (18–29 years old).
The data is clear: hope is not a soft leadership quality; it is the dominant leadership requirement globally.
Hope, as Gallup defines it, encompasses more than vague positivity. It includes inspiration, vision, personal integrity, and the ability to offer a compelling roadmap toward a better future. Without hope, employees are more likely to disengage, suffer higher rates of dissatisfaction, and rate their lives more poorly.
For senior leaders in insurance, this finding carries sharp relevance. Our industry faces growing complexity, including climate change risks, technological disruption, and regulatory pressures. These forces heighten uncertainty for employees at every level. In this context, leadership’s ability to create and communicate hope becomes a critical strategic capability.
Implications for Leadership:
- Define the Future, Often: Leaders must frequently articulate where the organisation is heading and why. Vision should not be confined to annual reports; it must be lived through consistent, visible actions.
- Link Work to Purpose: Help employees understand how their roles contribute to broader organisational, industry, and societal goals.
- Demonstrate Integrity: Hope without credibility is meaningless. Leaders must visibly align their actions with the values and vision they espouse.
2. Trust Remains the Foundation of Influence
Following hope, trust ranks as the second most important need, cited by 33% of respondents globally. In Europe, including major insurance markets such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and France, trust is even more emphasised, with 37% of leadership qualities tied to this attribute.
Gallup defines trust as encompassing honesty, respect, communication, and the reliability to act with integrity. Trust also enables collaboration, teamwork, and compromise — all crucial qualities for insurance organisations navigating underwriting complexity, regulatory compliance, and customer engagement.
The regional differences are instructive. In higher-income countries like those in Europe and North America, employees place a relatively higher premium on trust compared to hope. This reflects a matured workforce that expects transparency and leadership behaviour to consistently match stated values.
Implications for Leadership:
- Communicate Transparently: Share not only successes but also challenges. Employees are more likely to trust leaders who acknowledge difficulties honestly.
- Consistency Between Words and Actions: In a trust-driven culture, credibility is non-negotiable. Even small broken commitments can erode trust.
- Decentralise Communication: Encourage open dialogue across all leadership levels. Trust is often built as much through local managers as through executives.
3. Organisational Leaders Are a Primary Influence on Daily Wellbeing
Gallup’s study reveals that 34% of employees cite a workplace leader — a manager, executive, or colleague — as the most positive daily influence in their lives. This figure is only slightly lower than the 44% who cite a family member.
This finding challenges traditional assumptions that leadership's role is confined to work output or professional development. Leadership, according to this data, directly impacts employees’ emotional and psychological wellbeing.
Moreover, in countries such as Australia, China, Germany, and the UAE, workplace leaders are even more influential than family members. In China, for instance, 70% of respondents named workplace leaders as their most influential daily figure, compared to just 25% citing family.
In insurance firms, which often feature hierarchical structures and distributed workforces, the day-to-day actions of leaders at all levels have a disproportionate effect on employee loyalty, resilience, and performance.
Implications for Leadership:
- Expand the Definition of Leadership: Leadership development must extend beyond technical expertise to include emotional intelligence, mentorship, and wellbeing stewardship.
- Train for Human-Centric Leadership: Managers should be equipped to have meaningful one-on-one conversations, address concerns proactively, and create psychologically safe environments.
- Recognise Informal Leaders: Influence is not always tied to hierarchy. Organisations should identify and empower informal leaders who shape culture and morale.
4. Meeting More Needs Directly Improves Organisational Health
Gallup’s data draws a strong link between leadership effectiveness and employee wellbeing:
- Among employees who do not associate hope with their leader, only 33% are thriving, while 9% are suffering.
- When hope is present, thriving rises to 38%, and suffering drops to 6%.
- When multiple needs (hope, trust, and either compassion or stability) are met, thriving increases to 43%.
Each additional emotional need met by leadership substantially improves the likelihood of employees thriving. There are also direct correlations to engagement, innovation, retention, and business resilience.
This carries profound implications for organisations adapting to hybrid work environments, post-pandemic culture shifts, and workforce transformations driven by AI and automation. Modern leadership cannot be one-dimensional. It must consistently address emotional, social, and organisational needs in parallel.
Implications for Leadership:
- Build Leadership Architectures Around the Four Needs: Hope, trust, compassion, and stability should be embedded into leadership frameworks, behaviours, and KPIs.
- Audit Organisational Culture Through a Needs Lens: Engagement surveys should assess the fulfilment of these human needs, not just measure satisfaction or alignment.
- Prioritise Human Outcomes as Strategic Outcomes: Thriving employees are not just happier; they are demonstrably more productive, innovative, and loyal.
Leadership Strategy Must Be Built on Human Needs
The insurance sector faces complex pressures, including rising regulatory scrutiny, heightened competition, technological disruption, and evolving customer expectations. Technical expertise, strategic agility, and financial acumen remain critical, but they are no longer sufficient on their own. The most successful leaders, teams, and organisations will be those who recognise that leadership is fundamentally a human endeavour.
At Eliot Partnership, we see every day how leadership that meets these core human needs shapes the future. Those who lead with both excellence and humanity will not only build stronger companies but also leave lasting legacies.
