{"id":8735,"date":"2026-01-24T10:23:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T10:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bespokecareers.com\/?p=8735"},"modified":"2026-01-24T10:23:42","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T10:23:42","slug":"what-makes-a-good-leader-in-todays-rapidly-evolving-workplace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bespokecareers.com\/articles\/what-makes-a-good-leader-in-todays-rapidly-evolving-workplace\/","title":{"rendered":"What makes a good leader in today\u2019s rapidly evolving workplace?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This article was originally published by the Architects’ Journal.<\/p>\n

Photography by Theo Wood<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Panel members<\/h2>\n

Y\u1eb9m\u00ed Al\u00e1d\u00e9run\u00a0<\/b><\/b>Head of Development, Ealing Counci
\n<\/b><\/b>Beni (Albena) Atanassova-Price\u00a0<\/b><\/b>Director, Scott Brownrigg
\n<\/b><\/b>Lucy Cahill<\/b>\u00a0<\/b>Director, Bespoke Careers
\n<\/b><\/b>Ben Clark\u00a0<\/b><\/b>Co-owner, 2C Architects
\n<\/b><\/b>Samantha Cooke<\/b>\u00a0<\/b>Director, KPF
\n<\/b>Hattie Hartman (chair)<\/b>\u00a0<\/b>Sustainability editor,\u00a0The Architects\u2019 Journal<\/i>
\n<\/b>Dominic Hook<\/b>\u00a0<\/b>Architect Director, BDP
\n<\/b>Stewart Kidson\u00a0<\/b>Consultant, Strategic Appointments, Bespoke Careers
\n<\/b>Katia (Caterina) Polidoro\u00a0<\/b>Principal Director, tp bennett<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

What leadership models and practice strategies can best nurture diversity and meet the expectations of younger generations? Is soft rather than hard power the answer?<\/span><\/p>\n

These were among the issues up for debate at a recent\u00a0Architects\u2019 Journal\u00a0<\/i>roundtable, supported by Bespoke Careers and held at Flokk in London. It was certainly a pertinent topic, given the recent report by the Fawcett Society on gender equity in the architecture sector, which found shocking examples of \u2018toxic workplace culture\u2019, with 35 per cent of respondents experiencing sexual harassment and half experiencing bullying.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Lucy Cahill<\/p><\/div>\n

According to Bespoke Careers\u2019 Lucy Cahill, companies in the recruitment marketplace are looking to embrace change and want to find out how to go about it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018We\u2019re finding ourselves in a lot of conversations where people are saying they want to add different and diverse voices to their board or senior leadership team and they\u2019re asking how they should go about that,\u2019 she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The roundtable panel shared both the challenges of changing traditional practice structures and the positive strategies they are using to nurture from within.<\/span><\/p>\n

The panel reflected on how good architects don\u2019t necessarily make good managers, nor get the right training.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Katia Polidoro<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Katia Polidoro of tp bennett talked about the need to be empowered with the tools, for example for scenarios such as talking to their team: \u2018How do you engage with a conversation? How do you work with your strengths to change the dial when in a conversation? How do you resolve a problem?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Y\u1eb9m\u00ed Al\u00e1d\u00e9run, recently appointed head of development at Ealing Council, felt that good leadership was \u2018less about authority and more about awareness\u2019. She felt the idea of the architect as a lone visionary with a following no longer reflected how projects are designed and collectively delivered. Now, it\u2019s more about how to \u2018figure it out together\u2019, she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s also a marked difference, she thought, between being a manager and being a leader.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u2018Ultimately, to be a leader, the foundational quality is to have clarity. I also think that you can lead from wherever you are.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

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Ye\u0323mi\u0301 Ala\u0301de\u0301run<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

She talked about the importance of \u2018soft\u2019 power, in contrast to a \u2018hard\u2019 power that is derived from a position of authority. This can often be found outside the confines of the office routines. She was a co-founder, for example, of Paradigm Network, for black and Asian architects, and is a core member of Part W action group, which campaigns to highlight the contribution of women to the built environment.<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition, social media has given different people a platform to voice their opinions.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018You can do it from your phone, without anyone giving you the authority to do so or spending tens of thousands of pounds to get your voice heard,\u2019 she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Beni Atanassova-Price<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Beni Atanassova-Price, who was recently appointed director of Scott Brownrigg, described the power of mentoring, whether within the practice or externally. \u2018To me, it\u2019s a lot about a two-way communication,\u2019 she said. Mentoring can be a way of \u2018paying it forward\u2019, she thought, by helping or inspiring others, who can in turn help more people themselves, with each incremental change contributing to a bigger cultural change.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018With large organisations it [change] does take time and it\u2019s difficult to do, but I think there are things we can all do, probably within the levels we\u2019re sitting at, that will probably make a much bigger impact in the industry as a whole,\u2019 she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

KPF director Samantha Cooke said the 50-year-old practice was making concerted efforts to bring more women into leadership roles. She talked about the need to have accurate data when driving change. \u2018From the start I\u2019ve always been data-focused,\u2019 she said, adding that being able to be explicit about numbers helped to challenge misperceptions.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Samantha Cooke<\/p><\/div>\n

The practice has set up a group focused on gender balance that\u2019s open to everyone.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s not just for women to talk about our issues and have it go nowhere,\u2019 she said. She added that the Fawcett Society report had shown that issues surrounding gender inequality are still prevalent in the wider profession.<\/span><\/p>\n

While cultural change at long-established practices can be particularly difficult, it clearly does happen. Polidoro is one of six women on the 15-strong board of 104-year-old practice tp bennett. Until quite recently, there was only one. At tp bennett, she said, there is also a further \u2018pipeline\u2019 of women recently promoted to the next level down, \u2018not because we wanted to make the quota, but because people grew into the role\u2019. This radical shift was, she said, the result of both timing and strategic change instigated by the board.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018As many of the older generation of principals retired, it was a pivotal moment when tp bennett decided to invest in training and coaching [for all],\u2019 she said. This \u2018considerable commitment\u2019, she said, \u2018has organised us in a different mindset\u2019 and given people the tools to progress in the practice.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s about building leadership in a modern sense. We talk about a bottom-up, top-down approach. It needs a strategic decision to make these changes.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Aside from the coaching and capturing data to understand where the gaps are, Polidoro points to the practice\u2019s strong equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) strategy, mentoring schemes (including reverse mentoring), and tp bennett-plus (TPB+) support groups, which have been instrumental in the introduction of supportive new policies on menopause and parental leave.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s all about support. You lose people if you don\u2019t support throughout this stage of their career,\u2019 she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Atanassova-Price talked about the impact of Scott Brownrigg\u2019s distributed leadership \u2018rank and roles\u2019 system. In this, additional time and pay is given for those wishing to take on key roles outside traditional levels of progression, such as championing project management, for example. \u2018That meant we have seen a lot of younger people taking on these roles,\u2019 she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Without the constraints of an established hierarchy, Ben Clark of new practice 2C Architects, is keen to challenge traditional practice models by \u2018being able to shape the leadership of the company from the bottom up\u2019 to ensure that no-one feels disenfranchised.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Ben Clark<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018How do we attract really good people? Part of that is making decisions about how we structure the practice and reward the people coming in,\u2019 he said. This means hearing the views of all. \u2018Not to encourage younger staff to offer their opinion and thoughts is really wasteful for us as leaders or senior members. You want to hear all voices.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Y\u1eb9m\u00ed Al\u00e1d\u00e9run has varied experience as an architect across private, public and third sector organisations. She described how she was dumbfounded by the ethnic diversity and age range of people when she moved to a housing association.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018There\u2019s a lot that we can learn from how the public sector and third sector do things to level out the playing field and give people equal opportunities,\u2019 she said, pointing to policies such as blind recruitment and promoting from within by advertising internally first.<\/span><\/p>\n

Al\u00e1d\u00e9run also brought up the issue of \u2018invisible\u2019 social\/economic diversity, in addition to race and gender. tp bennett\u2019s Polidoro said she was personally in favour of positive discrimination in cases such as recruiting Level 6 apprentices.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018You need to give priority to the ones who wouldn\u2019t be able to study otherwise \u2026 you need to make an impactful decision. If you don\u2019t, little by little, start at the bottom, you\u2019ll never get to that quota,\u2019 she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

So what other issues affect efforts to bring about a more diverse representation in the profession?<\/span><\/p>\n

BDP\u2019s Dominic Hook called out what he called a \u2018bullishness and, frankly, slightly alpha attitude\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Dominic Hook<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018You can certainly bet your bottom dollar that\u2019s got nothing to do with talent or ability, or the desire or ambition,\u2019 he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Menopause policies and, in particular, supportive parental policies, such as shared parental leave, came up again and again. \u2018By having these,\u2019 said Clark, \u2018you probably stop some of your brightest female employees from leaving the practice and therefore your pool to promote from within is much larger.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Polidoro felt that management needed to lead by example, for example by leaving early to pick up children from school.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018There is a heavy lifting the management needs to do, and again it\u2019s cultural. You need to set the tone. If you don\u2019t perform that shift, things will never change.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

The discussion also touched on the role of Employee Ownership Trusts, B-Corps, renumeration transparency and much more. Perhaps, participants felt, there was scope for more collaboration on best practice, as has been demonstrated by the sharing of sustainability methodologies.<\/span><\/p>\n

Making a strategic hire to bring in knowledge of a specific new sector, or to bring about a particular change, is a good opportunity to \u2018agitate\u2019 and move things onward towards more diverse representation, according to Stewart Kidson of Bespoke.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Stewart Kidson<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018As practices evolve and change with succession, you need to bring in the latest thinking into your organisations. It\u2019s very important to agitate through that process, because [otherwise] you end up with people who look the same,\u2019 he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

There was no doubting the value of a more diverse practice.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Being a more diverse organisation definitely brings with it a more successful business model and everyone benefits from it,\u2019 said Polidoro.<\/span><\/p>\n

To get there is clearly still a work in progress for the profession. This may, said Al\u00e1d\u00e9run, require \u2018unlearning\u2019 the structures that are currently in place, rather than inviting more people into them. On a positive note, she felt architects were well-positioned to do just this.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018We\u2019re trained to think in systems and to balance imagination with constraint. If we apply that mindset, we can continue to develop the kind of compelling models that we\u2019ve heard about today \u2013 models of leadership that are creative, inclusive but also deeply human.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What does it take to be a leader in today\u2019s challenging and fast-changing architectural workplace?\u00a0This was the topic of an AJ roundtable discussion in partnership with global architecture and design recruiter Bespoke Careers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":8739,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","footnotes":""},"categories":[21,68],"tags":[],"location":[],"class_list":["post-8735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-employers"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bespokecareers.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bespokecareers.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bespokecareers.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bespokecareers.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bespokecareers.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8735"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bespokecareers.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8748,"href":"https:\/\/www.bespokecareers.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8735\/revisions\/8748"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bespokecareers.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/8739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bespokecareers.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bespokecareers.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bespokecareers.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8735"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bespokecareers.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/location?post=8735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}