Articles / What Leadership Style Does Sage Group Use: Inside Their Winning Formula
Leadership StylesDiscover Sage Group's transformational leadership style that earned their CEO the highest rating in the UK. Learn their people-first approach and values-driven culture.
When Steve Hare was named Glassdoor's highest-rated CEO in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic with a remarkable 95% approval rating, it wasn't just recognition of his personal leadership qualities—it was a testament to Sage Group's distinctive leadership philosophy that prioritises human connection, empathy, and trust above all else. But what exactly makes Sage's leadership approach so effective, and how does it translate into tangible business success for one of Britain's largest technology companies?
The answer lies in a sophisticated blend of transformational leadership, servant leadership principles, and what business scholars might recognise as authentic leadership—all underpinned by a distinctly British sensibility that values substance over style. Like the great British explorers who charted unknown territories through careful preparation and unwavering determination, Sage's leadership team navigates the complex technology landscape with a methodical yet bold approach that puts people at the centre of every strategic decision.
At the heart of Sage's approach lies their core value of being "Human"—making strong connections with customers and colleagues through empathy and care. This isn't merely corporate rhetoric painted on office walls; it's a lived philosophy that permeates every level of the organisation.
Steve Hare himself embodies this approach, admitting his natural introversion and explaining how he's learned to be more aware of his impact on people around him. Unlike the archetypal tech CEO who leads through charisma and grand gestures, Hare represents a more thoughtful, reflective leadership style—reminiscent of the quiet determination that characterised figures like Ernest Shackleton, who led through adversity by maintaining unwavering focus on his crew's welfare.
The practical manifestation of this human-centred approach becomes evident in crisis situations. During the COVID-19 pandemic, rather than focusing solely on sales targets, Hare made the radical decision to shift from selling to supporting, telling his team: "I wasn't sure we should be selling at all. Because if our customers are worried about surviving, it looks very self-serving".
Sage's second core value, "Trust," emphasises delivering promises to customers, colleagues, society, and shareholders. This isn't the superficial trust of corporate mission statements, but rather the deep, institutional trust that emerges from consistent behaviour over time.
The company's approach to creating meaningful values stands in stark contrast to many organisations: "If you're going to have values, they need to mean something. You go to so many places where the values are up on the wall. Yet, if you covered them up and asked someone to tell you them, they wouldn't be able to".
This emphasis on trust extends to Sage's approach to employee development and retention. Rather than the Silicon Valley model of rapid hiring and firing, Sage has built a culture where since 2015, the company has employed more than 600 people through apprenticeship schemes in the UK, mainly in the Newcastle area, demonstrating a long-term commitment to developing talent from within.
The third pillar reflects Sage's "Bold" value—being curious, courageous, ambitious, and creative. However, this boldness is tempered by the kind of measured risk assessment that characterises British engineering excellence—from Isambard Kingdom Brunel's revolutionary railway designs to today's Formula 1 innovations.
Hare learned this lesson from a mentor who advised him: "When you're a CFO, you tend to spend a lot of time planning, looking for risk and trying to eliminate that. When you're a CEO, you have to be prepared to be out of your comfort zone, take calculated risks and push boundaries".
This philosophy has driven significant strategic moves, including Sage's biggest acquisition of Intacct for $850 million in July 2017, positioning the company at the forefront of cloud-based financial management solutions.
The fourth core value, "Simple," focuses on stripping away complexity—a principle that echoes the British design philosophy seen in everything from the London Underground map to the genius of James Dyson's innovations. In the enterprise software world, where complexity often masquerades as sophistication, Sage's commitment to simplicity represents a profound leadership choice.
Sage's leadership style demonstrates classic transformational leadership characteristics through its approach to employee development. The company offers colleagues the potential to work away for up to 10 weeks from over 40 countries worldwide, five paid days yearly to volunteer for causes they care about, and comprehensive mental wellbeing support.
More significantly, Sage has invested in an AI-driven platform called TalentMarketplace where employees can "build your profile and choose your career goals, showcase you and your skills, so leaders and recruiters can find you with internal opportunities". This represents a sophisticated understanding that modern leadership means creating systems that enable individual growth rather than simply directing from above.
At Sage, everyone is considered an innovator, regardless of their title. The Sage Innovation Academy and Community offers colleagues from all areas of the company the tools and methodologies to innovate through workshops, global events, e-learning tools, networking, hackathons and conferences.
This approach reflects what organisational psychologists call "distributed leadership"—recognising that innovation and leadership capability exist throughout the organisation, not just at the top. It's a model that mirrors the collaborative spirit of British scientific institutions like the Royal Society, where breakthrough discoveries often emerge from collective inquiry rather than individual genius.
Steve Hare's admission that he "found the transition from finance boss to CEO hard" and his openness about being an introvert exemplifies authentic leadership—a style that builds trust through honesty about personal limitations and growth areas.
His approach to seeking feedback demonstrates this authenticity: "The best way to get around this is very simple. Go up to people and talk to them. Within your business, this means walking the floor, approaching people of all levels of seniority, and engaging in conversation".
This management by walking around (MBWA) philosophy, popularised by management theorists but practiced by Hare with genuine intent to learn rather than monitor, creates the kind of psychological safety that enables high performance across the organisation.
Hare's leadership during the pandemic exemplified servant leadership, where he prioritised employee welfare: "Right from the start, the number one priority has been and is the welfare of our people". This wasn't merely crisis management—it reflected a fundamental belief that leaders exist to serve their teams, not the reverse.
The servant leadership approach extends to customer relationships as well. Rather than pushing sales during difficult times, Sage shifted to communicating "We're here for you," recognising that true leadership sometimes means sacrificing short-term gains for long-term relationship building.
The 319 Sage employees who reviewed the company on Comparably gave their leadership a grade of A+, placing them in the top 5% of similar size companies. This exceptional rating doesn't happen by accident—it emerges from consistent alignment between stated values and daily actions.
The SAGE Group's values of "Smart, Ambitious, Genuine and Exceptional" are more than aspirational statements—they serve as decision-making frameworks that help employees navigate complex situations. Like the code of conduct that guided British naval officers during the age of exploration, these values provide both direction and constraint, enabling autonomous decision-making while maintaining organisational coherence.
Hare's emphasis on collective responsibility rather than blame demonstrates sophisticated understanding of team dynamics: "When this happens, you need to always make it about the team, and never about yourself. Keep the interest of your team and the wider business at heart, not the outcome you want for yourself".
This approach creates what Harvard Business School's Amy Edmondson terms "psychological safety"—the belief that one can speak up, ask questions, and admit mistakes without fear of negative consequences. It's the foundation upon which innovative cultures are built.
Sage's purpose statement—"to knock down barriers so everyone can thrive"—reflects the kind of aspirational yet actionable vision that characterises effective strategic leadership. Unlike grandiose mission statements that sound impressive but provide little guidance, this purpose statement offers clear direction while remaining flexible enough to adapt to changing circumstances.
The company's commitment extends beyond profit: "We tackle digital inequality, economic inequality and the climate crisis, using our time, technology and experience". This represents stakeholder capitalism in action—recognising that sustainable business success requires considering the interests of all stakeholders, not just shareholders.
Sage's decision to maintain its Newcastle base while expanding globally demonstrates the kind of long-term thinking that characterises sustainable leadership: "We've expanded into Europe, the US and South Africa. Now 45 per cent of our revenue is in the US and only about 20 per cent is in the UK. But this is still our home".
This approach echoes the patient capital philosophy that built British industrial giants—investing in capabilities and relationships over time rather than pursuing quick returns that might compromise long-term positioning.
During COVID-19, Hare's communication strategy focused on connection: "It is the key for all of us, including me personally, to make sure that we're all keeping connected". This wasn't just about information sharing—it was about maintaining the social fabric that enables distributed teams to function effectively.
The recognition as highest-rated CEO during the crisis (95% approval rating) reflected employees' appreciation for transparent, frequent communication that acknowledged uncertainty while providing clear direction.
Sage's approach to customer retention during the pandemic—offering payment holidays and shifting from sales to support—demonstrated the kind of adaptive strategy that distinguishes great leaders from merely competent ones. The company lost very few clients and actually saw revenues increase by almost 5% to £1.6 billion, proving that putting relationships before transactions can drive superior business outcomes.
While many technology companies embrace the disruptive, move-fast-and-break-things mentality associated with Silicon Valley, Sage's leadership style represents a more measured, relationship-focused approach. This is reflected in their employee development strategy, where they've consistently invested in apprenticeships and long-term career development rather than relying primarily on external hiring.
Steve Hare's compensation of £4.59M, comprised of 19.7% salary and 80.3% performance-based bonuses, aligns leadership rewards with company performance. More importantly, this structure demonstrates confidence in the long-term sustainability of Sage's approach—leadership compensation is tied to results, not just tenure.
The business case for Sage's leadership approach is compelling. The company serves 6.1 million customers worldwide and is the UK's second-largest technology company, the world's third-largest supplier of enterprise resource planning software, and the largest supplier to small businesses.
Sage's integration of artificial intelligence into their products in the 2020s, including their first AI offering, a chatbot named Pegg in 2016, demonstrates how the company balances technological advancement with their human-centred values. The technology serves to enhance human capability rather than replace human judgment.
Sage's commitment to "sustainable growth in shareholder value" while simultaneously addressing "digital inequality, economic inequality and the climate crisis" represents the kind of integrated thinking that will characterise successful leadership in the coming decades.
The key insight from Sage's approach is that trust builds through consistent behaviour over time, not grand gestures. Hare's warning about the "reality gap" that emerges when leaders "overcommit in terms of what you're going to do" because "people will say, 'I've heard him say that three or four times, and nothing has happened'" provides practical guidance for leaders at any level.
Rather than relying on charismatic leadership alone, Sage has built systems that enable distributed leadership and innovation. Their TalentMarketplace platform, mentoring programmes, and gig economy for internal projects create multiple pathways for employee growth and engagement.
Sage's investment in mental health support, volunteer days, and community engagement through the Sage Foundation—which has provided nearly 150,000 volunteer days and $4 million in donations since 2015—demonstrates how values-based leadership translates into measurable outcomes that benefit all stakeholders.
Sage Group's leadership style represents a sophisticated synthesis of transformational, servant, and authentic leadership principles, all unified by a distinctly human-centred philosophy that prioritises relationships, trust, and long-term value creation over short-term metrics. Like the methodical excellence that characterised British achievements from naval exploration to industrial innovation, Sage's approach combines bold vision with careful execution, individual empowerment with collective responsibility.
Steve Hare's 90/100 CEO approval rating, placing him in the top 5% of similarly-sized companies, reflects more than personal charisma—it demonstrates the power of leadership that serves others while pursuing ambitious goals. In an era where technology companies often struggle with culture and retention, Sage's model offers a compelling alternative that proves human-centred leadership isn't just morally superior—it's also more effective.
The ultimate lesson from Sage's leadership approach is that in our increasingly digital world, the companies that thrive will be those that remember technology serves humanity, not the reverse. By building systems that enable people to flourish while pursuing ambitious business objectives, Sage has created a leadership model that's both sustainable and scalable—a template for the kind of responsible capitalism that will define successful enterprises in the decades ahead.
What type of leadership style does Steve Hare use as Sage's CEO? Steve Hare employs a transformational leadership style characterised by authentic vulnerability, servant leadership principles, and a focus on empowering others. He emphasises walking the floor, genuine conversation with employees at all levels, and putting employee welfare first.
How does Sage Group measure leadership effectiveness? Sage's leadership effectiveness is measured through employee satisfaction surveys, with their leadership team receiving an A+ rating from 319 employees on Comparably, placing them in the top 5% of similar-size companies. Steve Hare specifically has a 90/100 CEO approval rating.
What are Sage Group's core leadership values? Sage operates on four core values: Human (making strong connections through empathy and care), Trust (delivering promises to all stakeholders), Bold (being curious, courageous, ambitious, and creative), and Simple (stripping away complexity).
How did Sage's leadership perform during the COVID-19 crisis? During COVID-19, Steve Hare was named Glassdoor's highest-rated CEO in the UK with a 95% approval rating. The company prioritised employee welfare, shifted from selling to supporting customers, and maintained revenue growth of nearly 5% while losing very few clients.
What makes Sage's leadership development approach unique? Sage has invested in comprehensive development systems including an AI-driven TalentMarketplace platform, mentoring programmes, internal gig opportunities, and apprenticeship schemes. Since 2015, they've employed over 600 people through apprenticeships, demonstrating long-term investment in talent development.
How does Sage balance innovation with stability in their leadership approach? Sage treats everyone as an innovator regardless of title, offering innovation academies, hackathons, and continuous learning opportunities while maintaining stable leadership tenure (5.2 years average) and consistent values-based decision making.
What role does community and social responsibility play in Sage's leadership philosophy? Sage integrates social responsibility into their leadership model through the Sage Foundation, providing five paid volunteer days annually to employees, contributing nearly 150,000 volunteer days and $4 million in donations since 2015, and addressing digital inequality, economic inequality, and climate crisis through their business operations.