Leading Effectively in a Hybrid Workplace
With more companies implementing hybrid workplace structures, executive teams can’t proceed with a “business as usual” approach to leadership. While core leadership practices remain the same, your team will be going through a transition, and you’ll need to adapt accordingly. Hybrid work comes with its own challenges such as reduced visibility, collaborative roadblocks, and a lack of social interaction. Leaders can address these challenges and shape their approach for hybrid workplaces by doubling down on personal development, fostering trust within and across teams, and creating new processes to promote collaboration and interpersonal engagement.
Don’t Neglect Your Own Personal Development
The leader of the hybrid workplace has to be even more focused on their own personal development and emotional intelligence. Their self awareness and adaptability in the midst of change and uncertainty are the foundations for hybrid leadership and underpin creating a great culture and making the right decisions. Staying grounded allows you to remain connected to the logic center of your brain and cut through complex and unusual problems.
If a hybrid structure is new to your team, there will be unexpected challenges; you'll need to rapidly assess and adjust as needed. Your team needs to feel confident in you to combat an inevitable sense of uncertainty amidst a new environment. If they see that you are flexible and can roll with the punches, they will feel safe to do the same.
Lead with Trust
The human element in a hybrid environment is even more important given the variability of conditions and decrease in visibility. With decreased management visibility, trust can be fragile.
Ensure that you are providing regular one-on-one meetings with your team members to give them opportunities to share what’s going well and what isn’t. Both are important to understanding and acknowledging the quality of their work.
On a practical level, you can increase visibility by utilizing spreadsheets, productivity apps, and collaborative platforms that allow teams to see projects and tasks as they progress.
Create New Processes for Collaboration
A manager's role in a hybrid workplace is to adapt their approach to consider the missed social needs of their team. Pay attention to how your team has collaborated in the past, and determine how those conditions can be replicated virtually. If that isn’t possible, create new processes, habits, and structures that optimize the best of live and virtual work to enable your team to thrive in a new environment. Don’t be afraid to source input from your team.
A proven effective approach for many teams is to use a dashboard - a spreadsheet or tool like Asana - with major team goals or areas of work. Make sure this is updated regularly. This fuels collective motivation and enables your team to asynchronously track progress.
Supplement Missed Social Interaction
We have learned that people have social needs that help them feel fulfilled and effective. When a team is virtual, creating rich and connected live experiences on a regular cadence sends ripples long after the event. This can include choosing days to work together in the office and longer offsites to connect team members and conduct strategic dialogs.
Create the Best Strategy for Your Team
Hybrid strategies are highly variable and depend on the organization and the individual manager. Ask yourself, ‘What kind of work must be done in-person? What would that look like? What do I prefer personally? What is realistic?’ Then gain input from your team by asking what they prefer and what they find most useful. Ultimately, the key to hybrid leadership is the same as any effective leadership strategy; Come from a place of empathy and curiosity so that you can problem solve, course correct, and drive your company vision forward in a way that supports your team, your business, and the world.
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