Successful Hybrid Leadership

If the last couple of years have taught us anything about leadership, it’s that the way we once led isn’t so fit for purpose in a hybrid or completely remote team environment.  Yes, we need to be flexible, adaptable and keeping up with change at rates like never before.  And then there are the fundamental things that, if we aren’t doing, will make it harder to adapt, lead through change and truly engage with our people.  The things that if we aren’t doing them at a basic level, will erode trust. The trust you have in your team and the trust that you have in yourself to be able to lead effectively.

Below I hit the high points for what you can be doing to get the basics right in a hybrid or remote team environment.

1. Ensure alignment with clear directional objectives

Ensure your team are pulling in the same direction, no matter where they are located, and that everyone in the team is on the same page regarding the:

• Purpose of the team (what is the team’s reason for being?)
• Shared team objectives and how they fit with the bigger strategic picture.
• Individual objectives that everyone is working towards in achieving the team objectives.

When we are clear and transparent about these three directional levels, your people will know where and how they need to be investing their energy.  Importantly, our experience shows that it also creates a collaborative and connective team dynamic that is so essential for success in teams that are virtual or hybrid in nature.  Be brave enough to ask your team how they feel about sharing their individual objectives; introducing this level of transparency can help reduce the psychological distance and increase collaboration when we realise that our actions, no matter where we are located, may be able to contribute to the success of a colleague and therefore the team.  Track and discuss all team objectives openly and regularly – they are the binding factor of your team – so use them to your advantage.


2. Set Your Team Up for Success

When we don’t trust our people to get on with things in a remote or hybrid environment, this can often say more about us than our people.  We’ll talk more about us a bit further on, but when it comes to our team, we can remove doubt by applying a couple of simple strategies:

• Equip your team with the skills and team systems to work remotely.  On one level, it’s helping the team learn how to be a hybrid team, and then there is understanding capability of individual team members to work remotely.  So focus on both levels.  Develop your team through simple but effective teaming activities that allow you to co-create the rules of engagement (like a Team Charter) and define the team governance for communication and collaboration – what does good look like for our team?  At the same time observe your team members individually.  Who is thriving, who is doing ok, who needs help.  Identify development opportunities, whether it be through buddying up, mentoring or formal courses.  

 

• Don’t assume everyone is comfortable with working remotely.  Use your 1:1’s to dive into how your team members are really doing on the days you aren’t together in the office.  Or if your team has transitioned to being completely virtual, learning how this sits with individual team members.  You may need to become a ‘mentor manager’ to support them in their transition and their effectiveness.  

3. Set Yourself Up for Success

• Understand your own mindset.  You were once leading a team that was co-located – so how are you with the fact that you are now leading in a hybrid or completely virtual environment?  Do you trust your team to do their job when no one is watching?  Even when they are capable, confident and have the right supporting structures in place?  If you haven’t done your own piece of reflection on this, you may be leading at only half your potential effectiveness, and this will be impacting your approach to how you get your own job done as well as how you lead, engage, and inspire your team.  

 

• Adapt your approach.  Similar to the above; the skills, techniques and tactics we use as leaders in a co-located environment will need to be different for a team that is spread out.  Little things like consciously make time to connect with your team members will make a difference, as will using effective delegation.  Your ability to communicate well and consistently across more than one medium is also a must-have capability.

The final word…Reflect

Carve out time each week to reflect on the team and yourself.  This is a practice that is fast becoming a non-negotiable for leaders in a hybrid world that helps us stay in touch with reality, ourselves and our team.  Reflect on yourself and your team through the lens of the points in this article.  What’s working well? What could be better?  Then build this discipline into your week, because leading to get things done through others is the big part of your job…and how we do this is changing faster than ever.​

Rather, trust is one of those elements that demand the respect of time and effort.  Trust is after all about respect for the other person, or people, and the respect for that space that exists between you and the group you are either leading or seeking to influence.   ​

Trust is not a weapon, or something with which to threaten others; if there is a need to do this then it is time to question your motives for being in the role.  Threatening to remove trust, or questioning trust, is often a signal that no genuine intent to build trust exists from the beginning.  

As leaders this means that our role is to be thinking about how we create the opportunity for vulnerability to grow.  And the solution evolves around psychological safety, which applies to all aspects of work life around the world.  
 
Leaders have a certain potency that comes with their role that can be overlooked.  That is, our ability to create a safe place where people feel ok to bring ‘who’ they are into the role and the workplace.  I remember when I started my working life, this was an optional and largely unknown aspect of leadership, and if you had a leader who did this then you really had landed on your feet!  Today is different.  We know more about human development and motivation, and the links between performance, culture, engagement and happiness at work.  We also know more about the role that we play as leaders in making it ok for our people to bring as much of themselves to work as possible, and not just a persona shackled by a strong defensive boundary.
 
How do we make it ok?  It’s simple to understand in one respect and at the same time, depending on our own frame of reference, can be difficult to do.  We lead by example in making the environment inclusive and non-judgemental.  We give people time to colour their role with ‘who’ they are, and we don’t enforce a time limit on the development of trust and engagement.  In fact, by expecting that trust or engagement should be occurring by a certain time could be saying more about our personal needs as a leader than it does about the people we are leading.

Having a sense of purpose is central to effective employee engagement, and there are three dimensions to this, that if understood, can contribute effectively to organisational engagement strategies. I call these dimensions:
 

1. Intrinsic Sense of Purpose
2. Extrinsic Sense of Purpose
3. Adapted Sense of Purpose

 
Below is a short descriptor of each type of Purpose.
 

Intrinsic Sense of Purpose
This is really about those fundamental questions like; Who am I? or What are my values? We may never fully know the answers to these types of questions, but for most people there tends to be a sense of what the answers are, especially on the values side of things.  I like to think of this as being our internal compass and life vest all rolled into one.  It gives us direction, and in those times when the direction isn’t clear, or we lose our way, our values can act as our life vest to keep us afloat until we regain traction.  If we are unable to access, develop or acknowledge our Intrinsic Sense of Purpose, we aren’t in the best position to optimise our Extrinsic Sense of Purpose.
 

Extrinsic Sense of Purpose
This is the part of us that the rest of the world can see when seeking to fulfil our Intrinsic Sense of Purpose, whether it be in our career, our personal activities or the way we engage with family and friends.  Ideally, in a professional context, we would like to think that what we do for a living is an extension of ‘who’ we are and the reality is that this is true for all of us, no matter what our country or culture.  In Asian and Middle East cultures, for example, our work team really is an extension of our family on many levels with individual purpose being reinforced through acceptance of, and belonging to, the group.  This of course relies on knowing ‘who’ our colleagues are and what they stand for and is as important, if not more important, than knowing ‘what’ we are here to do.  Whilst in cultures, like that found in Anglo countries, there is a continuous need for organisations to understand and express its Intrinsic Sense of Purpose in an effort to attract and retain employees by demonstrating that what it stands for is good for the Intrinsic needs of the people it hopes to attract and for those who already work there.
 
So our Extrinsic Sense of Purpose serves the purpose of being fulfilling on a practical level (I enjoy what I do) and reinforcing our Intrinsic Sense of Purpose (I enjoy how I do what I do and why I do what I do).
 

Adapted Sense of Purpose
This is an interesting place to be as there are times when our Intrinsic and Extrinsic senses of Purpose aren’t in alignment.  This can be when we aren’t sure of ‘who’ we are but we are finding ways to sustain ourselves externally with the hope that this will provide clarity on who we are. This can be caused by a major life event which creates the need to re-evaluate who we are, and can sometimes seem like it’s always a work in progress.
 
There are also those times when we are sure of who we are, but our Extrinsic activities are out of alignment.  For example, when we are starting out in our career, there is sometimes the need to take what we can get to build up experience.  There are also those times when we are caught up in a restructure or major organisational change; and then there is the more stark situation that comes with expats moving from one country to another.  In all of these situations we are required to adapt temporarily until we can find that common ground, or reconcile between who we are and where we find ourselves.
 

The Challenge and the Opportunity
It is in the Adapted space that we can lose people…no matter the circumstance.  It is in this adapted space that we see the largest turnover of expats during the assignment and upon return due to culture shock, reverse culture shock and a lack of planning to support effective return of the expat.  In change management, we lose people because the change plan didn’t take into consideration how people will feel, react or perceive the change.  In restructures, it is more obvious because who we can often be wrapped up in what we do.
 
This challenge also represents the greatest opportunity for both the individual and the organisation.  It is in the Adapted space when there is the greatest opportunity for personal and professional growth.
 
If you are able to identify those moments in your organisation when at either an individual, team or functional level, there is likely to be gap between the Intrinsic Sense of Purpose and the Extrinsic Sense of Purpose, that’s where the work is to be done.  That’s precisely the place where concerns are planned for, fears are addressed, excitement is harnessed and progress can be created.
 
We often miss this piece as we are focussed mainly on the external factors, for example, what I want you to be doing compared to what you are doing today.  And our change plan supports this in a structured and behaviourally focussed way. 
 
However, if we are prepared to explore the space between who our people are (and therefore the reason why they likely joined your organisation) and what we are asking them to do differently, (and therefore the intrinsic impact this will have on them), we are in a better position to drive genuine engagement.