The workplace of the future needs strong hybrid leaders

Forget strategy and processes: what hybrid teams really need isn’t what you think.

You’re here now. You can see it. You’re living it… The new reality.
The coronavirus pandemic completely changed the way you and I work. Some would say it’s for the better. Others hate it, and just wish everything would go back to normal. Whatever your view, we can’t escape reality. Companies and employees alike are eyeing a new workplace designed around more flexibility and less dependence on physical location. And many organisations have already decided to make an active move towards the hybrid workplace.

Have you brought everyone along?

But have we remembered to bring everyone along? Or do we risk leaving the organisation behind because our leadership is stuck in the past? If the company hasn’t deliberately focused on building hybrid skills and developing its leaders, the time has come to change the way we lead and the way we think about leadership.

Let’s be honest, leading a team spread across several locations is far from easy, and especially not in the hybrid model, where some people are together at the office while others work from home. Hybrid workplaces and their leaders face a lot of challenges.

Let’s start by appreciating the hybrid opportunities

But perhaps we should start by being grateful for what globalisation has helped make possible, and for how technology helps us bridge the gaps. Just think that we’re able to build these fantastic, diverse teams that, pardon my French, kick arse across locations and national borders. Appreciating the flexibility and the opportunities is an important source of motivation, for leaders and teams alike, in hybrid work.

Let’s move on to how we can get the most out of a hybrid workplace and hybrid teams, while avoiding the pitfalls of constant digital interruptions, demotivation, confusion and poor coordination and communication.

What you need is a strong foundation. Without it, strategy and processes won’t get you anywhere

So what is this rock-solid foundation? You may have guessed… strong leaders. There’s no way round it: leadership has to be in focus. Leaders need to be equipped to lead hybrid teams, and organisations should actively focus on, and invest in, training and upskilling leaders for the new reality.

As a former hybrid leader in international start-up environments, I’d highlight three central foundations of leadership that will decide whether you succeed or fail in building a strong hybrid team.

1. Create an environment of trust and psychological safety

To lead a hybrid team, you have to lead with empathy. Start by remembering that your team are people. It sounds obvious, I know, but sometimes we forget the basics, and I often need that reminder myself. It means you have opinions and feelings, like the rest of your team. It means your team may not always react rationally, or may simply react differently from you. Next, you really have to put your empathy into overdrive when you build the hybrid team. Because trying to understand what it feels like to be the one working from home while others are at the office, and actively showing that to your people, is the key to building a culture of trust and a space for psychological safety.

On top of that, one central element is organisational power. Trust and psychological safety are built around people who know, understand and acknowledge their organisational power, and use that awareness to actively create safe spaces for working together.
Every formal leader in an organisation has power (what we call ‘legitimate power’), but as a hybrid leader the concept of power widens, because there’s a particular power in physical proximity. If you as a leader are based in a physical office with half your team, while the rest work from home, there’s a power imbalance. Quite simply because the people at the office have physical access to you. They can catch you by the coffee machine, they hear things informally, in passing, and potentially have the chance to get information before others and to get you to make quicker decisions. That leaves everyone working from home at a potential disadvantage. And they know it.

That’s why it’s your job as a leader to become aware of this organisational power, and to find ways to even it out. At hybridledelse.dk, we say that all good hybrid leadership starts with you deciding that you want to be a good leader for everyone. No exceptions! You can do this by first acknowledging the challenge openly. By bringing the question out of the shadows. You talk about the elephant in the room. You act like a first-rate leader by being open and honest.

As leaders, we often think we need to know everything and have all the answers, but there’s beauty in being credible enough to say “this is what we’re facing, and I don’t have all the answers, but I’m here to make sure we find them together.” That earns respect. When you start talking about the obvious challenges you’re facing, you rebalance the power. You talk to everyone as equals, and you make the people who experience the challenge every day feel heard and understood (even if they haven’t said anything about it yet). It’s about creating a shared “we” instead of an “us” versus “them” reality.

When you show up as a leader who cares about everyone on your team, and dare to be vulnerable by admitting you don’t have all the answers, you create a space of psychological safety. You show others that it’s safe for them to open up.

Meetings have to work for everyone

Meetings have to work for everyone, and that should be a completely non-negotiable policy. To level the playing field, we’ve previously had good experience with the principle ‘we’re all online’, and it’s still what we’d recommend if you don’t have the equipment for good hybrid meetings. It lets the people working from home take part on an equal footing with everyone else. There’s a lot happening on the hybrid front, though, and many workplaces are building meeting rooms focused on including the employees who aren’t in the room. Rooms like these also help you avoid possible conflicts in the team between those who come into the office precisely to be together in person, and those who choose to work from home for the day. But you should always choose a ‘digital first’ meeting strategy. There’s no point writing on the whiteboard in the room while the people at home watch over the camera. Use the digital tools in the room, or brainstorm and share through digital tools from your computer.

2. Make room for everyone through engagement

You’re present, you’ve stepped forward, you lead with empathy, openness and trust. You’ve flexed your emotional intelligence muscle. Now it’s time to remember that you’re not alone. You’ve learned that it’s OK not to have all the answers, and that it’s your job to include everyone by bringing their knowledge to the table and creating the best possible result together. In a hybrid workplace, it’s no different. You do it in a hybrid way, but at the core the principles are the same. Everyone on your team wants to be recognised and to have access to equal opportunities. The people who work from home think about it much more than you realise. They wonder what they’re missing. So it’s important to make your team feel included, and you do that by involving your team in finding solutions to your team’s challenges. Make it a shared task. Set up a framework that ensures consistent engagement across the team. Within that framework, you manage visibility across the team, to make sure everyone is seen and valued, and has the same opportunities. It’s important that you manage your own visibility, especially for those who are often, or always, working from home. You need to make sure they always know how to reach you. It takes extra effort and transparent planning, but it’s up to you to decide to become a leader who’s available and engaged for everyone.

Make it practical

• Set up a dedicated monthly meeting where the focus is your team, and how you can tackle any (hybrid) challenges you may be facing.
• To make room for everyone, you can set up an online forum where people can anonymously post thoughts or questions before the meeting that they’d like to discuss.
  This isn’t a simple brainstorming session. It needs to be structured and led by you.
• Always make sure you communicate the importance, purpose and goal of these meetings, and what’s expected of everyone. Otherwise you’ll simply waste your own and everyone else’s time.
• Make it a safe and engaging space, and something everyone can look forward to.
• Use active listening, ask for input, ask questions, and engage all your team members.

Be honest about your own mistakes

• One powerful thing you can do is give yourself feedback in front of your team. For example, by saying “I’m aware that last week I made a decision without including some of you working from home who should have been part of that process. We needed to make a really quick decision, and with the time differences between our locations, I made a quick call. I understand that some of you may feel overlooked and not included. It wasn’t ideal, and I’m truly sorry. I could have done better, and I know it. I’m very open to hearing what you think about how we can make better and more inclusive decisions from now on.” It isn’t easy to say. But it’s a solid way to let everyone understand that it’s OK to be honest. Again, don’t forget your position, and the way different team members may see you differently. By being open and admitting a mistake, you even out the power.

Be visible

• Manage your own visibility by having a dedicated slot in your calendar that’s always open to the people on your team who work away from the office. These are your virtual office hours, when they can drop by the virtual office and raise things that are better discussed in conversation than by email. Our calendars are often too full, and we forget to make room for the people who really need us.
• Make sure you always prioritise keeping this slot free. It’s often important to tell the team repeatedly that you have these virtual office hours, so that it becomes part of the way you work together.

3. Strengthen the team by focusing on community

The final piece for workplaces and teams is a feeling of strong community. For your team, it means belonging, trust and a sense of ownership. For you, it means you don’t carry responsibility for everything yourself, and can use your leadership to create leaders around you instead.

An important part of hybrid leadership is using your formal power and authority to create a framework where people naturally connect across locations and teams, without you needing to be there. That doesn’t just let employees act without waiting for you, it also makes it easier to collaborate across the organisation. It’s by understanding and acknowledging your own formal power that you can hand power to the people around you. It also makes it possible for the employees who don’t work at a distance to form closer ties. It creates engagement, empathy and understanding across the team. It creates a stronger “we”.

Bring everyone with you

• Choose hybrid ambassadors; give the responsibility to people who want to contribute actively.
• Make sure both those who are often at the office and those working at a distance are represented.
• The hybrid ambassadors’ role is to build ties across the team, to notice potential challenges as they arise, and to push solutions forward from the employees’ point of view.
• For example, it can make good sense to work on how to create the social space where employees both at the office and at a distance can share informal updates and build ties in a relaxed setting (online games, quizzes, exercise sessions, wellbeing practices, sharing big personal news and so on).
• Remember to celebrate your achievements and the challenges you’ve overcome. Highlight the good things and all the positive sides of the hybrid model, and how it benefits you.
• Create a ritual, share lessons learned and positive experiences. Bring positivity and engagement to the team. Stay focused on making the hybrid model work.

Invest in your own development

If your team is going to thrive in a hybrid workplace, you as a leader have to dare to step out of your comfort zone. You’ll probably need to develop some new skills, and you may have to do things you never thought you’d need to. But we recommend seeing it as a great opportunity to grow, and asking yourself: “what kind of leader do I want to be seen as?“

It’s incredibly important in this process to remember that you don’t have to stand alone. Look around you: who can you lean on? If there are several leaders in your organisation, it’s a good idea to create a leadership forum for yourselves: a place where you can share your experiences and challenges, and bounce ideas off each other. You probably know it already: being a leader asks a lot of you as a person. It’s a path with constant ups and downs, and an inner one too: a transformation. It takes enormous courage and willingness to look at yourself, your strengths, your limitations and your habits, and to be willing to change them and grow. Sometimes that takes extra support.

Avoid slipping back into old habits

It’s so easy to slip back into old habits. That’s why it can be a good idea to invest in a leadership coach. A coach’s job is to support you, so you can take on your leadership role more easily. Someone who listens, challenges and brings out the best in you. Every leader can benefit from a good coach, someone from outside they can share their experience with. So consider whether it’s worth the investment for you and your organisation.

See more about our coaching programmes here: Hybrid leadership coaching

We provide coaching for the hybrid leaders of the future

With several years of experience in leadership and hybrid workplaces, we can help you. If you need advice or recommendations on hybrid leadership or coaching, contact us for more information.